This has an interesting concept, but right from the start they are already shooting day for night, and that is simply not going to look good, ever. Just film it at night. Splicing in shots of the moon isn't going to make it more convincing, it's just hard on the eyes and pointless. These sequences could have just been written to take place during the day if it wasn't feasible to shoot at night. Combine this with amazon's ever-intrusive grey x ray overlay that always takes just a little too long to fade away, and i'm basically staring at a solid grey screen with sound effects added. I'm watching this at night, too, so i can't imagine how difficult it would be to see in the daytime.
I think this improves as the setting changes to a more developed region, since it's easy to find street lamps or indoor locations, but the same can't be explained away easily in a night time shot of an undeveloped area without artificial lighting. Still, the film appears to have a reasonably sized budget, so they should just get some filters and standing lights to resemble the moon. Past that, even the most rudimentary productions should be able to find somewhere or some time of day to shoot that has better ambient light.
The subtitles are off time to the point where it's impossible to tell who is saying what, especially due to the rather static and bland delivery of most lines. Often i find this is an issue when the production went off script but was still kept, which happens pretty frequently, the issue being that the script itself is not rewritten for the subtitles, so it's often just wrong or out of order. It should not be difficult to get your subtitles right, but it seems most companies view their accuracy as very low priority and instead outsource the whole thing to some evil gig work company or make a bot do a terrible job at it. As this goes on, there are entire scenes that simply don't have subtitles despite being spoken in the same french as the rest of the film.
Given that it's basically pointless to try to listen to most of the characters while they speak unless there's a monologue, since their individual personalities are impossible to discern when they are in a group, i really just want this film to get on with it and show me the horror stuff if it's going to go there.
The rap sequences are pointless, probably meant to appeal to young adults. A group of teenage girls singing pop music about pop music topics in an abandoned building is not witchcraft or occult or anything of the sort. The song they chose wasn't particularly bad, but they absolutely did not need to sing the entire thing. It just feels like hamfisted filler to establish some kind of connection between the girls, since their characters are not really very fleshed out. "do you have a favorite rihanna song?" since when does a billionaire pop star who was not born poor have anything to do with the experiences of a haitian immigrant in a predominately white setting? I understand if that music is relatable to people who haven't been exposed to more relevant material, but it's far from poignant for the protagonist to be into rihanna in a way that the film reinforces.
Imo there is a good film in here, but it's slow and wasted with filler. Someone else should adapt the script into a more concise and finished project.
I think this improves as the setting changes to a more developed region, since it's easy to find street lamps or indoor locations, but the same can't be explained away easily in a night time shot of an undeveloped area without artificial lighting. Still, the film appears to have a reasonably sized budget, so they should just get some filters and standing lights to resemble the moon. Past that, even the most rudimentary productions should be able to find somewhere or some time of day to shoot that has better ambient light.
The subtitles are off time to the point where it's impossible to tell who is saying what, especially due to the rather static and bland delivery of most lines. Often i find this is an issue when the production went off script but was still kept, which happens pretty frequently, the issue being that the script itself is not rewritten for the subtitles, so it's often just wrong or out of order. It should not be difficult to get your subtitles right, but it seems most companies view their accuracy as very low priority and instead outsource the whole thing to some evil gig work company or make a bot do a terrible job at it. As this goes on, there are entire scenes that simply don't have subtitles despite being spoken in the same french as the rest of the film.
Given that it's basically pointless to try to listen to most of the characters while they speak unless there's a monologue, since their individual personalities are impossible to discern when they are in a group, i really just want this film to get on with it and show me the horror stuff if it's going to go there.
The rap sequences are pointless, probably meant to appeal to young adults. A group of teenage girls singing pop music about pop music topics in an abandoned building is not witchcraft or occult or anything of the sort. The song they chose wasn't particularly bad, but they absolutely did not need to sing the entire thing. It just feels like hamfisted filler to establish some kind of connection between the girls, since their characters are not really very fleshed out. "do you have a favorite rihanna song?" since when does a billionaire pop star who was not born poor have anything to do with the experiences of a haitian immigrant in a predominately white setting? I understand if that music is relatable to people who haven't been exposed to more relevant material, but it's far from poignant for the protagonist to be into rihanna in a way that the film reinforces.
Imo there is a good film in here, but it's slow and wasted with filler. Someone else should adapt the script into a more concise and finished project.