diado Reviews

Friend Request (2016)

Camera work and direction not bad, but as a whole pretty poor

[3/10 · 12 September 2016]

Predictable jump scares (so much so that you can count them down in your head and be spot on every time); clichéd plot; awful tech references; nothing original.

You get the picture (no pun intended!)

Having said that, the camera work is fine, the acting is better than most of the genre and the direction isn't terrible either.

If you love this sort of movie, this will be more of the same and there's a chance you'll enjoy it.

If this sort of movie leaves a little cold then you might want to avoid it as you'll pick holes in it almost instantly.

Daddy's Little Girl (II) (2014)

Poor. Really, really poor.

[1/10 · 20 January 2014]

This film has 7.3 on IMDb at the time of writing, and seems to have mostly ten star reviews and few (honest) one or two star reviews. Make of that what you will.

OK, on to the review. This movie is absolutely terrible. It's painful to watch, and not because of all the torture porn! The acting is wooden at best, full of awkward pauses and seemingly either completely emotionless in its delivery, or massively hammy. It feels like you're watching a school play.

The camera and audio work adds to that feeling. Very low apertures are used throughout the film, I assume to attempt to give it some feeling of style, but consequently focus is often slightly off or at times completely missed. The subject is regularly not quite in frame, having the top of their heads out of shot, to the point that I wonder whether it was shot in a completely different aspect ratio and then (badly) cropped. Similarly the audio levels seem to be all over the place, with actors literally having to shout to signify important parts of the plot.

With regards to the story itself, it seems to change pace a lot, to the point that it feels like the important parts were planned out, but the story then came in way below length and so huge amounts of slow-paced filler had to be added. There's a long set up, then a sudden progression which seems like it was meant to be jarring to the viewer, but just feels bodged because of the previous slow pace. Then it slows right down again until the next sudden progression, after which the pace is a little faster and more regular, but the story then seems somewhat incoherent and thrown together. Not to mention wholly unbelievable. Of course, then comes the torture porn.

All in all this film is very much not worth wasting your time on, even if you approach it in the knowledge that it's a low budget slasher flick with appropriately low expectations.

V/H/S/2 (2013)

Terrible. Avoid at all costs.

[1/10 · 22 September 2013]

I might have been impressed with this film had it been a series of shorts created by a class of junior school children and linked together by their teacher for presentation purposes - that's really what this film feels like. Unfortunately it's not.

Whilst I can tolerate films shot on iPhones and handhelds on occasion, assuming the story-telling, acting and direction make up for it, the camera work on this was just silly. It was playing with the medium, but not in an enjoyable way... the whole point of POV camera-work is to make it feel believable, real, as if you're actually experiencing it yourself as opposed to watching other people experience it. It just doesn't work for this film because they force it so, so much that it just makes you sigh every time something stupid is done with the camera.

The quality of the individual shorts varies from poor to horrific. Some of the story-lines are vaguely interesting and could have had potential, but are ruined by poor acting, direction or special effects and make-up. Others are just laughably bad.

The device used to link the shorts together is tired, unexplained and pretty much pointless. Using a title screen for each short and doing away with all the filler linking would have been more effective, not that it would have made any difference to how awful the film is as a whole.

I'd recommend to anyone thinking of watching this film not to, unless you're a film student looking for something to dissect and analyse as an example what to avoid in film-making.

The Collector (I) (2009)

If you like good movies...

[2/10 · 31 January 2013]

...then avoid this one like the plague.

Had a rating of 6.3 at the time of writing this review. Why? I have absolutely no idea.

Any film which starts with titles that are basically a set-up for the movie along the lines of 'So there's this serial killer, and he's killing people. That's all you need to know' is best avoided. The plot is pretty much non-existent, with every 'twist' being obvious a long time before it happens. The acting is poor at best, some of it wouldn't even cut it in am-dram theatre. The direction and camera work is nothing special whatsoever. The characters are incredibly hard to relate to or care about in any way.

Pretty much the only thing that this film has going for it, if you can call it that, is the gore. There is lots of gore. No imagination, skill, acting or storyline, but lots of gore.

The Day (I) (2011)

Unimpressive, dull and best avoided.

[1/10 · 21 November 2012]

I have to disagree with the majority of the reviews of this movie suggesting that it's wonderful, good, or even average. It is terrible. It's as if it is trying to gain the critical success of The Road by jumping on its coat tails, yet with none of the story writing, cinematography or acting skills.

The story writing is dull, shambling and disjointed. The acting ranges from wooden to just plain awful. The poor camera work and almost constant, low-contrast, low-impact black and white (why does the apocalypse always seem to affect the colour processing part of our brain?) really don't help things. The result is a film that is pretty much impossible for the viewer to invest in and leaves you craving something good to watch just to counter it.

Bernie (2011)

Pointless, Best Avoided

[1/10 · 16 September 2012]

The only thing about this movie that I can't fault is the acting. Jack Black plays a convincing character without falling back on his usual comedy staple, and the rest of the cast aren't wooden and fit their respective parts very well.

The main issue I have with this film is understanding why it was made. The story isn't particularly interesting, even though it's true. The film feels overly long and drawn, and by the end you're hoping against hope that the pay-off for your time spent enduring the dullness and slow pace is going to be worth it, but it most definitely isn't. You're just left feeling unsatisfied and wondering why whoever decided to make the film felt it worth making, as it was very much not worth watching. The story really didn't need telling further than perhaps a short article in a local newspaper.

If it had been beautifully shot, directed, scripted... anything really, it might have done something to dispel the disappointment, but it wasn't. Everything about this film, other than perhaps the acting, is decidedly average and uninspiring, with a storyline and ending to match.

Siren (III) (2010)

Not worth the time...

[2/10 · 21 July 2011]

(Potentially a very slight spoiler in the second paragraph) The cinematography isn't bad at all, the acting isn't horrible, but the plot is thin to say the least, with little to no back story or conclusion of any kind. Most scenes have no explanation or apparently meaning to them at all, or reason for them being in the movie whatsoever. There's nothing about this film which grabs your attention, there's no suspense, no intrigue, and by the end of it you're left caring very little about anything that happened over the course of it.

All in all, Siren seems to be an excuse to put out a half thought through vague nod to the Sirens myth just so that they can be 'original' by including a couple of female same-sex seduction scenes.

Best avoided.