naff-sound Reviews

The Den (2013)

to set the record straight..

[3/10 · 26 March 2014]

This movie doesn't live up to its rating. It's a take on the found footage genre using mostly the perspectives of laptop and cellphone camera.The viewer is supposed to feel like watching most of the scenes in realtime. Interesting concept, which doesn't play out. This movie kept me barely interested. The storyline doesn't create tension and is void of twists and major surprises. It just unfolded like I expected it to. According to some other reviewers this could be understood as a viable statement on the dangers of the internet. I find that laughable. People should be concerned about other aspects of the net than that. The tale of the anonymous killer has been told before - the movie doesn't offer anything beyond of that. 3 Stars because the idea of connecting the viewer to a live-feed as a willing witness is good, but just a concept. Also the last scene contains something like a statement of critical value.. certainly not enough to justify the drag. The "banality of evil" is a good quote with which to end the movie, but two good ideas don't make a movie float.. This production is made up of little besides the basic idea. No memorable performance on any level - fast forgotten flick.

The Road (III) (2011)

too little, too late

[3/10 · 19 May 2012]

"The Road" tells the story of violent occurrences on a stretch of an abandoned road over a timespan of 20 years. It is divided in 3 Chapters, each then years apart. The chapters are interconnected, the whole story unfolding with the third episode. The storyline moves back in time - it therefore starts with the most recent occurrence in 2008 and depicts then the incident of 1998. Finally it connects the lose strands left by the two previous episodes by showing us what happened in 1988.

Good things first: the sonic ambiance, the score if you like, is great. It pushes expectations right from the start. Bad thing : it is utterly wasted on this film. I don't want to go deep into the tremendous holes in the storyline, illogical behavior all around and very cheap and sententious depiction of the development of a psychological illness. It's enough that you know that these are annoyingly obvious even for a genre that thrives on them. The real pain of the movie is the acting. The first two chapters have a cast from the Children's Hospital of the Terminally Talentless! The script lets 16 year olds act like toddlers. The dialogs are horrible. They are like an audio summary for the blind: never telling more than the absolute obvious.

While I do think it refreshing if a horror movie for once doesn't exploit violence and gore, this movie is not giving a valuable solution - I have seen more violent fisticuffs in Stan&Laurel movies. The uneasy avoidance of graphic violence while actually implying its existence, leads to ridiculous scenes - like a girl bleeding from a head wound apparently because she fell on a mattress.

There is no special twist. It is a well used recipe in filmmaking to divide a movie in several chapters that intertwine and all get connected in the end. This was professionally executed, but without major surprises. The movie in itself is neither scary nor startling or revealing. It develops some more depth with the third chapter, which is so much better than the others that it seems to be from a different director entirely. But too little, too late.

3 Stars because sound and cinematography deserve recognition.

Cassadaga (2011)

undecided movie

[5/10 · 1 May 2012]

This movie may have been planned as a horror movie but it didn't came out as one. The supernatural theme was obviously meant as the ingredient holding the flick together, but it felt like someone got embarrassed of this and started experimenting by patching different plots and actions together - none of them is carried through to the end. I felt like listening to someone embroidering a vaguely interesting story with unnecessary detail: the movie is frequently wandering off by showing actions and telling story lines with no importance or meaning for the main plot. It is using the stylistic inconsistency as a device, but in my opinion this is not well enough executed. It left me slightly annoyed.. especially when I felt forced to witness some interactions between the main character and a young divorcée dragging along, which then break off whimsily like they couldn't find the space to end properly what they started. I found the frequent depiction of the main actress in revealing clothing ridiculous and therefore looked for a hint of self-irony but couldn't find one. I think it was really meant as: "we also could show some bum".. The movie delivers shock moments too scarcely to play the horror card even though the set-up would have left more than ample room for them! Why? It's a trial, I think. It's not bad, it's uncommon and mostly entertaining. But sadly it's not good either.. it feels unbalanced. So there is the ghost-story, some relationship drama.. at some point you may even think it's a serial killer story - but with every strand of action there is the phenomenon of negligence after introduction! the problem is that even after having finished watching the movie, I wasn't clear about its intention - it lacks a theme! The production value is good though and the result is surprisingly coherent - at least enough to keep me vaguely entertained.. Honoring the eagerness to do things differently and the technical workmanship, I give it 5 stars.

