A young writer dreams of an odd house and sees many deaths connected with it. Where does reality end?A young writer dreams of an odd house and sees many deaths connected with it. Where does reality end?A young writer dreams of an odd house and sees many deaths connected with it. Where does reality end?
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- TriviaThis was filmed in Decker, Indiana. The actor Goodnow was a native.
Featured review
Interesting despite crude sound work.
The main distraction to this film is a very crude sound job--even by Carnival of Souls standards. But as with that film the lack of much sound other than dialogue creates a mood that adds to the atmosphere which is so essential to this type of horror story. Like Carnival this movie revolves around one specific location--in this case a house and the film is about how the frightening things the main character sees in his dreams (or are they only in his dreams) at this abandoned house impact his life outside the house and dreams--and there are even more psychological motivations in this one than in Carnival.
To be clear Carnival of Souls is a bigger budget film and better--or more traditionally better made-- than this one--to keep things in perspective. And the plots are not the same. It's just these films draw comparison to each other perhaps because there aren't many films like them.
The early real world scenes with no sound other than obviously post dubbed dialogue do go on for too long but as the film advances the dream scenes get longer and the real world stuff gets shorter and they balance each other well and some tension mounts for as the dream trips to the house increase the main character's life falls apart.
All the dialogue--virtually--is dubbed after the film was shot which hurts the performances which other wise wouldn't be too bad and director Berry actually gives a good performance regardless as the tortured writer lead character. The abandoned house is a pretty creepy location which helps. The music score is actually pretty interesting, sure in the dreams its atonal and irritating--but that's on purpose as it's an unsettling dream. It's easy to make fun of the organ music at first but it does it's work. The film contrasts the real world events with the dream ones and it's possible the lack of sound is intentional as there are a few scenes which seem to be more natural sound-wise that should be viewed as normal compared to the scenes and events without sound that aren't real. Or it's a happy accident.
This film is unusual even a bit experimental, well photographed if not too well edited--the normal scenes cut jarringly from shot to shot--but this same approach to the dream scenes is quite good. Maybe it's all just an accident that the film is effective at all --a result of its limitations, but once you get over what it lacks in polish the more it will get to you. For the curious film viewer and genre fan give it a watch for its virtues and its faults if you have some patience and imagination of thought you may well find this film pretty memorable.
To be clear Carnival of Souls is a bigger budget film and better--or more traditionally better made-- than this one--to keep things in perspective. And the plots are not the same. It's just these films draw comparison to each other perhaps because there aren't many films like them.
The early real world scenes with no sound other than obviously post dubbed dialogue do go on for too long but as the film advances the dream scenes get longer and the real world stuff gets shorter and they balance each other well and some tension mounts for as the dream trips to the house increase the main character's life falls apart.
All the dialogue--virtually--is dubbed after the film was shot which hurts the performances which other wise wouldn't be too bad and director Berry actually gives a good performance regardless as the tortured writer lead character. The abandoned house is a pretty creepy location which helps. The music score is actually pretty interesting, sure in the dreams its atonal and irritating--but that's on purpose as it's an unsettling dream. It's easy to make fun of the organ music at first but it does it's work. The film contrasts the real world events with the dream ones and it's possible the lack of sound is intentional as there are a few scenes which seem to be more natural sound-wise that should be viewed as normal compared to the scenes and events without sound that aren't real. Or it's a happy accident.
This film is unusual even a bit experimental, well photographed if not too well edited--the normal scenes cut jarringly from shot to shot--but this same approach to the dream scenes is quite good. Maybe it's all just an accident that the film is effective at all --a result of its limitations, but once you get over what it lacks in polish the more it will get to you. For the curious film viewer and genre fan give it a watch for its virtues and its faults if you have some patience and imagination of thought you may well find this film pretty memorable.
helpful•10
- HEFILM
- Jul 3, 2015
Details
- Runtime1 hour 11 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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