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- magical realism or just straight-up bizzare happenings that aren't consistent with the established universe
Reviews
Creep (2014)
More of a spaghetti story than a horror film
If you're all about getting bored and watching some DeviantArt-esque "tubby time" involving a murderous furry, then this is the film for you!
Build-up tried requires payoff. But this movie? It broke new ground by instead having complete bathos. Was it ineffective and unsatisfying? Yes! Perhaps there's a reason all other films don't go for this kind of lackluster narrative...
Get ready for YouTube vlog tier editing in one of the only found footage films dumb enough to only have one camera in operation, inevitably making all editing hideous and every cut demolish your immersion. Seriously, big mistake.
The ending jumpscare might be the worst one of its kind ever filmed. I fear for the legions of people who were forced to watch this abomination by their friends, and the relationships it inevitably destroyed.
King Candy (2015)
Experience For The Director - Not Much To Offer Viewer
"King Candy" is student film thematically similar to "Breaking Bad", only with selling sweets for "charity" (i.e. the protagonist's pocket) instead of crystal meth for cancer costs. It has flashes of competence, flashes of incompetence, and an overall impression of mediocrity.
It's held together by strong voice-over narration and a competent script; then the voice-over narration stops, making things fall apart. Films are difficult to make so it's easy to appreciate the work that went into this on a (presumed) zero budget, and you can tell that the filmmaker will learn a lot from making this, but it does not have much to offer any viewer.
Quickly paced with a good script and some impressive moments (liking the fly-on-the-wall style, editing and concept), but with rather obvious errors in places, including noise levels and some really, really poor colour grading. Most of the colour grading is fine, but some of it is literally bright yellow (more yellow than Jeunet) and it's very distracting, especially when the rapid jump cuts take us from yellow shot to shot without any colour grading straight afterwards. The electric score just bursts into classical music at seemingly random points which is bizarre and jarring. At one point "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" comes on while the protagonist is in serious trouble, at one of the darkest moments, and it's tonally inappropriate.
The lighting compensates for the lack of /literally any/ sets quite well, but it's still quite obvious that it has been filmed primarily in the filmmaker's home and school/college. In terms of visuals it feels almost like it would work better as a podcast - it's clear that Sepe has a story to tell here (an interesting one about fake charities), and an interesting one, but the visuals really don't add anything to a movie reliant on constant voice-over dialogue to communicate every event happening. When direct speech does take place it's brief and mostly unintelligible over ambient noise (one does wonder if the reason he chose this format was unusable audio). And when the narration stops... oh dear.
My friends thought the main problem with this movie was the "auteur" Ralph Sepe Jr's acting. Directing yourself is hard when you've made more than one movie - he needed someone to give him feedback on his performance, or -controversial- to actually hire an actor. Since he's in practically every shot it's a pretty all-consuming error, the kind that costs the whole movie. Without that flaw this would have probably been a 6. Luckily I'm autistic so I can't read expressions so it didn't really ruin it for me, unlike my friends who were very vocal in their disapproval. All the acting was pretty flat, apparently. I thought the characterization was good - script not performance.
The script trails off towards the end, the criticism of mob mentality comes off as incredibly arrogant. "Look, I made a movie - I'm better than you" comes across overwhelmingly, and it's very unclear what he's criticising us for. Imitating movies? Don't know anyone who does that. "Just sitting there and watching" movies? Okay, Ralph, you got me - I won't watch another one of your movies if it offends you so deeply.
Also, one last point: no way did anyone say this was "too dark" for their film festival (mentioned on Sepe's IMDb page). Seriously. It's not particularly dark. A child gets threatened? Someone eats marijuana in a brownie? "Based on a true story" (ugh - if he actually did this he's an asshole and if he didn't then why would you put that? It adds nothing). Occasional meta moments at the end? Not dark.
Love of My Life (2013)
Romance Not Gore
The pacing is pretty bad and there's hardly any gore, so if that's what you're after you won't find it here. That said, the gore is central enough to the premise that if you dislike gore then this film won't work for you either.
The filmmaking isn't bad - there's some nice parallel action and the cinematography is pretty good - but it's still not really sufficient to hold your attention. As horror films go it's okay, but the focus on romance make it seem more like drama than horror - drama bookended by pretty tame torture-porn.
I'd recommend watching it if you don't have much else to do and you like mediocre romance and implied violence. There are some plot twists which are pretty stupid to be honest, but at least they tried to do something original.