MattBayliss

HBO's new crime drama 'The Night Of' has sucked me in right from the very beginning. The pilot starts up very slow but builds suspense as it starts to tell the story, and that's where it shines; in it's storytelling. It was dramatically convincing and had a pleasantly dark atmosphere.

The pilot was very long (1hr 20min) but it felt much shorter, it was tense from start to finish, in the sense of the story it was actually very predictable, but it was the acting and how the story was portrayed that made it so gripping and watchable. Not a second went by where my attention wasn't glued to the TV screen.

What really made me love the pilot was how REAL the story felt, there wasn't a moment that made me think that it was a stupid story, it felt REAL. The acting was superb by everyone, the cinematography was perfect with it's overall dark tone and lighting, and the music just set the scene playing in the background to the tone of the show.

The overall mood of the show has been set for the series, and if it stays at this standard for the rest of the series it will be an ultimate success. I look forward to where the rest of this series takes us! No complaints yet!

9/10

I am a huge fan of the Wolf Creek movies, John Jarratt does a great portrayal of outback killer 'Mick Taylor', when I first saw the preview for this it got me genuinely excited. It looked a lot more deeper than the conventional slasher type Wolf Creek movies, this one had the vibe of being more psychologically involved.

The show started off fantastic, we were thrown right into the action, meeting front runner Lucy Fry, depicting the main character whose family gets brutally murdered which ultimately sends her on a revenge trip to kill Mick Taylor. The suspense was great for the first 3 episodes, building slowly until we got to see the final showdown, the predictability was okay, it was entertaining so that is what kept me enthralled.

But after the 3rd episode the show took a turn for the worse, from what was a 7/10 show went directly down to a 3/10 show, mostly because of the filler scenes that made absolutely no sense and may as well have not been put in there. The portrayal of the 'Aussie Outback' is shown like something from a Mad Max movie, like it was a post apocalyptic wasteland...but really it was meant to be 2015. The nonsensical parts of the story started to gather up and it started to make the show very unbelievable and frustrating, all of the injuries that the main character suffered seemed to have gone away shortly hours after, when any normal person would have simply died from them.

This show had so much potential, leading on from the great legacy of Mick Taylor it could have gone many different ways. But the way in which the director chose definitely wasn't the right one. The show started fantastically and I honestly could not fault it for the first 3 episodes, but after that it became very cheesy in it's story-line and if you were an Australian watching this it was enough to make you cringe.

If the director actually portrayed Australians as normal civilians like we actually are, Mick Taylor would have been seen as more menacing and frightening. But apparently the director decided that all Australians act in a caveman manner and dress like the apocalypse had happened.

This was Wolf Creek, not Mad Max! Hopefully the director can learn from the mistakes he had made in this show and bring it to his next project. Such a shame for a show that had such great potential.

3/10

The Survivalist is somewhat of a very grim movie, with very little dialogue throughout the whole film (at least 20 lines) it was more of a visual feast. Extremely well shot scenes and spot on direction made this low budget film one worth seeing, whilst it is definitely not for everyone it does have some great performances which make it more intriguing.

The opening scenes to the film show you what it is going to be about, with no dialogue, just visuals to fill you in of the story. The film is ultimately about survival with the unnamed main character fending for himself in the forest, until 2 women come along and threaten his existence. That's all I'll say for now as the films visuals tell the story extremely well (see it for yourself)

Martin McCann plays the protagonist very well, his emotions and morals are directly clear through his facial expressions, there need be no dialogue as everything can be seen visually. This is what makes the film so unique and great in itself that it is able to stand alone without any dialogue at all. The co stars who play the women Mia Goth and Olwen Fouere were outstanding, I could not fault their acting at all and they made the story very believable and real.

One fault I did have with the movie was the unnecessary amounts of nudity, a lot of the scenes where it was present could have been made a lot better as we had the mental picture of what was happening regardless. Although I guess it added to the bleak tone of the film, I think most of it was not needed.

Overall the film had my attention from start to finish, as it was about survival you wanted to know what was going to happen next and if the protagonist would make it out alive. While this movie wasn't a masterpiece I believe it was different in it's own way and was well presented with great visuals and plausible acting. If you are into dark post apocalyptic tales, this one might be worth a watch for you.