"Keep in mind that this movie was made by one person."
Well, first of all, no movie was made by one person, unless it's a guy shooting a cat chase a squirrel on a tree and then posting it on YouTube. Even the most micro-budget films involve a measure of team effort. Or did this guy play all the roles in the film himself? Now, that would be impressive. He relied on a cast of which he wasn't even a part of, so no, he didn't do this movie alone.
Secondly, who cares? It's like a 5 year-old child painting as well as an 11 year-old: impressive, sure, because it means he is above-average in terms of talent - but does that mean I'll wanna buy his paintings? No. I still have to judge him by my usual criteria and standards. Just because he fulfills some low criteria set by his parents and his teachers (i.e. Being better than his peers) doesn't mean he satisfies the really important criteria. Perhaps he will when he grows up and becomes great - if he becomes great - but until then he is unimportant to me.
This movie is dull, and there is no going around this simple fact. The premise is so-so, and its execution is so poor that even a good premise would have suffered. Mostly due to the low budget. Whether we like it or not, making a movie is NOT like writing a piece of music, NOT like writing a novel. One person can create a fantastic album or write a good book, by himself, but movies are an entirely different ball-game.
Especially fantasy films. A horror film feeds off atmosphere - first-and-foremost - and in order to get a thick enough mood you need technical know-how - and a decent amount of money. A substantial amount of it. You don't need 10 million to make a good film, but you do need more than a few thousand bucks. It's unfortunate, but that's how it is. I didn't make up these rules, I'm just the messenger.
The film fails because it looks and sounds too mundane, too cheap. The demon isn't very convincing and his voice is cliche, mediocre. Yet, movies live or die by their ability to make you believe in BS i.e. Fiction. Escapism requires money, not just imagination. How am I supposed to immerse myself in a story that is presented in such a modest way? You need proper funds to create a make-believe world, especially when it toys with other dimensions, Hell, or whatever. Glitz helps. Visuals help. You can't snap your fingers and expect this gesture/sound to be interpreted as an explosion. Then, when the viewer criticizes you that you merely snapped your fingers, don't blame him for "lacking imagination".
Novels and movies are two entirely different mediums. You want to rely on the audiences imagination? Write a story, or a novel. Because if you go a step further and try to make a movie out of it, you'd better be able to back up your story visually, otherwise the fantasy won't work. Even a cheap magician dresses up for his card-tricks, the tricks themselves not necessarily being enough to make him successful. (Not an ideal analogy, but then again does this movie deserve one...)
But this film's creator can't just hide behind his budgetary constraints. As one person put it, "good ideas cost nothing". The script has some nonsense in it, and the budget can't be blamed for it.
The roommate. What a silly character. You want this guy in a bad comedy (if you're inept enough to want to make one), not in a horror film. His first intrusion into the museum was a real bonehead move by the writer, quite stupid. But when this guy shows up there for the 2nd time, to ROB the place, no less, and actually knocks out his own roommate - that's when the film crosses the line from merely being low-budget to being low-budget AND stupid.
Essentially, the roommate is just a cheesy plot-device, not a real person. We see this in bad movies all the time: characters being misused as mindless puppets just to serve some nebulous purpose in the script, to fill a hole, or create a contrived situation, to help push the plot. A proper plot develops naturally, however, in a credible and logical manner, not by bending logic and/or forcing far-fetched situations. If you wanted the demon to hurt someone with the lead witnessing this event, surely there are better, cleverer ways of achieving this goal than getting his roommate to barge in like some idiot.
The basic idea of a museum guard finding a "live" painting and its demon is solid, but the notion that a demon kills a whole bunch of people by making them harakiri themselves "for their art" is hokey, doesn't ring true. How does he get them to go that far? Does he hypnotize them? Merely being promised greatness wouldn't get very many people to off themselves... because that kinda defeats the purpose, and I certainly never heard anything from the demon that sounded very persuasive.
Besides, as the museum owner wisely suggest to the lead, "you're romanticizing the art world too much". After all, to make it in that shambolic world you don't need to be talented, you need to either have a GIMMICK and be able to sell it well by BS-ing about your work in a way that impresses fools, or to be VERY WELL-CONNECTED i.e. Rich and/or know the right people. Or you need to totally luck out like Basquiat, who had less talent in his whole body than the typical good comic-book illustrator has in one finger. "Amateur" indeed: most of these "art-world" success stories are hacks anyway, or unexceptional "artists" who cleverly figured out a way to make a career out of basically nothing - scribbles.
The plot is decent in the first half-hour, but then just devolves until there's nothing left. The plot is too thin for an 80-minute movie.
The soundtrack is also very poor, does nothing to help the story.
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