Three young people-- congenitally uncomfortable Forward, her best friend Warren, and Warren's crude boyfriend Paton-- enjoy a secret and illicit holiday on the top floor of an unused resort. Their first morning, the elevator stops working (as well as the emergency stairs' door). Then, the nightmares start.
The Snare actually starts off strong (and in the closing camera-work, Cooper finally shows what he could have accomplished had he put his back into it.) But this film, which is primarily about 3 people's boredom, is itself just as boring.
The characters throw their hands up helplessly very early in the film-- despite having access to much that they could use to try to escape, from fire, to water, to heavy toilets. This film could have chronicled their descent into helplessness, echoed in the transformation of his set, but Cooper's characters are helpless from the beginning, and his movie is static because of it. Forward's initial discomfort is believable, and suggests the potential for transformation-- but no, she never moves past her unease, and Cooper never gives her the opportunity to deviate from the single expression she wears throughout the film.
What about the supernatural element? The creep value? The earliest scenes are good, but The Snare runs out of steam fast, quickly settling into a junior high level of creep, down to the hackneyed phrases carved on the walls, down to the junior high notebook art.
The first thirty minutes of The Snare aren't bad. But the last sixty aren't only bad, they're unchanging. And it's such a shame, because in that first thirty minutes lies the potential for a great film. I'd recommend passing on The Snare.
The Snare actually starts off strong (and in the closing camera-work, Cooper finally shows what he could have accomplished had he put his back into it.) But this film, which is primarily about 3 people's boredom, is itself just as boring.
The characters throw their hands up helplessly very early in the film-- despite having access to much that they could use to try to escape, from fire, to water, to heavy toilets. This film could have chronicled their descent into helplessness, echoed in the transformation of his set, but Cooper's characters are helpless from the beginning, and his movie is static because of it. Forward's initial discomfort is believable, and suggests the potential for transformation-- but no, she never moves past her unease, and Cooper never gives her the opportunity to deviate from the single expression she wears throughout the film.
What about the supernatural element? The creep value? The earliest scenes are good, but The Snare runs out of steam fast, quickly settling into a junior high level of creep, down to the hackneyed phrases carved on the walls, down to the junior high notebook art.
The first thirty minutes of The Snare aren't bad. But the last sixty aren't only bad, they're unchanging. And it's such a shame, because in that first thirty minutes lies the potential for a great film. I'd recommend passing on The Snare.