A Major Disappointment

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I really attempt to keep an open mind with any sort of "horror" movie, but I simply couldn't open my mind up enough to accept this film...OK, I get that it's a low budget endeavor, and that isn't always bad, but where was the director going with this. The initial intro laid out a plausible groundwork, but then it seemed as though there wasn't any direction after that. I don't mind a film that leaves me pondering the intended ending, hey I actually found myself thinking about "Shutter Island" well after watching it, but here it just seemed as though the director had some sort of psychedelic flashback 3/4 of the way through the film and figured that special effects would suffice for the last 15 minutes. The plot was sorta there, the acting wasn't awful, but there was no connection with the characters, which is a death sentence for any film. If you're a horror aficionado, then give it a shot if you absolutely have 90+ minutes of your life that are worth wasting, otherwise keep looking. At least I watched it on Netflix and I didn't spend (waste) the money on a DVD.

Whatever it is that makes indie film makers think that disjointed nonsense, flashes of random things interrupting scenes, and question marks for endings make for good film was at full throttle in this painfully glacial waste of time. I clicked "spoiler alert" for this review because I am about to spoil the ending: IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. I get paid to analyze literature and film, and here is my analysis again: IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. All of the most important things about making a film, especially one with a low budget, were completely disregarded or, perhaps more accurately, intentionally bucked. A few of these are: characterization--the clichéd characters never amounted to anything emotional or engaging. The story--the only connection to anything else in the movie was a loosely running image of a cleaning product flashed onto the screen assaulting the serenity of the sleep that the first hour of the movie threw me into. Dialogue--everything word was forgettable...thank God (with the exception of the "Spray It on Nightmare". Catchy song). STEEEEERRIKE THREE. The only saving grace in this movie was that one of the characters got exactly what the audience was praying for: someone to gouge out his eyes so that he didn't have to watch the last 5-minute random image and sound blast. Weakly done. Don't try again please.

The first hour was an incredibly slow, boring movie with annoying characters. The last twenty minutes was an incredibly nonsensical movie with annoying characters. All of a sudden it became a mixture of a bad Eraserhead ripoff and one of those art student film clichés. Maybe I'm totally wrong and the movie just flew right over my head. But I seriously believe that there's nothing to "get." Plus the acting and cinematography were awful. The guy who shot this needed to adjust his iris. Every single shot of nature was totally washed out. They looked like they were using a Handycam from Walmart. It completely defeated the purpose of those shots.

I came beware of this low budget flick due my subscription to Fangoria and some horror webpages. So I tried to track down a copy, sadly it wasn't available here in Europa and even worser, they weren't able to send it out of the US by law. But of course after all those years I build up some reputation as a geek so I contacted Graham Reznick, the director. Thanks to him I got me a copy even signed by him. All of that isn't no reason to admire a movie, I still watch it without prejudice. Having watched it I can understand that this flick will have his pro's and contra's. It isn't your average slasher or torture porn. It's a movie that get's you but it take a while to get you. As seen in reviews they are talking about the slowness and not getting into the characters. Sorry, it is indeed slow but it has a reason. First of all, it never gives you the feeling that it is a low budget flick as stated. Being in the business myself, the editing is okay and the score works too. Indeed, you will have shots that are for some people boring or not understandable, for example, the shots on street with New York in the background is all filmed with an arty mind. But it isn't arty farty! And indeed, it takes almost an hour before things start happening but that hour before I never yawned. In fact, everything has a reason, when he doesn't wear his glasses everything is filmed out of focus. Some will be offended others will love it. There isn't almost no blood in it but still it is a kind of horror. And it surely has a lot of Lynch influences. Watch the last 15 minutes, you will know what I mean. Still I'm glad that I have it in my collection, a flick not for everybody but for the open minded geeks out there.