Vanishing on 7th Street (2010)

underrated

[6/10 · 15 October 2011]

The movie is creepy and dark and functions well without shock moments and the spilling of blood. There is some solid acting and the characters are not totally unbelievable, though they appear a little like the usual all-American suspects. I definitely don't agree with the frequent criticism that the movie lacks an explanation. The lack of an explanation is the actual concept of the movie. If the movie provided one, it would be as much fun as looking at a filled-in sudoku. The viewer is given food for thought by the different explanatory approaches done by the movie characters. I liked the reference to the "lost colony"-case, a historical oddity concerning the unresolved vanishing of a group of early settlers in America. I agree that the ending can be understood in a way that makes it seem cheesy - I interpreted it differently and so for me it was satisfying. I don't want to give anything away so let me just say as much: In my opinion no one survives at the end, but that certainly is disputable. My rating is a solid 6, although I was tempted to give more just to lift the overall rating since imo it is undeserved.

YellowBrickRoad (2010)

Disturbing message

[6/10 · 19 June 2011]

I'm divided about this movie, which is reflected in my rating. It has very intense moments, but it's not always able to sustain the tension. Sometimes the intensity borders on the annoying, sometimes it crumbles into boredom. None of the characters grew on me and in my opinion the ending is unsatisfying and badly executed. On the other hand I witnessed some really good performances from some of the actors. The overall atmosphere is dense and maintained during the movie. The storytelling avoids explanations and therefore is unnerving the spectator - in a positive way if you are in it for the chill factor. Don't expect this movie to be gory since it is not - blood is flowing, but in a mere matter-of- fact way. It's not trying to weave in vengeful ghosts, lost souls and other quasi religious ideas, which in my opinion get employed to perpetrate the idea of possible redemption. It tells the story of existence being hell with no possible exit since we are its prisoners and its creators. The movie stuck with me long after I watched it and it make me think - that's worth a solid 6 points.

Husk (2011)

an amused yawn..

[4/10 · 18 June 2011]

Not entirely bad but also far from good. It's a teen-slasher, done by the "1 by 1"-formula, so it has naturally major holes in the narrative and is 100% predictable. Following well exploited ingredients play a major role: cornfield, lone house in middle west, scarecrow, scary stitches. Unsolvable mystery: a car that stops working because it rolled in a ditch. The movie is professionally done, which in this case means that it is a consumer product, not very imaginative and lacking depth in the storytelling. My guess is that it came into existence because someone wanted to make a quick dollar. If it had a message, it was well hidden.

I kind of liked the overall atmosphere. I also thought the sound was done well and the acting was not embarrassing, so I gave it 4 points. Yes, I feel generous today..

The Tunnel (I) (2011)

Slow telling of a weak story

[2/10 · 16 June 2011]

Another mockumentary..In my opinion this movie was hardly worth 5 minutes of the time I spent watching it. Very long build-up, which isn't actually building up a lot - certainly not tension or sympathy for the characters. I found it mildly amusing how desperate the movie tries to induce an understanding for the motivations of the protagonists - and utterly fails. The very scarce action is spoiled by a jerky hand-cam, which is definitely not adding to the overall credibility of the storytelling since it is clearly employed to omit any scene that would have cost actual money. Adding credibility may have also been the idea behind the constant use of annoying effects mimicking a malfunctioning digital camera -they are laughably inauthentic! That at least shouldn't have been hard.. The viewer has a clear idea who will survive in this picture after he's watched the first 20 minutes .. and since this is literally the only content of the movie (four people going in the tunnel- two coming out) one has seen the whole thing at this point. This movie got a ridiculously high overall-rating & I actually have an apt theory about personal acquaintances of the filmcrew writing some of the reviews - don't get fooled.. I am a friend of horror movies. I ain't here to bash a movie because it happens to be a genre I don't like and understand. I really dig indie movies with a shoestring budget: a well- told story doesn't need state-of-the-art effects to support it. I quite like the mockumentary approach in more recent filmmaking - i have seen great flicks that work with it & I don't mean the trendsetters exclusively. The Tunnel is just an uninteresting, amateurishly executed movie, not because but in spite of being an Australian Indie. I learned after watching that it was made available for free. Well good on them. It's still shite.