Lyle

I enjoyed this movie, but I found it drew inspiration from the Original Rosemary's baby, starring Mia Farrow. Not as good, but still interesting to watch. It does meander at times, but there is some excellent acting, and the final scene is gut wrenching. I'd recommend it.

Leah (Gaby Hoffmann), June (Ingrid Jungermann), and their toddler Lyle move into a Brooklyn brownstone apartment. Leah is pregnant. The landlady lives downstairs and models live upstairs. Leah investigates the building on the internet and finds a series of mysterious deaths.

Of course, this is aiming for Rosemary's Baby. The best aspect is Gaby Hoffmann. She is fully capable in this role. On the other hand, this is very much an indie. It doesn't even have enough material for more than sixty minutes. Filmmaker Stewart Thorndike may have plans for a more expansive horror, but this feels incomplete or unfinished.

This movie masquerades under the guise of woman-driven horror movie, but the reality, as they say, cannot be farther from the truth. This clumsily shot film centers around a main character, a pregnant lesbian woman, who loses her toddler when said toddler falls out a window. She then spirals downward into deepening insanity as she is determined to protect her unborn child from everything and everyone, and everyone, she thinks, is out to get her.

It sounds like a fair premise, but the way it is told is very poorly done. The story is dull, hold no rhythm, and makes no sense. There is no rhyme or reason to her thought process or actions; even insanity must give some kind of twisted reason, but in this movie there is none of that. It tries to go into a five minute introduction to perhaps some kind of supernatural deal with the devil, but without explanation or further study it becomes pointless and confuses the viewer.

As a horror movie, Lyle fails in a spectacular fashion. There are no scares, at all. There are no jump scares, no psychological thrill, and, perhaps worse of all, not even a single tense moment. The boring camera views and bleak colors do nothing to help this movie either.

I am sad I wasted my time viewing this during free time better spent on virtually anything else. I would not give a single dollar to their next movie if this is the best they have to show for their lazy, half-baked efforts.

Solidly made, engrossing, pleasantly short modern horror fable, updating Rosemary's Baby to our seemingly more enlightened times to show that evil doesn't change. The most chilling scenes take place online, which says a lot about the current state of humanity. Main actress is memorable, but the villains lack charisma.

When a movie is offered free (and legally) online to stream, and is only an hour in length, it is usually worth a stab. I had previously seen the trailer, which was well put together and struck enough curiosity within me to jot down the date upon which it would become accessible online.

So, what is it about? In short, this movie is about grief, and the effects that traumatic events can have on the mind. It begins with our main character Leah (Gaby Hoffman) and her girlfriend June (Ingrid Jungermann) being shown around an impressive New York apartment, with which they are clearly pleased. They have with them a toddler, and the witting building manager Karen (Rebecca Street) guesses that Leah is pregnant with another, a feat that Karen herself is openly trying to achieve.

Leah and June seem happy with their new life in New York. June is busy at work and on the road to success, whilst Leah is at home with the toddler unpacking their lives into their new home. There is, however, an event that turns their lives around. Although it is openly available on the short Synopsis, I will refrain from mentioning the details. This event is portrayed in a very clever way, again which i refuse to disclose (although I will say that it is a very original idea, utilising modern communication methods).

With this traumatic event, we see Leah's mind begin to unravel. She becomes suspicious of those around her, notably the building manager, and her paranoia gradually escalates into a final scene that is very well composed.

However, despite the film's unusually short length, there are periods in which one wonders in which direction the film is going. This is countered, it should be noted, by a good score which retains the film's eeriness throughout these moments in which the film seems to be petering along without purpose. Another essential distraction from this flaw in the narrative is the acting of Hoffman, who at times seems very accomplished indeed. There are moments when she perhaps gets carried away with the high-emotion scenes, but nonetheless her performance is a mile apart from most of her supporting cast (notably poor are Michael Che and Kim Allen, who play a friend of the couple and a neighbour, respectively, and fail to really portray emotion at any time during the film. This is particularly so in Che's case, in the final scenes of the film).

All in all, Lyle is an optimistic venture into the grief of the human mind, ultimately let down by its lack of direction and poor supporting acting. An interesting point for debate is whether writer/director Stewart Thorndike could have added ten or twenty more pages of screenplay, to try and flesh out some of the ideas throughout the movie which do not enjoy the focus that they deserve. Nonetheless, it was an adventurous film, and it hits home just well enough to make the viewer keep an eye on whether his new film will reach its Kickstarter target.