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Reviews
Paranoia (2011)
An Enjoyable Experience, but Drags
Jones' acting in this film is surprisingly solid, having known him only from the Snob Reviews and his Midnight Screenings show. His performance, despite missteps and repeated driving&cigarette smoking, definitely carries the film. Brian Lewis as the policeman does a pretty fair job for looking nothing like a policeman, and Sarah Ogg and Jillian Z also turn out decent performances, despite a lackluster script. Brian Irving seems quite unfit as the mystic Carl Stowers, however. A deeper voiced, more menacing actor would have made more sense, and his light delivery and quarter-smile give him away. I enjoy the black & white writer's cut, despite its sometimes ill-placed soundtrack. Aside from Jones' acting, what made this film more than just watchable was director Ryan's ability to establish a creepy, uneasy, or just unsettling atmosphere. The low budget nature of the film only added to dark tone it maintained. The dialogue was written quite decently, though it is sometimes delivered too unrealistically to take seriously (except for Jones mostly)(his terrible "AHH!" headache screams notwithstanding) The weakest link in the chain, though, is the pacing. The film is too tonally one note to illicit any real feeling other than unease after the halfway point. Things become non-linear and clues come about, but until the climax, the viewer may struggle to gain footing as to what the hell is going on. I enjoyed it regardless.