One of Us

A little bit of nuance and a delicate hand can go a long way towards making a movie - or, with their absence, breaking it. The premise behind 'One of us' is very promising, and it certainly caught my eye. It takes little time at all for the film itself to begin to show its difficulties, and the factors that limit our engagement. It's extraordinarily fast-paced, and almost forcefully brusque and heavy-handed. Many of its constituent parts are well done in and of themselves, but don't fit the tenor of what the picture is trying to do (immaculate hair and makeup work, for example); other aspects (not least those small touches intended to pointedly intone a horror element) are cliched and overdone; little or nothing is Just Right (this is also weirdly overproduced). "Cliched and overdone" also absolutely applies to dialogue, which is often entirely too on the nose; characters mostly feel like sketches that weren't completed, though some (such as Sophie) are downright excessive and gauche as written. Scene writing and too many plot points oscillate between lacking and unconvincing, forced and inorganic, or even imitative and false. With all this in mind, onto what can the narrative meaningfully latch, form its roots, and grow? What could we truly hope for in terms of character development? I recognize acting skill in the cast, but what can their best efforts hope to achieve?

Though not all of them fit together or are necessary, there are lots of great ideas in this feature. Horror, thriller, drama - ostensibly with a psychological edge. That's what the premise suggests; that's what 'One of us' could have been and tries to be. In writing and in execution, however, the result is at best uneven; it seems sometimes like the movie doesn't actually known what it wanted to be. The picture is far too blunt and unsubtle to earnestly play in the space that it wants to, and so becomes weak, common, or even overbearing. I appreciate the effort everyone put into this; I don't think the finished product is altogether bad. It's simply not everything that it should have been, and would have been if more mindful care were taken at large. I'd love to say that I like this more than I do, yet there's an emptiness where the best impact should be. There are far worse titles one could find themselves watching, yet unless you're a huge fan of someone involved, I also can't particularly imagine any specific reason to spend time with this one. Let's just say that 'One of us' is a disappointing "almost" and leave it at that.

I like to watch horror flicks after a long day and since I sleep in Saturdays and had someone gullible writing my reports for me, I stayed up late checking out ONE OF US. Pretty good stuff. Plenty of terror without needing blood and gore. I liked it so much I nearly forgot I spilled beer on my new jacket earlier that day while driving. Two things I hate, bad movies and manure, and this movie ain't either of em.

This movie is bad on many levels

The only positive reviews are people who reviewed only this movie with recently made accounts 😂😂 so obvious.

Bad acting and bad script

A so-called leader with the charisma of a washcloth.

Women named Venus and Luna

Female cast chosen for looking like pr0n actresses

Perhaps next time focus on choosing actors with talent rather than T+A or just make pr0n

The cult leader 🙄 people wouldn't accept a flyer for a pizza restaurant from him let alone change their name and give up their life

Avoid

Worried, an investigative journalist pokes around into the disappearance of her best friend, and gets drawn into a small town religious cult. We enter their world through her eyes, at a seemingly benign coffee shop staffed with helpful, if peculiar, young women.

After following the women back to their compound and getting caught trespassing she's greeted warmly by their charismatic leader and only male in the group. It quickly becomes apparent that things are less idyllic than they appear.

The world is revealed in an authentic way at a pace that keeps the audience in its seat; story is weaved in a way that is both effective and creepy.

Give it a watch.

Now when i say "cult movie", i mean a literal cult movie, that is, a movie about cults. i found the depiction of the cult leader and his subjects to be very realistic and educational. i've had some experience deprogramming some of these type of people and let me tell you this movie gets the facts right. The leader does not come across as some raving lunatic, but rather as a friendly father figure or surrogate. Very well made movie with some great performances, particularly from the cult leader and the young women playing the cult members that have been indoctrinated.