ChillSeaTry

I can only imagine any positive reviews here are from family/friends of people who worked on this production. Or I am REALLY out of touch with how low standards are when you're too young to have seen enough movies to know what's good. Like all the 1-star (honest) reviews point out, this movie was nothing but shaky-cam high-pitched screaming in the dark. Over, and over, and over. Not even screaming anything interesting -- just the names of other characters. Over, and over, and over. But somehow the moments when they paused from that were even more boring. Or maybe it was just boring in different ways: how do you prefer your boring: eye-rollingly cliché'd conversation? Or crank-the-volume-down repetitive shrieking for minutes at a stretch? Look, I dunno why anyone would knowingly watch this if you know what to expect, but... just so you know what to expect, that's about it. Boring dialogue, and boring repetitive shrieking in the dark. PS oh man, the characters are aggressively stupid. But still somehow, in ways that are really boring.

I'm actually pretty impressed with this film, for what it is! Ultimate takeaway: an attention-holding flick for folks who enjoy character-focused horror-lite (like me) and don't want a pure repeat of something they've seen before-- and not for people looking for a start-to-finish gore-fest.

The conversational dialogue is realistic, and the actors' expressiveness is on point. How often do horror directors exert the patience and wisdom to let the film breathe, with pauses and (semi-)realistic pacing, and the script writers and horror actors show the chops and patience to communicate through normal everyday banter, pauses, interruptions, and silent expressions? Usually there's a lot of rushing-on-to-the-next-canned-line and giving-blank-stares or over-the-top- exaggerated-grimaces (although there was some of that once we got to the 'scary' parts of the film). I was genuinely impressed by the lead actors in this one, to the point that I'd like to see them succeed in more mainstream cinema/TV. They each had a presence I'd enjoy seeing again (I'm thinking Scarlett, George, and Papillon).

The setup is patient, and really allows you to settle in to the characters (even if, as other reviewers have pointed out, they're a little unrealistically 'perfect', what with their multiple degrees and multi-language fluency and 'Krav Maga' skills, on top of their youth and runway-model good looks) and hand-held-camera documentary ambiance before revealing a premise that I otherwise might have bailed on immediately (they're looking for the "Philosopher's Stone"? Really?) It is a credit to the dialogue writers, director, and actors that they carried this premise without reverting to a complete cheese-fest.

Another credit to the script and direction: When warned of a dangerous mystery tunnel from which no one ever returns... the crew doesn't go in!

Of course, a plot contrivance forces the crew to enter later anyway (I barely feel like that's a spoiler: this is a horror movie)... but still! It's through legitimate forced-choice, not arbitrary character recklessness.

In general, there was increased predictability and cliché once they got into the doom-tunnels. Protagonist girl has amazing catastrophe-proof makeup; characters fall into a couple obvious traps; predictable jump scares ensue. Camera shots constantly cutting to black and jumping around in a way that the headlamp cameras surely shouldn't.

Within the world of this universe, I was left curious about how far the reach of the supernatural forces is supposed to go. Usually, there's a barrier past which horror movie characters have to stumble-- a 'misstep' that warrants everything that happens next. But in this film, the characters make the correct (first) choice; they stay on a path that at least some of them have already traveled many times before. And yet they end up forced, by supernatural intervention, into the hell dimension anyway. In fact, elements of the hell dimension have already appeared aboveground well before the characters even embark on this exploration (e.g. the staring girl outside the club). Was the doom just inevitable? If they hadn't gone underground in Paris, would the club bathroom have just transported them to the hell dimension instead? I was left wondering about the actual mechanisms and phenomena we were watching on screen-- but not necessarily in a way that made me feel the movie 'cheated'; more like, there was more to discover than what we actually saw (since it wasn't all laid out for us in exposition).

Ultimately, I was pleased and found the overall quality relatively fresh and professional for the genre. There were a few heavy-handed moments, I didn't like the cameras constantly cutting to black, and I wasn't altogether impressed with the horror-specific effects (except for the demise of the first character-- wow. Simplicity is definitely the way to go, in my view) but for the most part they avoided over- explaining everything (and I think leaving the audience with a few questions to ponder can be a good thing).

Not necessarily a classic, but I think there's a lot of good stuff to appreciate in here, for folks like me who watch a lot of horror movies on Netflix! Based on this film, I'd be genuinely interested in seeing what else this director, and the 3 lead actors, come out with.

This movie has heart. This movie touches my soul. This movie speaks truth to me that changes my mind in real life about how I should act, and about what matters. I would recommend this movie for sincere idealists, Christians, and other aspiring madmen.

