Voldemort: Origins of the Heir

I was genuinely excited when this fanfilm was announced and the trailer came out. I did not expect it to be particularly great, but I am always interested in Harry Potter Fan Culture.

This movie was a disappointment sadly. However, not for the reasons I thought it would be. When it comes to fanfilms on YouTube, I am used to ... no great camera work, no good lighting, no good special effects. This Fanfilm manages to do these things surprisingly well though. The camera work, the editing and the effects are not amazing but very solid, probably a result of the 15.000 Dollar Budget.

So, when people defend this fanfilm with the argument that it is Low Budget, they are really missing what went wrong here, because the flaws (for the most part) are not a result of the budget:

The writing is terrible.

The dialogue is often horrendous (it does not particularly get better with the very distracting dubbing in every scene) and the story itself is incredibly pointless. This does not add anything new, interesting or even a little bit creative to the Harry-Potter universe. The portrayal of Tom Riddle is not very well written here, it is sometimes even a very unnecessary contrast to his character in the books. The plot is not interesting. Should it even be called plot? In fact most of the runtime is just a very boring story (that we already know), told by bad dialogue, spoken by bad actors. Its not even an hour long but feels really bloated. There is a middle section, where they show a scene out of the books, which I really enjoyed, probably because it was left out in the official movies. You can tell, in this scene, that the writing comes from Rowling, because the characters and dialogue are suddenly very exciting and focused.

The rest is, to be really honest here, just not very good. The setting is... lame. The action does not feel like Harry-Potter to me. (its just coloured lightning bolts, no real curses) The plot is pointless, the twist in the end is laughably awful.

I know this is a fanfilm, I know its made as a free video for YouTube. And I appreciate the work that was put into this project. But that does not mean, that I cant criticise it. Like I said, most of the flaws are not a result of the budget. Its the writing, the acting and the storytelling.

I wish that people, who spend so much time and money in a fanfilm, would put more work, effort and love into the script.

If you have a good story, nobody cares if its low budget.

Ok, we all know it's a fan-made movie with low budget. We all understand that. But, there is really no excuse for bad acting and bad story. If we try to put acting part aside, we are left with story that just doesn't make sense. Some of us could of done better screenplay in our sleep. Especially loyal HP fans. I don't understand what Soviet Aurors have to do with Tom Riddle or his belongings. If fans that made this movie wanted to tell the story of Voldemorts origin - than they at least should of stick to he original story. The only good thing here is Tom Riddles looks (as he was described as very handsome young man in the books). But no matter how good the actor looks - he still didn't deliver the "Voldemort" effect, even when he became him. Advice - try to watch this movie (or short film, you choose how to call it) as something completely unrelated to HP world. It will help.

The storyline of this movie was very poor. It is a series of flashbacks for most of the movie, and at the very end there is a "turn of events" right before the movie ends.

I only enjoyed the costumes, some of the camerawork (except those mouth shots when a character is speaking...) and some of the characters. Apart from that, a poor effort. I understand it's a fan movie, but writing a good storyline doesn't cost anything.

I really wanted to like this, or at least find it interesting. I've been a Potterhead ever since I was a child and I always hope for the best whenever any new films, spinoffs, plays, etc. comes out. What was Voldemort's origin story? That's actually a pretty good idea for a side-story, so I hoped the filmmakers' will add some interesting twists to this question even if their work is amateurish.

But nah. It practically told everything we already knew about.

Even if you take the Harry Potter brand outside of this film, it's still pretty bad. A low budget and unknown actors shouldn't be your main source for criticism, sure, but poor execution is always hard to get past by. The story is convoluted and uninteresting, the acting (and dubbing) is poor, the dialogue is overripe, the characters (outside of a few exceptions) are two-dimensional. It's an amateurish production that's also a boring one.

The cinematography, special effects, and lighting are actually competent and are almost worth being in your average Hollywood blockbuster. Some of the ideas are good. I liked the costumes and the very beginning. There was a lot of passion and hard-work behind the camera, and I will give credit there in an age of cynical, lazy cash-grabs.

It really saddens me to leave such a harsh review on a Harry Potter-based story, and maybe I'm too narrow-minded of a viewer to not notice more positives. But Voldemort: Origins of the Heir just didn't do it to me as a fan and as a viewer. It isn't insanely stupid like that Cursed Child play book, but it's nothing more than a shrug. :( I'll review something good later. I'm tired of talking trash about everything 'cause I feel like a pessimist.

This short film can't be as good as a multimilion production, of course. but the special effects were ok. some questioning 1st person video-game type gamera work. Dialogues are overal poor and dubing's making everything terrible. some moments are terribly badly played, but the montage and interogation-room format is a clever idea to tell the story, with interesting final scenes that allow the viewer to rethink the previous scenes. The actor that played Tom was actually quite remarquable.