Carrion

My biggest complaint about this film is the acting. The lead actress is decent, but the others are often unconvincing when delivering their lines. If you can look past that, it's a fun B-movie with gorgeous visuals and a clever twist ending. At ~72 minutes it doesn't overstay its welcome either.

The strongest element of this film is its visual appeal. While many things about "Carrion" feel low-budget, the cinematography and editing are excellent. I see that the director is an experienced visual effects artist and it really shows here.

The plot is a bit sparse, or shall we say impressionistic. This movie is more focused on creating a feeling and a visual experience rather than a rich narrative. I would have given the plot a thumbs down, but I think the twist in the final act redeemed it for me. I didn't find it scary, but it was fun and quirky.

Another reviewer compared this movie to the work of Panos Cosmatos and that seems fair. I think "Beyond the Black Rainbow" is a better movie overall, but if you enjoyed it then I'd recommend giving "Carrion" a try.

I do wish I could give it a higher mark, but some of the way its shot comes off as amateurish and disjointed. I really hate the shaky camera business - even though in this case it is done for a certain effect I still wish they would have come up with another way.

But the story is really interesting and creative, albeit it can be difficult to follow and may not be for everyone. This is definitely not gonna be for everyone its very creative but I enjoyed it.

When the director has a cinematography background instead of being a writer, you can almost excuse a poor plot. But you'd like to think it would at least be visually stunning. Unfortunately, even with the sound turned off, this film is excruciating to watch. For example, the screen image goes from the normal HDTV dimensions all the way to 3:55:1 (half as tall for the same width) and back again, sometimes quite rapidly. That's like trying to peek through a gap between your fingers while your hand covers your eyes. Also, the film has been heavily color filtered. If you think of the normal spectrum of colors as ROYGBIV, all you would see on the film is just the OY part. And that's about half of the movie. Getting away from just the cinematography of the film to the other aspects, there's a confusing Russian accent on the main character, sound recording that suggests that most everything was dubbed later, and a line delivery style that seems like the actors are reading things off of cue cards for the first time. All of this makes trying to follow anything almost impossible. But, by the end of the movie, you'll realize that it was never worth trying to figure out. It's just an it-sounded-deep-when-I-was-on-peyote plot with flimsy cardboard characters and the most gratuitous of nude scenes ever.

Usually when a film has polarized reviews, I see this as a sign that there's something good about it that most people just aren't getting. But not this time. While the story idea has merit, the acting, script, and direction are all just so far below par that I have to throw my lot in with the low reviewers. I love horror so much that I'm very tolerant of flaws. But this was just bad, bad, bad.

Good plot idea. Some decent acting on the girls' part. This movie would be a decent attempt at a school of the arts film but the director forgot one thing... a movie is supposed to be good, not just artsy.