Coven

This movie sucks.

I know how much work goes into a production like this and I feel for Mike and everything he did with this movie, but it's quality is shoddy as hell. And I don't mean the camera and stuff like that. I LOVED clerks and that was shot with the same thing.

First of all, you can't tell when the protagonist is hallucinating and when he's not. The Cinematography doesn't carry those scenes. Now, this could be interesting if the plot was cohesive, but that doesn't happen either. A combination of poor dialogue, awkward transitions, and poor pacing stop that.

Honestly, this movie is just one giant manifestation of how Mark is in denial about his alcoholism.

But god bless him for making it.

After watching American Movie, you have the option on the DVD to view the short film Coven. After watching this, most will come to the conclusion that Mark Borchardt is not an amazing independent film maker. He is in fact just one of many "movie makers" that want to be the next big thing. Mark's 3 year struggle to make this film was a problem of Mark's own doing. Many of the mistakes and unprofessional storytelling made Mark spend months and months correcting his vision. A victim of circumstances and his own Ego, Mark should have waited and saved thousands of dollars by shooting the entire movie on digital. He could have shot the same movie in 1 week and saved 90% of the money he spent. Shooting on 8mm or 16mm doesn't make you a film maker. Coven was Mark's calling card to prove to the world of his talent. Conclusion: Mark is a dime a dozen. Then again, it shows you how much heart one movie maker has to make his / her movie.

I'm not sure if I still would've loved Coven if I had not seen American Movie, which tracked how director Mark Borchardt spent more than three years and hundreds of man hours to make a film. What was this movie is revealed, sort of, during the course of American Movie, but only in snippets. By the end, when Chris Smith shows a quasi-trailer for Coven, one gets really hyped to watch the whole thing. Thankfully we all can thanks to it being featured on the DVD, and it's really quite impressive. It's shot with an eye for creativity and an odd sense of horror by Borchardt and he gets some crazy and intense performances from his actors, especially one (I forget his name) who looks like an Orson Welles love-child.

And yet, as enjoyable and intense as the movie becomes- about a writer who becomes involved in a rehab group that is really a coven of witches (some women some male)- I wonder now if I would've connected to it more if I had not seen Smith's film. One saw in that, for example, how Borchardt and his friends abused alcohol over the years, and especially how his friend Mike took far too many acid trips and became the slow-talking (though amiable) guy he is today. So, seeing those rehab scenes one gets a more personal sense from Borchardt after seeing the documentary (not to mention his love of Night of the Living Dead projected through in Coven via harrowing hand-held black and white cinematography on a cheap-ass camera, and funky music, and some nasty gore).

But if you do watch it first on the DVD, or find it online, it's still by itself a successful work of primitive art: an independent film that is crude and uncouth, and with some really bizarre, effective scenes like the one in the hospital elevator, or when Mark is in the woods and is surrounded by the men in black cloaks.

I don't get those who trash "Coven". It is a legit attempt at movie making, and while I can't rate very high due the fact there are many technical issues with this film and some issues with the script, it still is better than most low budget thrillers I have seen. I've seen worse acting in other low budget movies, and while not Oscar material, the acting for the most part doesn't hinder the movie in any way. No I can't do better, but rated against Orson Wells or Woody Allen this is okay at best. Rated against all the stuff he had go through to get this made and his lack of a budget it is a quite amazing piece of work. I'd like to see Mark with a real budget and real actors - the results can't be any worse those some stuff coming out of Hollywood already - and if he delivers on the promise he shows in this movie it would be at least entertaining.

I, like anyone else, never would have heard of this film had i not seen Chris Smith and Sarah Price's brilliant, funny and extremely touching documentary "American Movie". I recently purchased the "American Movie" dvd which contains "Coven", invited over a few other fans of the documentary, and gave it a go. The after disscussion concluded with the notion that had Mark Borschardt tried harder to stick with one genre he could have better concentrated on the story and suspense aspects of the horror or the plot and character development of the drama. He has a very artistic look to his film (context - coffee cup) and i believe his only flaw is a lack of concentration on the characters and story (content - the coffee). i am intrested in the results of "Northwestern".