Tilt

Tilt is a bizzare film and one of those I went into knowing absolutely nothing. It all starts simple enough and slow burns throughout but when things happen they leave you both baffled and a little disturbed.

It tells the story of a young couple expecting their first child, they are financially struggling due to him not working and merely working on his second feature documentary. Gradually his mental state falls apart and he does acts he can't even explain himself.

For a start I was blown away with just how politically charged the movie is and I have no doubt this will upset a lot of people. Oddly however if you take a step back you could argue it being agenda spewing for both political stances.

The lead is heavily left wing, speaks openly about his hatred for Trump and the Republicans. But on the flipside our protagonist is also the antagonist so as identifying him as a "Leftist" does it not make it a right wing movie?

Regardless of it's politics and constant unexplained insistence to show crucifix imagery from start to finish it's a very unsettling movie and not in the good way.

I see what they were going for, I simply don't think it even remotely works.

The Good:

Well made for the most part

The Bad:

More dead animals

Uncomfortable viewing

Mixed political stances

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

If Shawn & Aaron Ashmore had a baby it would be Joseph Cross

This film about a struggling documentary film maker starts off giving you that warm and creepy feeling a good indie movie creates when you think something entertaining is going to appear just beyond the horizon. The acting is good and the dialogue keeps you engaged so after 30 mins. Of charachter building You figure any minute now thngs should start to unfold. Then after an hour of circling the same issues and events not bringing you any closer to this drain the directors classify as drama/ horror / thriller, you realize the movie gives you no clear or distinct reason of why the main charachter is having these problems or feelings. Being confused watching this movie even ends on that premise never showing the result of his actions leaving you blind to the cosequences. Of course we can all assume what happened but for an hour and 40 minutes of waiting just to see a couple events unfold and then its over dubs this movie as a waste of time. The best thing about this movie were the remarks he made about Donald trump a few times through out but the premise of his mindset and stress from his situation never added up to what it amounts to. So Basically the story line showcases an undeveloped psyche so watchers do not understand the charachters reasoning. Your aim was good but next time throw the dart harder so it can atleast hit the board!

"Tilt" is billed as the first horror film of the Trump Era, although it was filmed before the actual 2016 election took place. Joe is a documentary filmmaker living in LA with his pregnant wife, nurse Jo. He has been working on a new doc that aims to expose the "myth of the Golden Age" in American history, specifically the post-war period roughly from 1947 to the advent of the Beatles. Trouble is, Joe keeps expanding his vision, but Jo needs him to buckle down to work in a "real" job, one that brings in money, and oh, by the way, to become an adult already. But Joe's sense of reality is unravelling, one scene after another…. I could see what filmmaker Kasra Farahari was going for here, but despite the excellent acting by Joseph Cross and Alexia Rasmussen, the film ends up being just too disjointed to work. Like Joe's documentary, "Tilt" really needs a sharper focus on a smaller theme.

I dont c why everyones giving 1/10s it's not as bad as you guys are making it out to be. The first half is pretty suspenseful and has the psychological horror film feel with all the tension, you get to know the characters etc. But after that its kinda just the same thing. And the ending really disappointed me- i get what it was going for, one of those movies that has minimal detail and leaves the viewer thinking about it afterwards, but there wasn't enough in the whole second half of the movie at all. Ending makes no sense- you never find out WHY the main character is doing what he's doing other than 'he's stressed' like okay im stressed too don't mean i go around bashing up homeless blokes. But if they'd added more to the second half, and kept it in the same style as the first half it would've been super good. But i dont think it's fair to take a dookie on movies like this cus i would like to see this kindof enigma in more modern horror movies, because the tension is way more scary than any in-your-face jumpscare.

An unemployed documentary filmmaker (Joseph Cross)'s behavior becomes increasingly erratic in the months after his wife becomes pregnant.

This film is something like the next generation answer to "Falling Down". A man is stressed out by his life, and it manifests itself in ways that are not really helpful to society. However, whereas Michael Douglas simply became increasing violent, our protagonist here also seems to be heading in a direction of mental derangement, and the viewer may not always be able to predict what will happen next. This subtle difference is what would make "Tilt" a so-called "genre" film, but "Falling Down" not so much.

What also makes the protagonist interesting to watch (and really, this is essentially a character study) is his own inflated sense of self. He goes through the struggle and stress of compromise with his wife, and this is really laid bare when he confronts another man and asks that man about his single status. We are then informed that a dichotomy exists: marriage or freedom. Our protagonist chose marriage, and therefore (under these limited guidelines) sees that he has forfeited his freedom.

And his ambition may be ill-placed. While he is certainly knowledgeable and passionate about his film deconstructing the fallacy of the "American Golden Age", he also seems to have delusions of being the next Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn. He is ironically convinced that there is great commercial value in anti-capitalist material. And while that may be true, the ideas of America's "war profiteering" or "evolved propaganda" are already out there. He would be adding a whisper to a scream. (Does the viewer recall Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story"? Even with Moore's sizable influence, it had little impact.)

Then there is the Trump connection. While this inclusion of the 2016 election cycle makes for a perfect counter-balance to the anti-establishment views of our subject, it has the unfortunate side effect of making the movie sort of dated. Will it have the same impact five years from now? Though it brilliantly have me wondering if it was filmed in "real time" or after the fact, given its early 2017 release. When our subject says "the day of the blustering angry white man is over", was this scripted with the knowledge in mind that Trump had won, or still at a time when that decision was unexpected?

"Tilt" was screened at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. Though it may not have been the best of the "midnight" offerings, it is still an excellent film. Anyone drawn to character studies or overtly psychological movies is encouraged to seek it out. Most likely, it will have either a wider release or appear on demand by the third quarter of the year.