Kate Naylor (Whitney Able) lives with her loving girlfriend (Alex Breckenridge) in NYC. It is clear Kate has all kind of issues and may be unstable. When NYC goes dark during the 2003 blackout, our authors spring into action and use this as symbolism as emotionally and mentally, Kate is in a dark place. Get it. It would be soooo Indie clever if it hadn't been done a gazillon times before.What we don't find out is Kate's real issues as she describes her life's problem in the abstract. We hear her say these clever Indie lines like, "I tried to be different" and my all time favorite, worth Indie extra bonus credit "I'm the real me." We have a long drawn out boring scene, not to be confused with the rest of the film outside of the opening lesbian sex scene, where our yoga instructor is smoking a cigarette while talking to a guy who may or may not be there. Here she is saying lines that don't match up with her lips, i.e. she has a cigarette in her mouth while we hear her speaking. That is fine, but I don't know is this by design, i.e. a clue that the guy is not there and she is crazy, or is this some bad over dubbing because they decided to write in some lines post production.If you like watching people buy paper towels and crazy people talking to themselves but not really saying anything, then this film is for you. I couldn't get past someone creating another artsy film and just going through the motions they learned the first day of film school.Guide: Swearing, F/F sex nudity (Whitney Able, Alex Breckenridge)

Oh my holy,merciful God.This movie managed to accomplish what thousands of movies before it have failed to do: Brink me to the threshhold of nausea from the inanity and ambiguity that reeked from this film.With the possible exception of the puzzling lesbian sex scene in the opening,this movie would have received no stars (Oops,I guess that's not allowed).Not even the prescence of the very talented Alexandra Breckinridge could save this movie;the primary reason that I watched it in the first place.What,for instance,happened with very noble Benoit? The last we see of him he is entering Kate's apartment,presumably to have sex,and then nothing after that.Are we supposed to assume that she imagined the whole encounter? Or was this film just directionless enough to not bother showing him after that;that he had sex with Kate and drifted away into the night? And who the hell did Kate sink the hammer into at the end? We're led to believe that it was her girlfriend Leah because all the audience sees is feminine arm.But why would Leah(assuming it's her) practically sneak into her own apartment without even announcing her prescence or even uttering a word for that matter to a woman not very well put together mentally(the prior suicide attempt) before creeping up on her? Makes no sense whatsoever and,trust me,I'm just scratching the surface here.Film like these ,however,give me hope that I can one day make my own film and have a better than 90% chance of it not being this bad.

I give this film a 3 only because of Whitney Able's performance. Had this been a better written better executed film she may have won a Golden Globe or perhaps even gotten an Academy nod. Instead because of poor marketing coupled with boring as heck story telling this goes ignored; except by people like me who get taken in by the poster that makes it seem like a horror movie set during the 2003 NYC blackout.Do not be fooled by the IMDb categorization of this as a horror movie nor as a thriller. It is neither. It is a tale of a woman with some undisclosed and never talked about mental condition who, blackout or not, losing her grip on sanity as a single night passes.That is right. The blackout has nada to do with her fall from sanity. She is not afraid of the dark (she actually goes out to a bar during the event). She is not seeing dead people in the dark. The blackout featured in the packaging and promo has nothing to do with her state of mind.The film starts and stops. It seems to be going somewhere and then, no, we're back hanging out in the candle lit apartment. We're taken on a trip out a window and part way down a fire escape only to be, yes you guessed it, right back in the apartment again.The cherry on top is yet another NON ENDING. We are not quite exactly certain what happened as it is undefined. We are left to ASSUME Kate took a hammer and boom boxed (she smashes a boom box with the hammer) another character but... did she? Is she imagining it? Are we seeing what she is seeing or what she is imagining?? Before the camera can reveal the truth... the credits roll.Whatever happened to writers actually coming up with clever or decisive endings?? If you're looking for a psych tale of a young woman losing her mind over the course of an evening then this film is for you! If you want a thriller or horror film... stay away!

A young bisexual former-model-turned-yoga-instructor (Whitney Able) is in a deteriorating relationship with her girlfriend (Alexandra Breckenridge). When her girlfriend leaves town in the midst of an unresolved argument, she is left alone in their run-down NYC loft just as the famous blackout of 2003 occurs. She has encounters with a couple of potentially sinister men--a weird, overly friendly neighbor (Brendan Sexton III) and a guy she unsuccessfully tries to pick up at the bar. She may be being stalked and externally threatened in real-life, but judging from some quick-cut flashbacks and scars on her wrists, the worst danger may really be in her own mind. . .I suspect when this movie is more widely released, it may have some trouble finding an audience because it looks enough like a horror movie to chase away a lot of the art crowd, but a lot of horror fans may not appreciate its artier trappings and its slow, subtle and largely psychological approach to horror. This movie falls in the school of horror typified by films like "Repulsion", "The Tenant", "Let's Scare Jessica to Death", and "Session 9". These kind of films are rarely made, especially these days. The last two I remember both came from south of the US border--"Magic, Magic", which I thought was unfairly panned, and "La Casa Muda", which was successful enough to inspire an American remake, but was then overshadowed by the failure of said remake. Personally though, I LOVE this brand of arty, slow-simmering horror. I wish they made more of them, but they are both hard to pull off and a hard-sell once produced.The two actresses here are real revelations, especially Whitney Able. They are both known as typical "hot" actresses who take their clothes off a lot (actually they do that here too in an opening sex scene), but they have both gone through some physical changes for this movie and look quite convincing as a NY lesbian couple. Breckenridge's acting is spot-on in her few early scenes, and after she goes, Able has to really carry this movie herself, perhaps even more than Catherine Deneuve does in "Repulsion", where SHE could fall back on the talents of great director Roman Polanski. I don't mean to oversell either the movie or the performance, but it really works, and it really works because of her. It's also good to see the once-busy East Coast indie actor Brendan Sexton III, who was in "Welcome to the Dollhouse", "Boys Don't Cry", and "Session 9", but largely disappeared after that. This movie was also actually filmed in New York City, and like a lot of genuine NYC-filmed movies, the city itself is an important character.This movie is not an easy sell to anybody, but people that really like "Repulsion"-type movies will definitely appreciate this.