So, first off, upon reading the reviews from folks who say this is "terrible...the worst...horrible acting..." and other such negative descriptors, all I can say is that I completely disagree. Many of the items listed as "bad," were, to me, what made the film good.
First, the acting. Contrary to what a few of the poorly written back-seat directors wrote in their reviews, I thought the acting was very good. There are three main characters, and while the first few minutes of their interaction made me feel that acting was bad, it only took a little while before I realized that it wasn't bad acting, but intentional dialog and speech written in. The man playing the autistic character does a very good and convincing job in his role. His motor, speech, and physical actions are done extremely well- my mother taught autistic children for 40 years, so I've seen a lot of this. The other two actors are also very capable in their roles.
Similar to the acting is the directing & writing. For the writing, I really liked the premise. I had hoped for a little more gore - which is initially what drew me to the film - but found that there was just enough within the context of a deeper story, to keep it interesting on that level. In other words, THIS IS NOT THE GOREFEST I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE, but was a pleasant surprise. The other facet that should be noted is that nobody takes this film too seriously. Not the actors, not the writer(s), not the director. This is illustrated in multiple scenes, both by dialog and script. The "waltz" scene is perfect, in my opinion, and lends itself to some really dark, distorted, black comedy. So yes...the writing and directing was a pleasant surprise.
Production, I would say, is the weakest part of the film. The editing is shoddy, and the sound is blown-out in several parts. At least it was filmed with professional equipment and doesn't sound like standard b-flick ambient mics that so often set the bad movies in their own.
The special fx were good! Everything was done with practical fx, instead of cgi (thank goodness). The gory parts are well done and are convincing.
While the film, its creators, and the actors don't taken themselves too seriously, the film does indeed exude deeper messages and stories. While enjoyable, this is where the acting breaks down a little. All actors do a good job through most of the film, but there is a slight breakdown of skill in a couple of the more seriously coined scenes. That doesn't mean they're bad scenes, only that there are subtle differences viewers might notice.
All in all, this was a really good watch. I'm a bit of a gorehound, so while I had hoped for more, the film, nonetheless, held my attention and my curiosity continued peaking throughout; all the way to the end.
Notes on parental content:
- There is a fair amount of profanity throughout. It is not gratuitous, but there is indeed consistent use.
- Intense scenes: there are a couple intense sequences, but not necessarily for the reasons one would think. I would say that more than "intensity," what we get is thematically geared toward adults. This definitely isn't a kid friendly film.
- Nudity and rape are prevalent in the film, as well as incest. Again, not for kids.
- Violence/Gore: while not as consistently gory as I initially expected, there are a handful of truly gore filled scenes. The violence is minimal, but the gore occurs sporadically throughout the film. There is also a torture element, with a few scenes that left me cringing.
This is definitely worth a watch! It's listed as a horror flick, and while there are horror elements (a la 'Closetland' or 'Misery') it's more dramatic thriller than horror, IMO.
