Voldemort: Origins of the Heir (2018 Video) User Reviews

Very poor storyline

[Nefjuu · 4/10 · 14 January 2018]

The storyline of this movie was very poor. It is a series of flashbacks for most of the movie, and at the very end there is a "turn of events" right before the movie ends.

I only enjoyed the costumes, some of the camerawork (except those mouth shots when a character is speaking...) and some of the characters. Apart from that, a poor effort. I understand it's a fan movie, but writing a good storyline doesn't cost anything.

Really disappointing

[judinazena · 4/10 · 16 January 2018]

Ok, we all know it's a fan-made movie with low budget. We all understand that. But, there is really no excuse for bad acting and bad story. If we try to put acting part aside, we are left with story that just doesn't make sense. Some of us could of done better screenplay in our sleep. Especially loyal HP fans. I don't understand what Soviet Aurors have to do with Tom Riddle or his belongings. If fans that made this movie wanted to tell the story of Voldemorts origin - than they at least should of stick to he original story. The only good thing here is Tom Riddles looks (as he was described as very handsome young man in the books). But no matter how good the actor looks - he still didn't deliver the "Voldemort" effect, even when he became him. Advice - try to watch this movie (or short film, you choose how to call it) as something completely unrelated to HP world. It will help.

Not enough money is not an excuse

[hptmbedra · 4/10 · 14 January 2018]

Let me tell you, that I appreciate the enthusiasm of the fans who made this movie and I think it is especially good for them. They took the matters into their own hands and created something and I value such a thing and it is valued by our society as a whole, I am sure.

But I refuse to give 10/10 just because they are not profis and they didn't have the budget. Instead, I take the film for what it is with that in mind, that a feedback must be sincere in order to serve as basis for a future improvement.

That being said, watching this film was an akward experience for me, although I really approached it with an open mind. Basically I have 3 problems with Voldemort OotH:

1) Acting. I know, not enough money, but we have already seen unknown actors giving superb performances. Here, nobody can act, literally. They were just saying replicas, they didn't live their characters. No one from the cast is likeable or connectable to.

2) The script. I was feeling sorry for the actors here. I mean come on! Just picture it. The first dialog takes place in a casual chat between Tom and his friend, and he just out of the blue says angrily that he will become the greatest wizard ever and his friend answers to it by saying something like: "Tom, I am just a second year student and I hardly know myself, but one thing I know, you will become the greatest wizard ever." It is just silly and unfortunately, the whole script is written in such an unnatural, forced fashion.

3) The film didn't add anything relevant or interesting on top of what was presented in the books.

It is about missed expectations to say the truth, I expected kind of something like Man from Earth, not much cost spent on visuals or actors, but a good idea evolving in interesting story telling us something not yet discovered in the books. What was Voldemort doing the whole time away? How was his quest for a dark magic? How come his body transformed to the snaky look during the years? And so on and so on. I also anticipated some character development, story carried by a good dialogue, but it just didn't happen.

I actually don't know, what the authors wanted to say with this movie. Too bad, because one doesn't need big money for a better script and a good plot.

Low Budget is no excuse here

[lukanispeltzer · 3/10 · 15 January 2018]

I was genuinely excited when this fanfilm was announced and the trailer came out. I did not expect it to be particularly great, but I am always interested in Harry Potter Fan Culture.

This movie was a disappointment sadly. However, not for the reasons I thought it would be. When it comes to fanfilms on YouTube, I am used to ... no great camera work, no good lighting, no good special effects. This Fanfilm manages to do these things surprisingly well though. The camera work, the editing and the effects are not amazing but very solid, probably a result of the 15.000 Dollar Budget.

So, when people defend this fanfilm with the argument that it is Low Budget, they are really missing what went wrong here, because the flaws (for the most part) are not a result of the budget:

The writing is terrible.

The dialogue is often horrendous (it does not particularly get better with the very distracting dubbing in every scene) and the story itself is incredibly pointless. This does not add anything new, interesting or even a little bit creative to the Harry-Potter universe. The portrayal of Tom Riddle is not very well written here, it is sometimes even a very unnecessary contrast to his character in the books. The plot is not interesting. Should it even be called plot? In fact most of the runtime is just a very boring story (that we already know), told by bad dialogue, spoken by bad actors. Its not even an hour long but feels really bloated. There is a middle section, where they show a scene out of the books, which I really enjoyed, probably because it was left out in the official movies. You can tell, in this scene, that the writing comes from Rowling, because the characters and dialogue are suddenly very exciting and focused.

The rest is, to be really honest here, just not very good. The setting is... lame. The action does not feel like Harry-Potter to me. (its just coloured lightning bolts, no real curses) The plot is pointless, the twist in the end is laughably awful.

