Voldemort: Origins of the Heir

The movie looks like was made by someone who recently learned how to create the "Harry Potter magic wand effect" in After Effect and they made a 50 minutes' film around that premise.

First to all, It's not an origin story. The movie only center on some random facts about Tom Riddle. Most of the film we see some generic Howard students debating about Tom and Soviet Wizards (yes, soviet soldiers in a Harry Potter movie) questioning the main character.

With all that said, the plot is not the worst part. The film is full of awkward close up shot of the character's mouth or eyes while they are reacting to stuff.

I know that it was made by amateurs but I've better film with lower budget, the problem is not the money, it's the lack of vision and knowledge of the Harry Potter universe. It barely feels remotely related to Harry Potter, besides the name of the character (remember the soviet soldiers) .

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.

Even though I thought this film would be way better and more fun I was -sadly- wrong. It wasnt fun at all. Although it started great with some really nice and to be honest beautiful actions scenes for a film with a budget that was out to prove that passion means more than money they failed to prove that. The story doesn't offer anything to the whole harry potter universe. The writers tried to make the whole movie something you wouldnt expect so you would stay focused but that didnt work there wasnt anything really unexpected not even the ending was really unexpected the fact that the heir's die is not a secret in this movie they though that it was and we the viewers did not know that. Another thing this movie failed to do successfully was the acting that was just plain bad. The actors really seems like they tried to do something there but they did not succeed they are not believable most dont feel their character and because of the way they act it might make you just to stop the film and close it because of the awkwardness. If it wasnt for the anticipation upon this film the good camera and an average editing ( Well some hours on after effects but lets not get into that) I wouldnt watch this film and if anyone would wanna watch they should but if they are not sure then they sure shouldn't. Personally I am really disappointed from it and especially from the people that made it and the public statements they made

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.

It's not great, but it's a fan film! It's a load of fans with a tiny budget making something that they clearly love. If you go in knowing that and expecting that, you'll enjoy it.