I'm astounded that this 'movie' is available for purchase on DVD and marketed as being like the Exorcist
Huh? The Exorcist did not look like a cheap student movie, it had exotic locations, amazing score and sound, fine acting etc etc. Dorothy does not, it is low budget 100%
Low budget is fine, great even. If it's countered with creativity then amazing things are still possible - just look at some of Jon Carpenters early movies, or Tarkovsky who made artistically acclaimed films shot in a field. It looks like the outdoor scenes in Dorothy, those that are real, are shot in a beautiful part of Ireland possibly, but the location is sadly underused. Why not use it? Why not use real locations? A real house?
Instead we get lots of studio shots with lighting that is absolutely dire throughout - badly placed, shaky. Wow. Most of the sets are cheap and ugly, the costumes are crap, the acting is sub-par across the board save for the psychologist who tries hard but looks like she know's she made a mistake getting involved in this. Maybe it's why she's chain smoking cigarettes? The scenes in the car look so bad they would've been better off making them look intentionally so. Even better go out in a real car and shoot from a different angle?
At any moment I expected an Anglia commercial break to come on because this is television production values, and not modern ones either. Dorothy is in the league of an 80's episode of Doctor Who or Rentaghost at best, only without the charm, and actually it looks like a student short film stretched out to one hour and a half
Let's not bother mentioning the music and sound because even if these were the best on earth they still could not have saved this. Actually lets mention the sound because I simply can't let that pass - hollow footsteps and dialogue/adr, the complete absence of exterior ambiance most of the time even when the entire cast is next to a river!! Totally inconsistent and patchy 'dark' ambiance elsewhere. Come on, that's inexcusable outside of a student production
A complete absence of movie scale design. Just avoid this at all costs please
Huh? The Exorcist did not look like a cheap student movie, it had exotic locations, amazing score and sound, fine acting etc etc. Dorothy does not, it is low budget 100%
Low budget is fine, great even. If it's countered with creativity then amazing things are still possible - just look at some of Jon Carpenters early movies, or Tarkovsky who made artistically acclaimed films shot in a field. It looks like the outdoor scenes in Dorothy, those that are real, are shot in a beautiful part of Ireland possibly, but the location is sadly underused. Why not use it? Why not use real locations? A real house?
Instead we get lots of studio shots with lighting that is absolutely dire throughout - badly placed, shaky. Wow. Most of the sets are cheap and ugly, the costumes are crap, the acting is sub-par across the board save for the psychologist who tries hard but looks like she know's she made a mistake getting involved in this. Maybe it's why she's chain smoking cigarettes? The scenes in the car look so bad they would've been better off making them look intentionally so. Even better go out in a real car and shoot from a different angle?
At any moment I expected an Anglia commercial break to come on because this is television production values, and not modern ones either. Dorothy is in the league of an 80's episode of Doctor Who or Rentaghost at best, only without the charm, and actually it looks like a student short film stretched out to one hour and a half
Let's not bother mentioning the music and sound because even if these were the best on earth they still could not have saved this. Actually lets mention the sound because I simply can't let that pass - hollow footsteps and dialogue/adr, the complete absence of exterior ambiance most of the time even when the entire cast is next to a river!! Totally inconsistent and patchy 'dark' ambiance elsewhere. Come on, that's inexcusable outside of a student production
A complete absence of movie scale design. Just avoid this at all costs please