I know this is a fanfilm, I know its made as a free video for YouTube. And I appreciate the work that was put into this project. But that does not mean, that I cant criticise it. Like I said, most of the flaws are not a result of the budget. Its the writing, the acting and the storytelling.

I wish that people, who spend so much time and money in a fanfilm, would put more work, effort and love into the script.

If you have a good story, nobody cares if its low budget.

Concept good delivery C-

[shahara-38079 · 6/10 · 22 January 2018]

I watch all kinds of movies to the end before I make my opinion, The concept of this story is actually good it's how it's delivered. I will not spoil the ending, if you have not seen this, but if the story was less narative and actually reversed from capture to the opening of the story then acted be those individual roles, it would have been a good movie. Due to time limitations Apparently, the story was rushed. The effort is there and it could have been a great movie. J. K Rowling in collaboration could do a lot with this.

An awkward experience.

[matias-89726 · 4/10 · 14 January 2018]

The movie looks like was made by someone who recently learned how to create the "Harry Potter magic wand effect" in After Effect and they made a 50 minutes' film around that premise.

First to all, It's not an origin story. The movie only center on some random facts about Tom Riddle. Most of the film we see some generic Howard students debating about Tom and Soviet Wizards (yes, soviet soldiers in a Harry Potter movie) questioning the main character.

With all that said, the plot is not the worst part. The film is full of awkward close up shot of the character's mouth or eyes while they are reacting to stuff.

I know that it was made by amateurs but I've better film with lower budget, the problem is not the money, it's the lack of vision and knowledge of the Harry Potter universe. It barely feels remotely related to Harry Potter, besides the name of the character (remember the soviet soldiers) .

Good, minimalistic film.

[tomasbat · 7/10 · 14 January 2018]

First of all, let me make it absolutely clear that Voldemort: Origins of the Heir is by all means a short film. With that in mind, it really shows how much dedicated fans can accomplish with a 15,000 euro budget and a runtime of less than an hour - with no motivation other than their love for the series.

The result is a minimalistic, dialogue-heavy film full of references to characters and events from the official Harry Potter movies/books. The inconsistencies are either too small or too few to matter, though hardcore fans might notice. It is essentially a small backstory made into a film. As such, it will probably appeal to longtime fans, but at the same time leave them wanting more, due to the film's short length.

The production values are surprisingly good for being a fan film. The special effects are nice and full of eye candy, certain sequences are really well edited, and the portrayal of Tom Riddle stands out.

It is a polished film with some memorable lines here and there. They really could have messed up on this one - and they didn't. If you are a fan of the Harry Potter series, go give it a watch. It's free (due to the non-commercial nature of the film), it doesn't stray too much from the canon, and, after all, it only lasts an hour.

I couldn't even watch the whole "movie"

[breathedirt · 1/10 · 15 January 2018]

This was a waste of my time. I was so looking forward to this as the movie Harry Potter 6 left out very important details and the experience was terrible. The "movie" starts with a girl with a weird accent fighting against Soviet wizards in balaclavas (it's like Half Life 2 with wands) who is then captured and interrogated by a Soviet general. During the "interrogation," we are "awarded" with several scenes related to a character named Tom Riddle that have very little to do with the actual Harry Potter story. Ridiculous dialogs, abysmal and unrealistic screenplay, very poor acting. To me, this whole "movie" seems like an attempt to parasite on the well-known brand. Anyone who gave more than 4 stars to it here is either one of the movie creators desperately trying to influence the overall rating or someone paid to do so. It's as if I decided to draw attention to a 52-min long garbage I was going to make by naming it Dumbledore: Rise of the Powerful Wizard, then placed the movie in the outer space (you would see aliens with wands) and once in a while, I would show you scenes with two men named Grindelwald and Dumbledore looking for the Elder wand. They labeled the movie "a fan-made movie." Fans of what exactly are they? Fans of black metal? Well, the character called Wiglaf bears some resemblance to the said genre, I must say. At any rate, do not even bother to watch this. I know that if you are really a fan of HP and you see a "movie" that has "Voldemort" in its name, it's hard not to hit the "Play" button but I think you'd be better off watching any of the shallow TV shows that are currently on TV. I wonder, what was the original motive behind making this? To label a worthless flick "Voldemort," attract people to movie theaters and get rich (because not everyone reads reviews and then, there are also parents with kids...)?

I mean, why not

[nancyquilpfilmreview · 6/10 · 14 July 2019]

It's not great, but it's a fan film! It's a load of fans with a tiny budget making something that they clearly love. If you go in knowing that and expecting that, you'll enjoy it.

Terrible film, bad actors.

[arterius2 · 1/10 · 14 January 2018]

Acting was really cringy to watch, these amateur actors tried too hard to display emotions but all they did was give us this "smelly wet socks" look on their face all the time. Good acting doesn't mean you have to look like a sour-grape all the time, lessons learned kids.

