FILMBRATS - REVIEWS

“A gun blast, a flash of light, [sic] and a young woman awakens to the comfort of her own bed. Bonnie Clayton has it all, a great relationship, a challenging career, and the burden of a dream that grows more vivid and disturbing with each passing night. But when Bonnie is abducted by a sadistic stranger and his colorful entourage, she discovers that the key to her survival lies within the familiar realms of her recurring dream.”

This hardly describes the film I saw. Sure there was a captured girl named Bonnie, and the sadistic stranger did have an eclectic crew, but I honestly don’t remember anything about this supposed back story, nor do I recall a point in the film where she uses any aspect of her dream to overcome any obstacles. Perhaps that all flashed by too quickly. The movie contains a few sequences with rapid-fire montages of what we can only safely assume is a flashback. The work is somewhat David Fincher influenced in that respect (and the end credits are straight-up stolen from “Se7en”). The Fincher feel also permeates the atmospheric set which contains a good blend of colors and tones within the dank space. However the camera work and editing don’t hold up to the same standard. With the abundance of tracking shots and the penchant for shooting through fences or hole-filled objects, the cinematography reminds me of an advanced level student film.

Making his debut with this twenty-minute short, director/co-writer Alex Ferrari (Jorge F. Rodriguez is the other writer) is obviously limited by his small budget (reported to be $8,000). After a little set-up, the majority of the film is a long action sequence/fight/shootout. Expect to see a lot of special effects created by a newer Macintosh computer with good prosumer software. Also expect the editing to provide “cheating” cutaways that are necessary to cover up the problems in the fight scene that the budget creates. It’s a shame that more money wasn’t available or used, because the choreography is thoroughly planned out and would look a lot cooler than it already does if it didn’t have to cut away before a projectile sticks into someone or disables the bad guy’s goon. But as it stands, it’s still an enjoyable fight and works well with what is available.

But although the film has a better than average production value for something this size, it’s still marred by horrible acting and very poor story construction. All of the actors appear to be rookies. This is certainly apparent, especially in the case of the main baddie. His body language was that of an exaggerated robot and his lackluster monologue delivery relies heavily on the slow, drawn out, raspy, guttural stereotypical villain voice. But I think the story is the real downfall of the picture. It opens with a very cheesy horror cliché sequence, and then regresses into pointless dialogue that doesn’t really tells us much of anything about what’s going on. We get the impression that she’s captured and that the kidnapper wants her dead, but all of that back story in that summary up above is nowhere to be found. At one point, an assassin sneaks into the compound to confront the kidnapper. He proceeds to peel off his mask to reveal his identity. This shot may be more poignant or more of a shock if we knew who the hell he was beforehand.

The movie is essentially a long clip of a longer feature. What we’re seeing is a climax in what has to be a bigger story that goes beyond the realms of what is seen on the screen. Unfortunately, the audience isn’t clued in to what may have happened before to lead into this climax or why, and the impact of the surprisingly predictable ending is lessened because of this as well. It would be nice to see a feature length expansion to see if the story is even worth fleshing out, but if it happens, I hope they get a bigger budget and a whole new crop of better actors.

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