Waking Karma

A small film with sincere intentions, but fails to live up to its full potential. The film is co-directed by Carlos Montaner and Liz Fania Werner and focuses on Karma, the daughter of a cult leader who murdered 11 people. The film is set up like a "fugitive family" thriller, with Karma and her mother, Sunny, trying to escape the cult and live off-the-grid. The film makes the most of its minimal budget with a strong cast and an interesting storyline, but the filmmaking is often unmemorable and the editing is haphazard.

Despite these missteps, the film has some standout performances, particularly from Hannah Christine Shetler who brings an impressive range to her role as Karma. Michael Madsen's portrayal of the cult leader, Paul, is also noteworthy. Overall, "Waking Karma" is a heartfelt film that falls short in its execution, but is still worth watching for its performances and story.

For starters: It's not an horror film. It is a creepy and sometimes disturbing psychological movie. Two different things. It had a lot to say about grief and trauma. Great acting. Mom and daughter are impeccable. Madsen' performance is very good. He fit perfectly for that role :-) Well written, paced, shot and directed. Film went in some unexpected directions that managed to both surprise and disturb. This isn't a movie for the average audience. It will gets under your skin but you'll also have to pay attention. Impeccable photography, always keeps you tense. Psychologically and visually disturbing, this film does not hold back. A must watch for sure!

Anyone giving this more than three stars (and that is being generous to a fault) is related to this project in some form. Period. There is no way anyone can give this trainwreck a high score. There are six characters in the whole movie and every single one is more unlikable than that last.

The main ...girl... looks like a boy and of course is a vegan, because... reasons. I will at least give credit that, when mom asks her if she likes girls (because, you know... reasons), she at least claims to "like boys, they just don't like {her}." Maybe if she actually looked like a girl,.. but I digress. She can't act, either. At one point, she is supposed to be crying, but what comes out is... I don't even know what that was.

Of course you've got the completely unnecessary line about Mexican girls going missing but "no one cares about poor brown girls." :eye_roll: Gotta shoehorn that into everything nowadays, huh? The whole "Mexican girls" thing had literally no bearing on the rest of the movie whatsoever. It was just a vehicle to insert that single line.

Mom.. wow. That woman could not act her way out of a wet paper bag. The facial expressions she makes look more like she's constipated than whatever emotions she supposed to be trying to express. Her lines don't make sense either. At one point she tells her daughter that "nothing was a lie" but then goes on to explain how everything was, in fact, a lie. :eye_roll:

The old man smiles the entire time. No matter what is happening around him - talking about his daughter who was murdered, people getting killed, his wife being threatened... he smiles nonstop. I guess he's ok, comparatively speaking, in contrast to the other characters, but... nah.

Way too many plot holes. The main girl is locked in a shed at one point. A shed with windows. Does she try to open a window? Or use one of the many tools around her to break a window? Nah... too easy. No explanation about the reasoning surrounding any of it - the mask, the "rituals"... nothing.

The only redeeming quality, if you can call it that, is Michael Madsen. I've always liked him and he is the only reason I even sat through this abomination. And trust me... no matter how much you like Madsen, he does not make this worth it.