I occasionally seek out low-budget movies (mostly sci-fi) because they tend to explore less conventional ideas in less conventional ways. This movie is definitely low-budget, but it just plays like an amateurish student film trying (and badly failing) to be a Hollywood horror. I can endure 3rd-rate acting/directing/filming/effects in small doses, but not when they're across the board. The only thing that kept this from being a one-star rating was that I found some of the stylistic visual flair to show at least some concept of what could be done on a low budget -- the first 5-10 minutes of the film were like a low-budget version of Sin City (i.e., highly stylized) -- but then we go to much more mundane shots that look like video taken with a cell phone camera -- the camera work is just bad.
R. R. Baker loves extreme close-ups... especially of himself. Some of those shots are so extreme that they almost look like a parody. The movie feels like a vanity project. In an early sequence, Mr. Baker portrays himself like some superhero as he fights off a group of police officers (his colleagues, no less) with his quasi-karate and remarkable speed (all after he's barely recovered from a near-fatal bullet wound). Then there are his superhero jumps, most of which end with a shot where you only see his feet landing... to show how high he jumped... I guess?
Most of the acting is just outright terrible, some of it painfully so. There is a tragic death early on which should feel devastating, but by the time it happened, the characters were so badly portrayed that I just didn't care -- there wasn't a single moment that elicited a genuine emotional response.
There's an odd introduction to the movie which had me confused. Baker (as producer/director, not character) talks about how this is an "underground" movie as if it were revealing some hidden truths or some such. But the intro ends by "breaking character" with a schlocky attempt at a jump scare, which unintentionally foreshadows the quality of what's to come. In retrospect, I think the intro was probably put in as an excuse (or acknowledgment) of just how low the quality of the movie is.
As mentioned, I'm ok with low budgets when there's at least a good idea being explored, but The God of Death just played like a hack job -- the quality was extremely low, and the story just was not interesting. I stopped watching after 30 minutes.
R. R. Baker loves extreme close-ups... especially of himself. Some of those shots are so extreme that they almost look like a parody. The movie feels like a vanity project. In an early sequence, Mr. Baker portrays himself like some superhero as he fights off a group of police officers (his colleagues, no less) with his quasi-karate and remarkable speed (all after he's barely recovered from a near-fatal bullet wound). Then there are his superhero jumps, most of which end with a shot where you only see his feet landing... to show how high he jumped... I guess?
Most of the acting is just outright terrible, some of it painfully so. There is a tragic death early on which should feel devastating, but by the time it happened, the characters were so badly portrayed that I just didn't care -- there wasn't a single moment that elicited a genuine emotional response.
There's an odd introduction to the movie which had me confused. Baker (as producer/director, not character) talks about how this is an "underground" movie as if it were revealing some hidden truths or some such. But the intro ends by "breaking character" with a schlocky attempt at a jump scare, which unintentionally foreshadows the quality of what's to come. In retrospect, I think the intro was probably put in as an excuse (or acknowledgment) of just how low the quality of the movie is.
As mentioned, I'm ok with low budgets when there's at least a good idea being explored, but The God of Death just played like a hack job -- the quality was extremely low, and the story just was not interesting. I stopped watching after 30 minutes.