Really Good

[mineblox-19190 · 8/10 · 17 November 2018]

This movie was really good, however, the movie was mostly flashbacks and some lip sync was off (I can let the sync slide because this is an Italian movie so it was dubbed over)

not too bad

[cecilesynitch · 6/10 · 15 June 2019]

This short film can't be as good as a multimilion production, of course. but the special effects were ok. some questioning 1st person video-game type gamera work. Dialogues are overal poor and dubing's making everything terrible. some moments are terribly badly played, but the montage and interogation-room format is a clever idea to tell the story, with interesting final scenes that allow the viewer to rethink the previous scenes. The actor that played Tom was actually quite remarquable.

It was like they had never read the books

[jennamcdonnell · 1/10 · 16 January 2018]

Forget the poor acting and dialogue, I get that it was a budget film. What I don't get is that they say it was made by 'Fans' but I felt as though they had never even read the books.

I understand that fan fiction branches out from the original works however I felt they made major changes that in essence would make the works of JK Rowling not make sense. Such as the flash back where Merope (I assume) is cradling a baby Tom Riddle whilst playing with the necklace......? Or the fact that in the original books, there was such heavy emphasis on the fact that Tom Riddle didn't have any friends, only followers, yet hes chilling out in the room of requirement with some kids?

The whole plot revolved around the heirs searching for the heirlooms, well any worthy gryffindor would know that the sword would present itself to them if them were in need!

This is just a few of the major plot holes, I feel as though they completely wasted their time and there is no excuse for a bad plot. Voldemort was born bad, peeps need to get over it!

Whats with the dubbing?

[kellyc-98851 · 2/10 · 15 January 2018]

It took me a while to figure out that not only is this movie dubbed, the original "actors" are actually speaking English? How bad does the acting have to be to decide to dub over it?

Not exactly what I was expecting but well done none the less

[scottie-80604 · 7/10 · 30 January 2018]

Everyone here needs to get over themselves, Lets see you do a better job... well... go on... thats what i thought, hide behind your keyboards cowards instead of putting you money where your mouth is. End rant

that all said, and from the blindness and dim wittedness of the majority of tasteless critics on this site aside, I must point out that it would have been nice to have some foreground into our main character and how she managed to trace the diary to soviet Russia. Other than that I was intelligent enough to piece together the plot, and to follow it. It doesn't take a monkey to follow and frankly if you cant keep up, find another movie to watch.

The effects were fantastic for a film budget of 15k and though the acting lacked some of the finesse of the original harry potter films no one wants to replace the original cast and no one is trying to. as far as i am concerned these actors are doing the best they can considering they havent been acting in this movie for 7 films,

i would point out as well that should there be further voldemort movies, many of these, very minor technical and script/plot errors would probably disappear over time and as the actors grew into their characters they would do a marvelous job representing their respective characters.

bravo to both cast and crew and hopefully WB will allow licencing for sequels.

my dime.

Nice try, but that's all this was

[spyroskalis · 5/10 · 16 January 2018]

Even though I thought this film would be way better and more fun I was -sadly- wrong. It wasnt fun at all. Although it started great with some really nice and to be honest beautiful actions scenes for a film with a budget that was out to prove that passion means more than money they failed to prove that. The story doesn't offer anything to the whole harry potter universe. The writers tried to make the whole movie something you wouldnt expect so you would stay focused but that didnt work there wasnt anything really unexpected not even the ending was really unexpected the fact that the heir's die is not a secret in this movie they though that it was and we the viewers did not know that. Another thing this movie failed to do successfully was the acting that was just plain bad. The actors really seems like they tried to do something there but they did not succeed they are not believable most dont feel their character and because of the way they act it might make you just to stop the film and close it because of the awkwardness. If it wasnt for the anticipation upon this film the good camera and an average editing ( Well some hours on after effects but lets not get into that) I wouldnt watch this film and if anyone would wanna watch they should but if they are not sure then they sure shouldn't. Personally I am really disappointed from it and especially from the people that made it and the public statements they made

"Okay, cameraman, now zoom into that actor's mouth when he's talking for dramatic effect! This will work through 40% of the movie!"

[RockoDaFoxxo · 21 January 2018]

I really wanted to like this, or at least find it interesting. I've been a Potterhead ever since I was a child and I always hope for the best whenever any new films, spinoffs, plays, etc. comes out. What was Voldemort's origin story? That's actually a pretty good idea for a side-story, so I hoped the filmmakers' will add some interesting twists to this question even if their work is amateurish.

But nah. It practically told everything we already knew about.

