Allegoria

I feel like a lot of people are going to try to compare Spider One's directing/writing to Rob Zombie's directing/writing, but I don't think that's necessary. Allegoria is Spider One's first full length movie. Allegoria wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen, but it definitely wasn't great either. I managed to watch the entire thing, hoping that maybe it would get better. It didn't. The writing was pretty light on plot, horror, and excitement. I can imagine Spider One sitting at a table as he was writing this, thinking how every little tale was awesome and scary....but really, the stories didn't have much happening. At all. There were nice little ties between the stories with the characters, but that's about it. Really weak writing. Each story had a shred of horror to it, but barely. The ideas didn't feel fleshed out, the stories felt unfinished, and there was a severe lack of horror to the whole thing. The acting wasn't terrible, I didn't feel like anybody in particular did a bad job. The camera work was fine. The music felt a little trite, lots of intense piano key slams indicating you're supposed to feel terror or suspense. But I never felt terror or suspense. Overall, my biggest disappointment with the movie is that basically nothing happened throughout the whole movie. Just several short stories, one after the other, where some characters do some things and talk for 5-10 minutes, and then it's on to the next. Yawn.

Right, well I was lured into watching the 2022 horror movie "Allegoria" because of the interesting cover. Well, that and the fact that it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen.

Had I known that this was an artsy horror anthology, I would have avoided it like the plague. I am not overly much a fan of horror anthologies, as they more often than not tend to be questionable and dubious. And that was also the case with "Allegoria". Yeah, it wasn't a great viewing experience. The short stories, or segments, that make up "Allegoria" were not particularly entertaining. And I have to say that I found it to be a bit over-the-top, as writer and director Spider One (and that name by itself is a warning signal, isn't it?) just tried to be too avantgarde with these short stories.

Something that spoke in favor of "Allegoria", was the fact that I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble. That is something I do enjoy when I sit down to watch a movie. The acting performances in "Allegoria" were good enough, despite the fact that the movie as a whole failed to really entertain me.

The special effects in "Allegoria" were actually good, and that did count for something. But it was hardly enough to make up for the shortcomings of the story narratives.

This is definitely not something I would recommend to horror fans. Nor is it something that I will ever return to watch a second time.

My rating of "Allegoria" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.

Well idk. The movie's name is allegoria, but the only meaning I can currently think of behind this is the Spider One trying to show what art can mean in the way of a weird, one could say "crappy" (- me, I said that) film, almost ironically suggesting that, even though this is a poor watch, it is still art? To give credit here, it does end in 1 hour so isn't taxing to watch, but doesn't have a 'scare,' more of the same over-used sequences of the monster popping up behind people in different camera angles. However, the last of these 'tales' implements exceptional camera work and some brilliant acting from the character of Brody, other than that there is no stand out factor, for me, about this film.

Lots of talking about art and philosophy. Each character babbles about something art related and then something spooky happens. That's it...I think.

Some of the scenes at the beginning reminded me of a David Lynch film, but it never went anywhere and was far less engaging.

For a 70 minute film I found myself checking the clock often, patiently waiting for a monologues to stop so something strange would happen or a point could be made.

This is supposed to be (I think) about a bunch of pretentious artists. But what they are saying about art is at the level of what a high school student might tell you. So they are obnoxious and annoying rather than pretentious. I was just happy to see each and every person in this movie die.

Also I agree with the reviewer speaking about the sound quality. Had to turn the volume up almost as loud as my system would go to hear any of the whisper quiet dialogue and then turn it almost all the way down again at ANY sound effect (yes, that includes simple things like closing a door).