ignastio

A pleasant surprise on a rainy Thursday afternoon. I put this film on without much expectation, given the film's budget and low user rating (at the time of writing a 3.0) on imdb. Sure enough, the low budget is reflected in some of the elements of the film: the VFX, the acting, and particularly the sound. For the first 10-15 mins the sound recording and editing are very low quality, but after this it really improves. Either they brought on a new sound engineer, or the one from the start made massive improvements to their craft along the way (I really hope it's the latter). Visually, at times, this film is superb.

There are other reviewers taking a pop at the script, but I was really impressed at the risk taken to produce a challenging narrative structure, and feel it really pulled the film along and held my attention. Yes, some of the dialogue is clunky, which didn't help the actors much, but the story was satisfying and I thought the twisting narrative was clever and worked well.

It's a shame that the majority of viewers will give low ratings to films with limited resources by comparing them to big budget studio films. Given this filmmaker's resources, I think it's a great achievment.

The acting is atrocious. The script is plastic. The dialogue will make you cringe.

Every single scene made me want to punch myself in the face.

The final twist, which you'll see coming from miles away, does explain the implausible actions of the characters, but doesn't make the acting any less painful to watch.

Everyone involved in making this film is a seasoned professional, but this is amateur hour. Absolutely dire.