Observance

I definitely didn't have many expectations for this and I had no idea what type of film it would be. I love its ambiguity. Many people will hate it for that same reason but I found that it was able to sufficiently explore its story and characterization (it does a great job of developing its main character) while still not revealing itself completely and by sustaining great atmosphere and mood (and well-done jump scares too) throughout its entirety. I think it's a simple, but scary film, one that will only appeal to a specific kind of horror fan but the type of horror we need more of. I would definitely recommend it, although be cautious because it's not for everyone.

I'll go ahead and say this was one of those horror films, like Alien, Absentia, AM 1200, Banshee Chapter, The Corridor, etc... that is very Lovecratian without overtly rehashing any of that author's stories.

Also, a LOT of folks are not going to have the patience for this movie... it's slow... most of the plot is suggested rather than overtly displayed... there's no real gore or nudity (though one scene nearly made me puke)... and the end is open to interpretation. For the people, like me, who do get into stuff like this... subtle horror that will stay with me for days afterward... Observance is a damn fine little film. I wasn't aware of its tiny budget until after I'd watched it... and for me it didn't show. I think horror often works best on this intimate scale anyway.

It feels like it wants to be a bit like "the ring" with fancy black and white flashbacks or flashes anyway .. a somewhat non linear storytelling and very little exposition.

There are efforts to make it "disturbing" .. that result only in mild confusion .. while the story itself remains unsatisfactory.

Acting is OK .. although not much seems to be asked of the actors ... brooding, indifferent and surprised are the emotions that are required.

While i did not hate the movie, i also did not like it. It was "mehh" .. solid enough not to be "bad" ... but unremarkable. The kind of movie that you look up on google during the runtime to re-check what the title was .. and a movie that you forget entierly 10 minutes after having watched it.

I was REALLY into this film. I could totally feel the David Lynch vibe with the great atmospheric B&W shots, the excellent, moody soundscape, and the compelling and, to me anyway, very involving mystery of what the hell was going on.

BUT... although the movie makers had carefully paced the movie to create an increasing sense of tension and unease, very artfully immersing the audience in an effective ambient mood, and then... abruptly about 40 minutes into the story, for some inexplicable reason the director seems to throw all that hard-earned subtlety to the wind and we have like a 5-10 minute disgustingly gross scene of this guy in the bathroom heaving all this horrible stuff up, etc., etc...

Now, if I had wanted a GROSS fest, I would have chosen a film that highlighted that. I cannot understand WHY this abrupt and to me extremely disappointing change in tone was suddenly thrust upon us. I tried to weather the scene figuring it might be over in a minute or so. But, astonishingly the director just keeps us focused on this completely jarring grossness that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the lovely textured mood that had been created up to that point. To me, the whole bloody thrust (and appeal) of the film was the great sense of mystery and the SUBTLETY of the mood, clearly leading to some powerful reveal later on. What I was NOT frigg'n expecting was for that to be yanked out from under us and then to be forced to view this meaningless, VERY extended, mood-breaking grossness. I tried to put up with it as long as I could, but after about 5 friggin, constant minutes of our this mindless audience abuse, I had to shut it off.

A real shame too... The movie up to that point I felt was very well done and very cleverly crafted. Whatever the hell got into the director to completely ruin it by doing this is almost a greater mystery than he had taken all that time and effort to create in the first place...

Movies that are stake outs and that may feel weird to say the least, do have issues with character credibility at some point. And it's not different with this one, where you think, shouldn't our main character do something else instead? Shouldn't he see the signs and react to them rationally? But we wouldn't have a movie if he did. Also the actions are somewhat explained by his financial situation.

So while you can argue these flaws and bumps in the story, you can also just a "enjoy" the suspense this builds up. And it has some very shocking moments indeed. It's a one location sort of deal, but it makes the most of it. And the suspense might be killing some people. And that's why I was surprised to see the lower rating here on IMDb. Didn't expect that to be truthful