Armynel

This low-budget American film by a first-time director has the feel and pace of a European thriller or horror story; a slow burn to a depressing end. Aside from a couple of the actors, most of the cast had a fairly short history of work before this film, and the quality of the acting varies from fairly ordinary, to understated, with a few of the characters being a bit cardboard-cutout. The storyline was nothing out of the ordinary, being a pastiche of things we've seen before. Having said that, I've seen way worse movies than this. The editing and direction were quite good, considering the budget. The Egdar Allen Poe references were interesting but not over-emphasized. The scarier aspects were not overdone or played too much for cheap frights and the creepier scenes were reminiscent of The Ring.

The plague doctor's mask made me watch this. Oh my god this is terrible. From the quality of the writing, acting, and direction, you'd expect it to be a porn movie. It isn't, though we get a quick flash of the main character's breasts at one point, apparently a desperate decision to get someone to watch.

Our star isn't very attractive, and she can't act, so the character has zero personality, but for some reason every heterosexual male who sees her tries to hit on her.

Move along, folks; nothing to see here.

I love horror and thriller movies. I will watch almost anything that calls itself horror and I will stick with it until the end of the line. Sometimes I end up with two hours of my life gone that I'll never get back, and sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised.

Armynel starts out fairly slowly and does its best to build suspense. The ending is quite unexpected and almost out of left field--I got a little lost with all the twists and turns an actually ha to rewatch the ending to actually "get" it. But then, I watch a lot of Japanese horror and this sort of thing is nothing new to me.

The performances are less than stellar for the most part, but in a small independent film with inexperienced actors that's more or less to be expected. The same-sex relationship between the heroine an her partner is amazingly well-handled, neither in your face nor exploitative, and that's a refreshing change. I have seen complaints elsewhere about the portrayal of the gay male friend being too flamboyant or over the top, but I can state here that I have had a lot of gay friends who acted exactly like that. Not all, but it's hardly unheard of. I think it's simply that the main lesbian couple is so subtly portrayed that the outre of the gay friend is a bit jarring.

The cinematography is amazingly good for such a low-budget production. The dialog is far superior to the delivery by most of the actors. The story is choppy but holds together well. With a better budget, a bit of polish and some more experienced actors it would be a much better movie.

This film is more of an unpolished gem (VERY unpolished), but it's worth a watch especially on free streaming.

I started watching this for free, (thank god!) on YouTube. It was slow and very disjointed. Awful, uninteresting, boring. Originally, when I looked this up, it was at a 6.1. Someone from the movie must have paid the people for those reviews. AWFUL! Acting was poor, not much of anything I can say good about this movie. Uncomfortable, pauses in the acting. Maybe it got higher ratings because of lesbian love scenes. Pretty yawning IMO. Not really my thing either. Only $250,000 to make the movie, truly is poorly made. The only thing good I can come up with is some of the scenery in the beginning was very pretty. Hopefully, more honest reviews will come in.

There is no horror to be seen anywhere, and very little gore. The labeling of this movie, as a horror, is a little confusing, but as a thriller it isn't the worst. The plot, though maybe not the most original, is sufficient to keep my attention throughout. What is to be seen are some very nice shots, especially towards the beginning of the film. At no point did I feel like this movie was exceptionally poorly shot, the camera work wasn't dramatically shaky like it tends to be in lowish budget films, the blurring wasn't jarring as it sometimes can be, and both the day and nighttime lighting were handled well. The sound design was also well done, there were no points in the film where i thought to myself, "Man, I have no idea what they just said."

There are a few characters that are not particularly well acted and seem a little stiff vocally. The budget is reflective though, so you cannot expect perfection, and I think the acting works overall. I do wish that there was a little more emotion in the acting though.

The plot of the film is a slow burn but not suspenseful, so I can see why some think it's boring. If you are interested in the story and characters the movie is well paced, there are no gaps where the main character does nothing. There is a theme of feminism in this movie, however, which when done right is awesome, but in this case it didn't quite hit the target correctly. The ending is the highlight of the movie. The end of the film has a decent twist. It's worth the buildup considering the lead up is not bad by any means.

The Parts I Liked the Most:

The twist ending

Lighting

The Parts I Disliked The Most:

Lack of emotion

A little too pessimistic towards men