Sometimes a movie comes along that bucks the conventions of cinema in a good way. This is not one of them.
Things start off on a promising foot. Early on there are two outstanding jump scares, perfectly timed junctures of sound and image that should be studied by aspiring horror directors. The downhill slide soon follows.
Narrative means story, and the director of a narrative film's primary job is to tell one. Beyond that simple dictum lies plenty of room for creativity. And the director's toolbox is loaded with cinematic tools.
CInematography is the primary tool used to convey the details of the story. Whether the director made his own cinematic choices or gave the cinematographer free reign, the unorthodox camera angles and lighting are at times interesting from a photographic standpoint, but much more adept at drawing attention to themself than serving the story being told.
Underlit establishing shots, critical action taking place off camera, artily framed shots that only distract, do nothing to enhance the story and often create confusion. Rather than impress with their uniqueness they add to the tedium of a lightweight storyline stretched thin. Where close angles are needed we get wide shots. Or extreme partial close-ups that again are simply distracting in their self-consciousness.
There is virtually no character development of the protagonists and even less of the antagonists. Not much to care about. There are some effectively horrific bloody bits for the gore-lovers, mostly at the beginning and the end, between which is a long stretch where nothing much happens and when it does it often happens off camera.
If you're a photography buff and an involving story or crisp direction aren't important to you, you might like it.
Things start off on a promising foot. Early on there are two outstanding jump scares, perfectly timed junctures of sound and image that should be studied by aspiring horror directors. The downhill slide soon follows.
Narrative means story, and the director of a narrative film's primary job is to tell one. Beyond that simple dictum lies plenty of room for creativity. And the director's toolbox is loaded with cinematic tools.
CInematography is the primary tool used to convey the details of the story. Whether the director made his own cinematic choices or gave the cinematographer free reign, the unorthodox camera angles and lighting are at times interesting from a photographic standpoint, but much more adept at drawing attention to themself than serving the story being told.
Underlit establishing shots, critical action taking place off camera, artily framed shots that only distract, do nothing to enhance the story and often create confusion. Rather than impress with their uniqueness they add to the tedium of a lightweight storyline stretched thin. Where close angles are needed we get wide shots. Or extreme partial close-ups that again are simply distracting in their self-consciousness.
There is virtually no character development of the protagonists and even less of the antagonists. Not much to care about. There are some effectively horrific bloody bits for the gore-lovers, mostly at the beginning and the end, between which is a long stretch where nothing much happens and when it does it often happens off camera.
If you're a photography buff and an involving story or crisp direction aren't important to you, you might like it.