Dangerous to Know

I've been a fan of David Simpsons books for a few years now. I was intrigued when I heard of his film project and surprised when I learned it was far from his usual genre of science fiction. A horror film project? How could a science fiction author make a credible horror movie? I can tell you that after finally getting a chance to see a screening of this film I was absolutely blown away by what he pulled off.

Consider the undertaking of making an independent film from conception, writing, directing, scoring and producing and that it is his first attempt in a completely new medium outside his comfort zone, and you will be pleasantly surprised too. The visuals of this film are beautiful and the quality of the overhead views is not to be underestimated, The beautiful settings serve to juxtapose the sinister underlying nature of the various characters. Nearly every character is flawed and this serves to keep you guessing on what is unfolding before you. This is no Hollywood horror story by the way, it's a full-on psychological thriller. The main characters battles with mental illness play no small part in this film and this is something that should be given further credence and examination in more films today. I was very pleased overall with the film and only wish that I could have seen it on a better system (theatre please) as I found the score overpowered some dialogue in a couple of the more intimate dialogue scenes with the rudimentary sound set up I had.

Other than that I found this film to be a thrilling visual and psychological trip. This film was made on a shoe string budget by an independent author and should be held up as an example to other artists out there looking for their opportunity to show their skills without depending on that (non-existent) Hollywood "security" . You can do it to!! Get after it!

Bravo!

Greg Day tweeted that this film was "a challenging 183 mins long but I was hooked by this experimental, existentalist murder thriller"

But wow this movies had amazing soundscape and the story alone reminded me of how well drawn out the characters were and what were their motivations.

It definitely isn't for everyone. But if you like a movie with lots of substance and great visuals. This is the movie to watch.

As a follower of Davids books for a number of years , this was an exciting development in David career , and in my opinion did not disappoint . Full of twists and turns , great characters , independent film making at its best . With the right backing and exposure Davids works are destined for greatness I cannot wait for the journey. Dave Mather.(U. K.)

First off, I can see what this movie was trying to do... but 180 minutes for a horror/thriller is wayyyyy too long! That being said, with some re-editing and some sound mixing this does have the potential to do well (and be under the 2hr mark)

The score is beautiful however, the sound can be overbearing making it hard to understand the dialogue. Less is more when it comes to sound for thrillers, the score is so constant that it feels like it is trying to force the audience how to feel rather than letting it breathe and allowing the audience to wait in suspense. Also, the ADR is a little sketchy at the beginning, but again, that could be fixed with sound mixing and editing.

It is a little dialogue heavy, but the actors are solid. The lead actress (Bridget Graham) is pretty and interesting to watch, but I was actually really impressed with the bad guy (Andrew Robert Wilson). I feel like the "psychos" rarely get credit in these movies, but for the amount of dialogue he had to deliver over the number of long monologues he had to say, he did keep my interest and was very impressive, I look forward to seeing him in more things.

Hats off to David Simpson (director, actor, composer, editor) for the many hats he wore in putting this together, it's clear that it was a passion project. I give this an 7 out of 10 because I can see what he was trying to pull off, however, I do think there is a solid and tight 100-120min intense thriller here just dying to come out.

Right from the start the sound design is horrible, a loud score stops you from hearing the characters, there's some horrendous dubbing that took me right out of the film, there's a scene where two guys are driving around and there's no sound of the car driving just the dubbed talking of these two guys.

I felt like I was watching this years The Room when watching this. Everyone feels like they are looking at their script when talking, there's too much cringy acting and to add all that into the runtime makes it painful to watch.

Someone needed to tell Simpson to cut 2 hours off this film because nobody wants to sit through how long this is.