Even if you take the Harry Potter brand outside of this film, it's still pretty bad. A low budget and unknown actors shouldn't be your main source for criticism, sure, but poor execution is always hard to get past by. The story is convoluted and uninteresting, the acting (and dubbing) is poor, the dialogue is overripe, the characters (outside of a few exceptions) are two-dimensional. It's an amateurish production that's also a boring one.

The cinematography, special effects, and lighting are actually competent and are almost worth being in your average Hollywood blockbuster. Some of the ideas are good. I liked the costumes and the very beginning. There was a lot of passion and hard-work behind the camera, and I will give credit there in an age of cynical, lazy cash-grabs.

It really saddens me to leave such a harsh review on a Harry Potter-based story, and maybe I'm too narrow-minded of a viewer to not notice more positives. But Voldemort: Origins of the Heir just didn't do it to me as a fan and as a viewer. It isn't insanely stupid like that Cursed Child play book, but it's nothing more than a shrug. :( I'll review something good later. I'm tired of talking trash about everything 'cause I feel like a pessimist.

It depends

[Nilloh · 6/10 · 15 January 2018]

I think anyone trying to rate this fan movie has to face a big question: should I consider the budget? If the answer is yes, these guys only had a really small amount of money (around 15000 euro) so this is a good if not a great result, otherwise this is not a good movie and it can't be compared with a professional movie. Another important problem is the plot, it's not that bad but it's quite trivial and the behavior of the characters -one in particular- is not realistic, he/she had many better ways to achieve the same result faster, it was probably written in that way just to impress the viewer. There are also a few things that don't go well with the canon material but they genuinely tried to stay as canon as possible, The Cursed Child was worse on that aspect. I suggest HP fans to watch it, there are also nice dialogues and scenes and overall it's a good and enjoyable effort.

Not watch it. Just don't...

[radianakrasimirovakoleva · 5/10 · 20 January 2018]

Good idea, congrats! Actors - not that good, but it is a low - budget movie, so not such a big deal. Good ending. Everything else - S U C K S! The storyline is not even good for a child's cartoon. They had the idea of creating a background movie for Tom Riddle, but they didn't have the story. Maybe they should have to wait for couple of months until they reveal the whole story. And did they even read the books? Congratulations on the idea, but the movie is not something any Harry Potter fan should watch. Just don't.... Why 5 stars? Because of the ending and because of the good idea they had.

A movie from ppl that didn't even read the books

[stefanbo89 · 1/10 · 23 January 2018]

These so called 'fans' obviously did not read any of the books. Nothing of Tom's character corralates with any of the info from the books nor is his he represented nicely. Same about the diary, it was never burried anywhere near in Russia.. idk what kind of fan fiction this is supposed to be, but defs not a movie made by fans. Don't watch this!

Really good

[vlwsugar · 8/10 · 16 March 2018]

Good concept and great plot only problems would be voices not matching up and we don't know anything about what happened to the gryffindor's heir

Not what I expected

[jakacbatko · 4/10 · 1 May 2018]

I saw movie and wanted to watch it. Then I saw it's fan made and I decided I won't watch it. Later I saw trailer and said let's give it a try. Now I'm disappointed. The movie is ok regarding the quality of the image. But there is this really bad synchronization of audio and image so the actors look like they are synchronized form some other language. There's lack of matching tone of voice with the face expression and sooo many tiny mistakes in the movie. The whole story makes no sense to me. Most of the movie is one boring scene with talking. I have seen movies that use one scene trough the whole movie that are more interesting to watch. It's really nice try of a fan movie, but the quality of the story is closer to the Police Academy than to Harry Potter. And even Harry Potter is no brainer. So I would't recommend it. But still, good job on effects. They are decent.

beyond horrible

[mirayyuce · 1/10 · 23 January 2018]

I can't find anything good to say about this... I would have stopped watching it at the beginning, but I did because I am fan.

Storyline was awful, there was nothing newly created in the story, the shots were really bad, visual effects were mostly bad, acting was beyond horrible.

I wish it was at least a good story so that I would support this movie....

...

[junk_food-72816 · 1/10 · 30 January 2018]

Empty like this message. Don't even take your time to watch this movie

Good idea, but poorly executed!!!

[Mani_Mehraei · 3/10 · 15 January 2018]

It is such a good idea to make movies based on Harry Potter's world. It has many fans and they can't get enough of it. It is true that the logical parts of J. K. Rowling's stories related to Harry Potter are full of mistakes, but it has an interesting and magical story. The movie "Voldemort: Origins of the Heir" not only have too many mistakes, it is barely interesting to follow even for 50 minutes. It is true that it had low budget, but still it deserved much better story. The positive point in this movie was the act of Stefano Rossi. He played his role pretty convincing that he is really the young version of Voldemort. The movie was disappointing, but I hope they keep making movie related to Harry Potter with new script writers.