Desolation

It seemed an interesting idea for a movie, though cliche. Girl is prey, bad guys expect her to act it, prey decides to fight for her life. Very basic, but basic doesn't mean bad. However the writing is at times stupid, and I mean stupid in the sense of its definition. They wrote the several of the characters "having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense" and that irritated me. The acting at some points is mediocre, but that could be overcome with writing. In this case I felt I'd wasted time watching this.

I felt compelled to write a review for this movie mainly because of the paranoid other review which had nothing really to do with the movie and was more about a political agenda.

So, anyway...

This film was well made I thought for a low budget film. The acting was ok The story, while not totally original was given a nice twist on a familiar premise. . Although I felt it gave the plot away a bit too early . Overall, I found it entertaining and worth watching.It deserves a higher rating than some have given it

Surprisingly low ratings for this movie as I thought it was an entertaining movie. Maybe the story has a couple flaws, things that we would all have done differently if we were in that situation, but mainly the story is interesting and keeps your attention during the entire movie. The main character is played by Dominik García-Lorido, so you get to see alot of her, and I thought she did a good job. Almost the entire movie is about her and that's a good thing. The rest of the cast was also good adding their parts to the story. Only Brock Kelly, that one I found to be weak acting, but not terrible. Maybe this story has been done before, probably, but nevertheless it was entertaining enough for me to have a good movie night.

In New York, the cashier of a restaurant Katie (Dominik García-Lorido) is a traumatized woman since she was raped and got an abortion some time ago. Katie is under therapy and uses pills to keep stable and her best friend is Debbie (Ninja N. Devoe) that works with her. When she meets the handsome movie star Jay (Brock Kelly) in the restaurant, they have a love affair and Jay invites Katie to move to his apartment in Los Angeles. She meets Father Bill (Raymond J. Barry) on the arrival and stays with Jay a couple of days. But he needs to shoot a film and leaves Katie alone in the apartment. Soon strange things happen driving Katie to question her sanity.

"Desolation" is a horror film (or thriller) that has attractive moments, beginning with the gorgeous Dominik García-Lorido (maybe the greatest attraction of this film). The promising beginning holds the attention of the viewer, but soon the plots becomes predictable. However the deceptive flawed conclusion has so many holes that makes "Desolation" a terrible film, losing the initial potentiality of the story. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Was drawn into seeing 'Desolation' with a cool poster/cover, a very intriguing if not creative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

'Desolation' is a film it doesn't do enough with its potential (although there are far bigger wastes of potential in film) and could have been much better, can't say that it is a great film because it isn't. It is not a terrible film though, as far as recent low-budget film viewings go it's one of the better and more watchable ones easily. It certainly could have been far worse, considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre at best and irredeemably terrible at worst.

Lets start with the positives. The scenery is atmospheric and spooky and 'Desolation' is surprisingly well shot and easy on the eye, was expecting a cheap looking film and to me that wasn't the case here. The music is suitably ominous.

Found that the acting was not bad, found it better than average if not much more.

Also that there were a few nice moments that intrigued and there was tension, suspense and creepiness, the first half is very promising and has a good deal of unsettlement. At least the film was not hard to follow and the story structure was generally coherent.

Unfortunately, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and after the promising first half the film became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary in the second, with the outcome revealed too early and the ending not feeling tied up enough. The characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them and some of the decision making and behaviour induces face-palming. The effects are ropy at best.

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés and no depth whatsoever (definitely one of the worst assets), while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags with very little going on worth caring about. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Tonally, it feels unfocused and muddled from trying to do too much.

There are too many underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. There is not enough threat here and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, too much of the second half is unimaginative and more odd than creepy, with little sense of horror or urgency. Momentum sags later on and the direction has its assured moments but inexperience also shows. There is a general lack of creativity and shocks.

The sound editing can be on the obvious and over-loudly recorded side. The editing is haphazard at times, but really it's the script and the second half that are most problematic here.

Overall, not great but worth a one time watch. 5/10 Bethany Cox