I can't say that this is a quality movie. It's got some serious problems. But underneath the surface, there's a decent story here. It just needed some additional eyes on the script.
Despite what a number of reviewers are saying, the acting isn't terrible for a movie of this caliber. The photography is a little annoying sometimes, but mostly it plays fine.
It's pretty much a bottle movie, one exterior location at the very beginning, followed by all of the action in one room, then (most likely) the same room dressed up to be two alternate locations.
While I was aware of this, it didn't feel like the movie needed more locations than that.
Where the movie really stumbles is in the messaging.
Our protagonist is mostly good. His failing is that he doesn't immediately condemn his friend for his extreme interests in porn. That doesn't seem like it's enough to put him through this. I had assumed that the story was going to have him going through the wringer, followed by the antagonists discovering that they had ensnared him by accident.
Instead, we get a muddled message creating an equivalency between supporting snuff films, being aware of them, and participating in them.
This may have been intentional, but it's very hard to tell.
It's unclear to me who would be the ideal audience for this. Maybe... people who enjoyed later Hellraiser movies?
Despite what a number of reviewers are saying, the acting isn't terrible for a movie of this caliber. The photography is a little annoying sometimes, but mostly it plays fine.
It's pretty much a bottle movie, one exterior location at the very beginning, followed by all of the action in one room, then (most likely) the same room dressed up to be two alternate locations.
While I was aware of this, it didn't feel like the movie needed more locations than that.
Where the movie really stumbles is in the messaging.
Our protagonist is mostly good. His failing is that he doesn't immediately condemn his friend for his extreme interests in porn. That doesn't seem like it's enough to put him through this. I had assumed that the story was going to have him going through the wringer, followed by the antagonists discovering that they had ensnared him by accident.
Instead, we get a muddled message creating an equivalency between supporting snuff films, being aware of them, and participating in them.
This may have been intentional, but it's very hard to tell.
It's unclear to me who would be the ideal audience for this. Maybe... people who enjoyed later Hellraiser movies?