Wait, is this NOT Ocean's 12??

In doing the smallest amount of looking beyond the film, I do see that the writer/director of this film has 32 other credits to his name and two projects listed as upcoming at this time. There's a fair number of TV movies and shorts but this is not the endeavor of an entirely green professional. And for what ends up on screen, if the budget was what is claimed, there really is a lot to praise here. I'm not going to get carried away. The finished product looks nice and is put together like it's an actual movie. But it does hover just above something that could easily be straight to YouTube. For something beyond 100 minutes, though, this movie does do a few things relatively well. So lets cover those bases.

Right off the bat I have to give it to the cast. Michael Swatton as the ominous "Whitlock" and Pragya Shail as the endearing "Ava" stand out considerably. Neither have terribly deep or impressive resumes but both were more than capable against the backdrop of this modernized adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe short story. Whitlock manages to keep a sensibility about himself that lends itself to an overall relatively spooky tone and Shail's Ava is a protagonist that is easy to attach to. She's pleasant and capable with an vintage air about her. The writing is a little clunky in places and some of the notes are somewhat unrealistic. Ava is different because she has no cell phone and no home computer. This movie is very much set in 2025 when it came out. So it's definitely against the norm but she plays it off well as her own personal decision without it seeming like some preachy agenda. It presents some semi-nonsensical problems meant to add layers of stress to her character like missing an email about being fired because she didn't "go to the library today". Like I said, it's not Shakespeare but Shail's general presence makes all of it less than problematic.

The second piece I'd like to highlight as a win also probably comes with a qualifier that it's impressive because of the serious budget constraints. In the modern world of horror cinematography, the presentation of a precarious spirit can be enhanced exponentially by utilizing background or empty space. There were a number of times that that the fright factor was multiplied by how well they employed this visual device. The only place where it got a bit troubling was in the movement. Typically these scenes feel like the pop a lot more when there are quick cuts and jerky movements. The reason the payoff for these moments in the film was lesser was because ultimately there was a much more fluid presentation where you couldn't get caught up in the terror of the instant. I'm not a big fan of dubious jump scares but sometimes you need a bit of hustle on a scene to create the scare ambiance. If you just sort of meander your way into the introduction of a ghostly presence, it's much less intimidating and more inconvenient. The caveat remains that if the budget was as minimal as it was, or even in the same neighborhood, there might be a bit of a pass on this as well since they got about 75% of the way there without 99.9% of the same budget most films, even indie ones, would have to help create those shots.

Finally, when it comes to the positive, I think I really would like to give kudos to the overall adaptation of the story. I read an abridged synopsis of the original short story so I didn't even consume the actual text as it exists. It might not be long and maybe I'll find my way into it at some point. But getting the basic gist of Poe's initial offering, the expansion into the story we get in this film is genuinely impressive. There's a faithfulness to the tale in the ending and I appreciate that as well. There's a reveal that essentially collapses the story into it's own relative cliff's notes within a monologue from Whitlock and sums it up rather nicely. The framework we get around that to create the conflicts and relationships as they exist in this film are still quite impressive in their own right. I think with a greater budget you get a more polished movie, but the story could easily remain and still be just as compelling at it is in it's current state. So I feel like that deserves it's own level of praise.

If I turn to what didn't work, I could be vicious if I really wanted to but at the end of this film, I felt like it was actually appealing enough for what it was to leave it mostly alone. It's definitely not a great movie and I'd have a hard time really putting it out there for anyone else to put 100 minutes, roughly, of their time into watching this movie. I do think if you have tweenagers or other pre-teen kids where you wanted to serve up something a little more nuanced than an episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark" you could get away with this easily. But it's tame as can be in the world of horror flicks, even for PG-13 standards. There's some very minor frights that are implied and attempted but nothing really hits the mark terribly well. The acting is passable for most of the cast because they aren't necessarily accomplished actors. It's not a dig on anyone. It's just the reality that this film was clearly put together by a lot of folks trying hard to make it a low budget film as a means to something greater. We are far from an Aniston in "Leprechaun" or an 80's pre-Scissorhands Depp being sucked into a bloody mattress. I'm not going to hold my breath that anyone from this film makes it big but that's not to say anyone was convincingly bad either. Realistically, just about everything from this movie was adequate. It almost feels like the best word to really describe the film. It was adequate. Not exceptional. Not horrible. It just sort of existed and I existed in the same time and space as it was being displayed for viewing.

The grade I've gotta give this movie is a C-. Its just a little too meh for it to be a fully middle of the road C rated movie. But I will say that for what exists out there in the world of horror, a C- is still a pretty solid grade in my book. It's not all that scary. And for PG-13 its still pretty tame in it's own right. So I'm still not in the space where I'm going to actively tell folks to give it a try. As I outlined, there's a very specific scenario where you might find a way into enjoying this movie. It's got a 5.2/10 on IMDb and of the eight reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, they all seem largely positive. So thankfully this movie seems to have made it's way into the audience it was intending to entertain, which is always a positive. There's very little outside information to go on so there's not a lot else to say about it. I think with tomorrow being back to a regular grind horror flick we will find something far more divisive. It's either going to be really good or really bad. Or middle of the road. Those are all the options. None of that helps. But I'm might just be motivated to pick something I know will be bad. One little twist this year with the 31 days is that I'm letting Ron pick a flick a week so when we sit down to record, we'll at least have one piece of common ground to discuss. So I've got that one coming between tomorrow and Wednesday. We'll see when that makes it way to the screen. But until that point, we'll simply have to wait and see what tomorrow's pick reveals. I'll catch you on the flip side.