Outline of film:

The premise of this film has us follow a 'heretical' playwright, Cervantes, cast into a dungeon among aggressive prisoners who seize his belongings and threaten to burn his precious manuscript. They agree to hold off, on the condition that he can convince them of his 'innocence' through a mock trial. Cervantes chooses to offer his defence in the form of a play, based on his manuscript (the tale of a 'madman' named Don Quixote)-- and recruits his fellow prisoners to act out the parts of the play with him.

From here, we alternate back and forth between the world within the play, and the world of the prisoners acting out the play, allowing us to see both the full story of Don Quixote, and the way in which acting out the story touches and changes the prisoners participating in it.

This whole play has profoundly Christian themes running all the way through, but keeps them implicit instead of explicit, and I find it the more effective for that.

If you are a patient movie-watcher who doesn't mind the dim dusty colours of a certain era of filmmaking... if you long for a better world and your heart goes out to those with a similar spirit... if you would like to watch the story of a noble madman who comes "In a world of iron to make a world of gold"... then this movie is for you.

I personally recommend watching alone, in a quiet place. Just you and your soul, no group of chattering friends or bustling snacks and jokes to break the spell of the subtle and touching transformations you're seeing on screen.

The artificially high star rating here can only be from family or friends of people who worked on this movie. Unfortunately, this film is as shoddy as the other written reviews here attest.

The acting comes off flat (even when they're pretending to be frightened), but I'm not going to blame the actors for this-- that has to be the writers and director. The actors are given limited and cliché lines in the first place and then the shots are cut with unnaturally long pauses in between each actor's delivery, so that nothing flows.

The overall 'cinematography' and disjointed story flow reminded me of one thing, but that one thing *exactly*: watching someone play a standard online PC game in POV. Right down to watching our character's POV as she hears someone scream, at length, in the next room over, and hmm-- Where is our character looking while this is happening? Top right corner of her room. Then top left corner. Then oh, look at the wardrobe for a while. Then at the wall. Back to the top right corner. Random, unnatural head swivels; just calmly gazing around in odd directions, bored and biding time until she feels like moving to the next step of this video game (though the voice-over is trying to convey panicked breath and confusedly calling out for the person who is screaming). Timing doesn't matter in this movie. Does she need to rush into the other room to see what's wrong? Nope, no rush! She can just wander around the rest of the facility wherever she wants (maybe smash a few pots Link-style), chat with another character, and when she eventually gets to the room-of-screams, that character will act like there was no delay on her part.

At literally no point did this movie create tension for me. Like another reviewer said, the thin plot was dragged along so long I was HOPING for our protagonists to die so the movie could end. There are a few standard jump scares, which the movie broadcasts for you a good 20 seconds in advance so by the time you get there you're immune to any startle, and are just tapping your foot impatiently wondering when they'll get on with it.

SPOILER: I couldn't help but laugh out loud when the man was lying on the ground, screaming as if in pain, when we could visibly see that the children were doing nothing but lightly patting him with their hands. It was like watching a man pretend to be killed by a pile of curious puppies who were barely touching him. /SPOILER

Zero character development or emotional connection between audience and character. There's just nothing 'there', below the surface, of any character in the movie. They're nothing but moving mouths and hands for the words and actions they're given, and those words are *very* limited and uninspired, and the actions are *very* basic and often unnatural. There's just nothing and no one to connect to in this movie.

I'll give them that the ending wasn't *totally* predictable, but it also isn't as neat as I think it thinks it is. I can certainly imagine a few scenarios that make sense of it, but it's left unexplained within the movie.

There is too much wrong with every scene to give a blow-by-blow. Just... don't waste your time. At least, not based on the artificially high star rating on this site. Read the reviews first.

PS: One personal gripe. There's a frustrating old toad of a scene in here (minor spoiler ahead) that is such an overdone cliché and seems to suggest that people who live in movie universes consider normal what most of us would consider brain damage. That is, when our protagonist tries to tell her coworker that she's seen specific, disturbing things (including a written message on a bathroom door), her coworker *immediately* jumps to the "Oh, you're in a new environment; it's perfectly normal for you to be having incredibly specific audio-visual hallucinations" write-off. ...WHAT? In what universe do dialogue writers live, that they think humans dismiss each other like this? These characters, in-universe, are wearing glasses that create visual projections, but the character doesn't even jump to *that* as an explanation (suggesting some kind of glitch, etc). She just goes straight to the old "You just have nerves, being in a new place and all" chestnut, as if that would ever be a plausible reason for someone to visually hallucinate a message on a bathroom door. If you think your coworker is hallucinating messages on bathroom doors, that's not a moment to celebrate that that's *all* it is-- that's a moment to help her seek medical help! But writers keep using this as if it's a reasonable human interaction, which it isn't, and it's aggravating.