Disremembered

If you had a micro budget and minimal locations and wanted to make a top notch film, this is the kind of film you will get.

This is a heavy character driven piece that spans two different time frames. Angel Bradford plays Samantha, the lead in the film. She has exploded into the horror scene recently, but she brings it. Her performance and acting in this film is a masterclass.

Morrigan Thompson is the person that Samantha's character is obsessed with. Morrigan's performance is second to none in this film as well. Both her and Angel playoff off each other so well, when it cuts to something else, you want to hurry back to these two.

Kelsey and Beth (as Madison and Tabitha) are both solid in this and round out the 4 women ensemble in "present day". The interaction between the 4 women is warm and believable.

The other time frame is shown in black and white from when Samantha is a teen. You feel for teen Samantha and her attempts to escape her dire situation with her friend Veronica. Olivia Tracy as the teen Samantha provided a nice stark difference to grown up Samantha. Olivia will be an eye to watch in this genre.

This film tackles the world of abuse and the effects on a person later in life. But if you watch the end, it still offers hope. And that hope is refreshing, and totally not expected.

Samantha's traumatic past continues to haunt her into adulthood. Her friendship with Becca reminds her of her past and the unfortunate abuse that she suffered at the hands of her father. When Madison, Becca's partner, gifts her a month long trip to France, Samantha becomes upset and looses her cool with Becca. Becca agrees to spend some time together with just her and Samantha before the trip.

Samantha believes that Becca is actually Veronica, an old friend from her past. These delusions are making Samantha loose her grip on reality. Samantha decides she will kidnap Becca and text Madison and make it sound like Becca is leaving Madison to be with her. Madison and her friend Tabitha are suspicious of the text messages.

Samantha is determined to get Becca to admit that she is Veronica and she's willing to torment Becca until she admits that she is Veronica.

Disremembered is a good psychological horror film from Acrostar Films and Director Steve Herman (Desperate Souls). The cast includes; Kelsey Ann Baker, Annalisa Vitucci, Beth Metcalf (Inner Beauty), Angel Nichole Bradford (Desperate Souls), and Morrigan Thompson (Lust, Magic and the Witches' Sabbath). If you enjoyed Disremembered, be sure and checkout other Acrostar films.

I'll get right to the point. Disremembered is not only a great story which will strike a cord for some, it's one of the best micro budget indie films of the year, proving you don't need a large budget to tell a great story.

We're introduced to Samantha, (Angel Bradford in her best performance to date), who believes her friend Becca (Morrigan Thompson, in her strongest performance) is a long lost friend named Veronica. Being held captive, Becca is subjected to mental and physical torture from Samantha who is determined to make Becca believe she's Veronica.

As the present day Samantha toys with Becca we get flashbacks of Samantha's younger life with her friend Veronica in B&W. What I liked about this is that instead of the older Samantha giving long exposition on her life we witness it, which helps the story immensely and could be a film by itself.

The characters are fleshed out nicely and develop throughout the story, though I feel that Tabitha (Beth Metcalf) and to some extent, Becca's girlfriend Madison (Kelsey Baker) were underused. Both are great actresses, Baker being a pleasant surprise, and I wish they would've had more to do. Veronica (Al Vitucci) brings a sense of calm, always being the ray of light in the dark.

Speaking of the acting, while everyone gave solid performances, I must point out that newcomer Olivia Tracy as the young Samantha was a stand out. You feel her innocence when she is with Veronica and when she is subjected to sexual and physical abuse and her performance makes you feel the pain she is going through.

Disremembered is a story of a woman with deep mental issues because of her past which are horrific and heartbreaking. With that being said, this film is not for the faint of heart and should come with a trigger warning for those who have suffered sexual abuse. The cinematography and score adds to the intense atmosphere. The film slowly builds a third act that kicks you in the stomach emotionally.

9/10.

Attempting to meet up with friends, a woman is glad to welcome a stranger into her friend circle with several other friends of hers, but when the stranger begins making statements about their past history together kidnaps her to show that dark side of their relationship to her by force.

This was a fairly impressive and enjoyable genre effort. The psychological mind games at the center of the film are quite fun, using a genuinely unnerving pretense for everything with the insistence on misidentifying her to get into their past history and relationship which serves as the excuse to inflict a series of psychological-based tortures upon her to get to the truth. The reluctance and failure to do so is what allows everything to continue, with the physical and mental challenges making for a somewhat uncomfortable viewing not knowing whether or not the unhinged nature of everything will truly break loose as the harrowing backstory that ties everything together as her fractured mindset to set everything in motion makes for a fun time as the series of twists and reveals that fill in the gaps of what's going on work incredibly well. That's a massive help as the initial setup of the mistaken identity and holding captive seemingly is a massive flaw. The fact that she wants the other girl to admit to being the long-deserted friend she used to love and the failure to do that in a way makes little sense as there's little motivation for why she would believe her captive is the person she claims. That makes the interactions here somewhat repetitive with very little difference between their scenes together as we're trying to understand what the point of everything is about. While that gets resolved in the finale and the main storyline is resolved in a cohesive manner, the frustration does make for a somewhat problematic time watching until then, and with the whole thing relying on the least physically intimidating one among the group to try to keep them under her control it has some slight issues.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence, Brief Nudity, and intense themes of sexual assault.