I went into this movie with slightly reserved expectations, but in the end I was pleasantly surprised. It is about a troubled young girl who starts working as a night watch in a big abandoned building. Her supervisor is played by Jason Patric, who gave a decent performance of his character. What was suppose to be a routine and boring job turns out to be a living hell, when Streak (Louisa Krause) finds out they are not alone in the building. There were some clichés typical for the horror genre, but the story was suspenseful and rather interesting until the end. The movie ended with a nice twist that kept me thinking about it for awhile. 8/10 score from me.
... View MoreSpoiler free statement: Expend your time on this at your own risk. Once you get to the ending, you'll possibly be wondering how anything made any sense, even within the confines of the movie's own world in a bottle. You're not missing anything. There is not enough meaningfulness in this film, as presented, to extract solid conclusions about what you watched. It spoon feeds you clichés and so-called surprises and refuses to justify character attitudes, motivations, actions, or reactions. These aren't complex and subtle things. There's nothing to uncover except one plot point you will probably see coming from the moment the protagonist suddenly discovers the history of the building (her declaration of having finally uncovered the details comes without the film ever having given us the sense that she was actually looking). Finally, the movie tries to surprise you at the end, only to make the preceding content entirely irrelevant. This is not good story telling. It's paint-by-numbers movie industry product assembly with the illusion of depth. Actual depth requires structure and the ability to take the ending and reframe all that went before it in a new and meaningful way. It's a shame movies like this have actors in them. As in, people who's livelihood depends on the success of the films they work on. Such films as this one probably don't do their careers any favors with the next job, especially with how actors tend to get blamed by audiences for the poor job done by the writers and directors who's material the actors are performing to specification. Then again, it wasn't really given a large release. Sometimes that's for lack of access and sometimes that's for lack of quality. I'm suspecting the latter here.One specific complaint: many of the reviews talk about a spectacular filming location. All I saw was a set of disparate locations stitched together by editing that makes it clear to me that each room is a different filming locale (or fails to show that any of these rooms is even related to the rest; often, moving from one physical location to another involves an edit, rather than passing the viewer through the environment from one space to the next). I don't buy that this was one location. If it really was, then wow, the editing and directing failed spectacularly to show it. It is left entirely to the willing suspension of disbelief of the audience to imagine these rooms relate to each other. This is common in lower budget productions where you often assemble fictitious locations via editing. I don't call 1.5 MILLION dollars to be "low budget", but I guess that's how it is these days and I'm being naive to expect more for that much money.It amazes me that people don't notice this, but then I also find myself rather alone in hating so much foley in TV and film. In fact, the foley bothered me more than the disparate locations on display. At least the locations and lighting result in an interesting atmosphere. But, that's really all there is: Atmosphere and cliché.
... View MoreThis murky little horror film involves a woman who may or may not be going out of her mind who gets a job as a security guard at a run down old apartment complex which has been long since abandoned. Her only company on the job is a fellow guard, cynical and disabled. The woman becomes convinced that a sinister presence lurks within the confines of the building and takes it upon herself to investigate...As you'd guess from the premise, CONFINED is very much par for the course for this type of film-making. It feels a lot like GRAVE ENCOUNTERS and the like, albeit without the 'found footage' hook and shooting more traditionally instead. There's a lot of stuff with CCTV footage, which is quite neat, but more often than not the film descends into the usual wandering around in dimly lit corridor type scenarios.The film lacks decent cast members; those present are okay, but hardly electrifying. Jason Patric (THE LOST BOYS) looks so unrecognisable that it took me half the film to realise who I was watching. And despite repeated efforts on the part of the director, CONFINED doesn't manage to be scary for a moment.
... View MoreI'll make it quick... The Abandoned has a rather boring story that has been told in many a suspense movies before. Although the end may explain the many questions and plot holes - it remains a highly unsatisfying movie.The acting is over the top. Instead of subtlety, the actors pretty much switch from one extreme to another.Also - even a Ninja Turtle animated episode is probably scarier than this movie.It is a very disappointing 2/10. It is not a 1 because it is not dreadful - just boring.
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