One of Us

A little bit of nuance and a delicate hand can go a long way towards making a movie - or, with their absence, breaking it. The premise behind 'One of us' is very promising, and it certainly caught my eye. It takes little time at all for the film itself to begin to show its difficulties, and the factors that limit our engagement. It's extraordinarily fast-paced, and almost forcefully brusque and heavy-handed. Many of its constituent parts are well done in and of themselves, but don't fit the tenor of what the picture is trying to do (immaculate hair and makeup work, for example); other aspects (not least those small touches intended to pointedly intone a horror element) are cliched and overdone; little or nothing is Just Right (this is also weirdly overproduced). "Cliched and overdone" also absolutely applies to dialogue, which is often entirely too on the nose; characters mostly feel like sketches that weren't completed, though some (such as Sophie) are downright excessive and gauche as written. Scene writing and too many plot points oscillate between lacking and unconvincing, forced and inorganic, or even imitative and false. With all this in mind, onto what can the narrative meaningfully latch, form its roots, and grow? What could we truly hope for in terms of character development? I recognize acting skill in the cast, but what can their best efforts hope to achieve?

Though not all of them fit together or are necessary, there are lots of great ideas in this feature. Horror, thriller, drama - ostensibly with a psychological edge. That's what the premise suggests; that's what 'One of us' could have been and tries to be. In writing and in execution, however, the result is at best uneven; it seems sometimes like the movie doesn't actually known what it wanted to be. The picture is far too blunt and unsubtle to earnestly play in the space that it wants to, and so becomes weak, common, or even overbearing. I appreciate the effort everyone put into this; I don't think the finished product is altogether bad. It's simply not everything that it should have been, and would have been if more mindful care were taken at large. I'd love to say that I like this more than I do, yet there's an emptiness where the best impact should be. There are far worse titles one could find themselves watching, yet unless you're a huge fan of someone involved, I also can't particularly imagine any specific reason to spend time with this one. Let's just say that 'One of us' is a disappointing "almost" and leave it at that.

Worried, an investigative journalist pokes around into the disappearance of her best friend, and gets drawn into a small town religious cult. We enter their world through her eyes, at a seemingly benign coffee shop staffed with helpful, if peculiar, young women.

After following the women back to their compound and getting caught trespassing she's greeted warmly by their charismatic leader and only male in the group. It quickly becomes apparent that things are less idyllic than they appear.

The world is revealed in an authentic way at a pace that keeps the audience in its seat; story is weaved in a way that is both effective and creepy.

Give it a watch.

I like to watch horror flicks after a long day and since I sleep in Saturdays and had someone gullible writing my reports for me, I stayed up late checking out ONE OF US. Pretty good stuff. Plenty of terror without needing blood and gore. I liked it so much I nearly forgot I spilled beer on my new jacket earlier that day while driving. Two things I hate, bad movies and manure, and this movie ain't either of em.

My initial review for 'One of Us' was deleted for being too harsh. I suppose I just really wanted to get across how much I did not like this film. I will now rewrite my review and simply present the facts, whilst trying not to sound overly hate-filled. Here we go.

'One of Us' is flawed in many areas. The biggest one would have to be the acting. The acting is bad from almost the entire cast, however the most important role they got wrong was that of 'Brent' played by Derek Smith. This role really needed someone with some genuine charisma to sell the story that they are trying to tell. Smith simply didn't have it sadly.

The next flaw lies in the dialogue the actors have to work with. It's not written well. It's clunky and unnatural almost throughout the entire film. They just needed someone to come in with some expertise and strengthen the script up a bit.

The final problem lies in the blandness of the whole experience. I've seen children's movies with more violence than this film gets away with. Anything that does happen is off screen. Were the sensors on them that heavily that they felt this was necessary, or was this an creative decision on the director's part? Either way it makes for a very dull experience.

It's tough to find any positives worth mentioning for 'One of Us'. It's not a film that I could recommend spending your time or money on.

This was a nice surprise for a late night TV fright flick. While One of Us is clearly a psychological horror movie at heart, it's not dedicated to making the cheesiest, campiest, kill-fest imaginable. In fact, it seems to be trying to do something different. Speaking of camp, the director really seemed to take pride in capturing the atmosphere of the idyllic mountain setting. I'm not sure of the techniques, but the outdoor naturally lit shots were gorgeous. They had me kind of convinced, or at least intrigued, by the promise of a retreat away from the stresses of modern society…and the psychology that might drive someone to let a charismatic creeper take the wheel. Of course creepy cults can't last, and these women in the woods have to fight to stay alive, and while this film might not please the slasher film purists, it offers a bit of a stylish spin on the late night psycho creep show.