In spite of its poverty row feel, there's a lot to like about "Warlock Moon". Unfortunately, there's not *enough* to like, and the results are mediocre at best.
In its favor: For a movie with such a tiny budget, the crew does a fine job of making every dollar count. The "Old Dark House" that serves as background for 80% of the story was a good choice. It provided a lot of atmosphere and gravitas to the proceedings (which I am sure was part of the director's overall plan.)
Also in its favor: the cast does a fair job within the limits of their collective talent. No one stinks on ice as often happens when something like this hits the screen. The lead actress who carries the film is blandly pretty and not especially charismatic. But she's a real actress; you can see what the character is thinking most of the time (as opposed to just emitting an attitude, which is much easier). So I give her credit for a nuanced performance of a 2 dimensional role.
There are echoes of "The Old Dark House", "Don't Look In The Basement",and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in the story. But all those stories have a lot more going on than this movie does. "Warlock Moon" is threadbare by comparison to those classics. This was odd, because there were all kinds of plot elements (the "ghost bride", the echoes of "Deja Vu",inexplicable blooming of the dead flowers, etc.) that could have been expanded in an entertaining way.
So the real problem is that the movie drags in too many spots because the screenplay is trying to pad out the minimalist story elements long enough to set things up for the climax for a movie length story. Nothing happens...a *lot*; there is too much dead air between lines of dialog, and too much of the dialog is nothing more than serviceable.
This is the other problem with really low budget movies - they often don't have the time or ability to come up with alternate or better takes of scenes; the directors tend to fall in love with their shots and compositions because there's nobody around to say, "Nope, this can be done better". So there's no time (or budget) to go back and punch things up with snappier takes and more plot points, etc.
You get the feeling that with a little more professional story telling and editing, this movie would have impressive, if still not a classic.
Also I didn't care for the double twist "downer" ending, which seemed to be thrown in just for meanness' sake. I would have rated the movie higher if they'd left well enough alone with the first "twist".
I found this on YouTube on a forum member's recommendation, and it was worth watching once. That's more than I can say for a lot of movies of this caliber.
In its favor: For a movie with such a tiny budget, the crew does a fine job of making every dollar count. The "Old Dark House" that serves as background for 80% of the story was a good choice. It provided a lot of atmosphere and gravitas to the proceedings (which I am sure was part of the director's overall plan.)
Also in its favor: the cast does a fair job within the limits of their collective talent. No one stinks on ice as often happens when something like this hits the screen. The lead actress who carries the film is blandly pretty and not especially charismatic. But she's a real actress; you can see what the character is thinking most of the time (as opposed to just emitting an attitude, which is much easier). So I give her credit for a nuanced performance of a 2 dimensional role.
There are echoes of "The Old Dark House", "Don't Look In The Basement",and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in the story. But all those stories have a lot more going on than this movie does. "Warlock Moon" is threadbare by comparison to those classics. This was odd, because there were all kinds of plot elements (the "ghost bride", the echoes of "Deja Vu",inexplicable blooming of the dead flowers, etc.) that could have been expanded in an entertaining way.
So the real problem is that the movie drags in too many spots because the screenplay is trying to pad out the minimalist story elements long enough to set things up for the climax for a movie length story. Nothing happens...a *lot*; there is too much dead air between lines of dialog, and too much of the dialog is nothing more than serviceable.
This is the other problem with really low budget movies - they often don't have the time or ability to come up with alternate or better takes of scenes; the directors tend to fall in love with their shots and compositions because there's nobody around to say, "Nope, this can be done better". So there's no time (or budget) to go back and punch things up with snappier takes and more plot points, etc.
You get the feeling that with a little more professional story telling and editing, this movie would have impressive, if still not a classic.
Also I didn't care for the double twist "downer" ending, which seemed to be thrown in just for meanness' sake. I would have rated the movie higher if they'd left well enough alone with the first "twist".
I found this on YouTube on a forum member's recommendation, and it was worth watching once. That's more than I can say for a lot of movies of this caliber.