I try to be pretty generous with movies for the most part. I figure even if I don't like it, maybe it's just not my taste. But I don't think there's any other way to put it, this just isn't a good movie. The plot itself is pretty ridiculous, but even if the story was decent the acting would ruin it. The acting was just awful. Like, I don't think the "actors" were even trying. My friends and I wrote, performed, and recorded skits together when we were younger and our acting in those silly kid plays was better than this. I watched it because I was bored, and watched clear to the end because it gave me something to do on a yucky winter day. So will this movie cure your boredom? Eh, I was pretty bored the whole way through actually. But it's something to do.
3 Reviews
Couldn't finish watching this
arglebargle-4789319 November 2016
This is the familiar story, presumably modernized. I watched this on Amazon to kill a little time while doing some busy work. The opening scene seemed like it was filmed as part of a college theater piece. As the film progressed, everything seemed that way. It's as if.... wait! I had to visit IMDb to confirm my suspicions.
No, it's not "AS IF filmed by a bunch of friends out to make a movie", it IS a bunch of friends out to make a movie. Most of the cast were also in "A Christmas Carol" also directed by Anthony Mann. Everyone seemed to act as if they were in a college production of "Diary of Anne Frank." No-one ever rises above this.
The film isn't merely low-budget. It's pretty close to no-budget and possibly funded by cookie sales or something. We get a scene where a young boy is presumably watching an opera, but all are closeups of the boy and his father for the "audience" and some shadowy shots of a conductor, soprano and a french horn player and that's our "orchestra." I guess we have to imagine the rest.
One conversation scene with three people is so differently lit between shots of the 3 actors I had to wonder if Ed Wood wasn't directing. Other scenes where deliberately filmed by hand-held video camera -- and that's fine when it's part of what they are doing -- but scenes that didn't involve a hand-held camera were still filmed in the same style.
If you're friends of the people in the film, by all means, watch it. After all, we don't go see high-school/college theater pieces for the professional acting. But if you're not, avoid this film.
No, it's not "AS IF filmed by a bunch of friends out to make a movie", it IS a bunch of friends out to make a movie. Most of the cast were also in "A Christmas Carol" also directed by Anthony Mann. Everyone seemed to act as if they were in a college production of "Diary of Anne Frank." No-one ever rises above this.
The film isn't merely low-budget. It's pretty close to no-budget and possibly funded by cookie sales or something. We get a scene where a young boy is presumably watching an opera, but all are closeups of the boy and his father for the "audience" and some shadowy shots of a conductor, soprano and a french horn player and that's our "orchestra." I guess we have to imagine the rest.
One conversation scene with three people is so differently lit between shots of the 3 actors I had to wonder if Ed Wood wasn't directing. Other scenes where deliberately filmed by hand-held video camera -- and that's fine when it's part of what they are doing -- but scenes that didn't involve a hand-held camera were still filmed in the same style.
If you're friends of the people in the film, by all means, watch it. After all, we don't go see high-school/college theater pieces for the professional acting. But if you're not, avoid this film.
The amateur dramatic version
Leofwine_draca31 January 2018
Warning: Spoilers
A PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is a indie staging of the famous Gaston Leroux story that makes all other versions look professional, even such bizarre ones as the Dario Argento schlock-fest of the 1990s. It's a Canadian film that seems to have been shot by an amateur dramatics society in an enclosed room with black backgrounds. The static camera never manages to capture more than two or three actors in close up at one time. A bald grubby guy wins awards for worst actor, while the phantom itself is rather trite. It's also very slow, and really not worth your time.
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