Stalker is a 2 person thriller set entirely inside a stuck lift, which must be a difficult task for any actor, never mind someone relatively new to the scene.
Both Sophie Skelton and Stuart Brennan play their parts to a tee, even when the script brings them grinding to a halt with mediocre rambling (a problem created largely by the runtime of the film being about 20 minutes longer than it needed to be.)
Their stellar performances are ruined by the directors decision to use weird shots and bizarre editing, presumably to try and create the feeling of claustrophobia or tension, but all it actually does it make things frustrating and/or confusing to watch.
At a certain point of the film the director decided it would be a great idea to zoom right in on random parts of the actors faces as they converse; the eyes, or the mouth, or the forehead, but always too close to be comfortable (or in focus half the time.) It was such a bizarre and jarring choice that I wasn't sure if the aspect ratio of the projector had accidentally slipped and zoomed in.
Then toward the end of the film things randomly keep jumping forward and backward in time, with no explanation or reason for doing so, to the point I again thought something had gone wrong with the playback the first time it happened.
The twist was clever, but not all that hard to telegraph as things got a little TOO obvious at the mid-point and there was only one obvious direction to go to keep it interesting.
The two strangest aspects of the movie though, are why they chose to splash the cash casting Bret 'The Hitman' Hart as a semi-sleazy director, and why the writer/director seems to have a disturbing fascination with dismembering (quite literally) one of the characters toward the end.
Neither added much at all to the film, but are in there none the less.
I hope Sophie and Stuart go on to better things as they were the one shining light in this otherwise below par horror thriller.
Both Sophie Skelton and Stuart Brennan play their parts to a tee, even when the script brings them grinding to a halt with mediocre rambling (a problem created largely by the runtime of the film being about 20 minutes longer than it needed to be.)
Their stellar performances are ruined by the directors decision to use weird shots and bizarre editing, presumably to try and create the feeling of claustrophobia or tension, but all it actually does it make things frustrating and/or confusing to watch.
At a certain point of the film the director decided it would be a great idea to zoom right in on random parts of the actors faces as they converse; the eyes, or the mouth, or the forehead, but always too close to be comfortable (or in focus half the time.) It was such a bizarre and jarring choice that I wasn't sure if the aspect ratio of the projector had accidentally slipped and zoomed in.
Then toward the end of the film things randomly keep jumping forward and backward in time, with no explanation or reason for doing so, to the point I again thought something had gone wrong with the playback the first time it happened.
The twist was clever, but not all that hard to telegraph as things got a little TOO obvious at the mid-point and there was only one obvious direction to go to keep it interesting.
The two strangest aspects of the movie though, are why they chose to splash the cash casting Bret 'The Hitman' Hart as a semi-sleazy director, and why the writer/director seems to have a disturbing fascination with dismembering (quite literally) one of the characters toward the end.
Neither added much at all to the film, but are in there none the less.
I hope Sophie and Stuart go on to better things as they were the one shining light in this otherwise below par horror thriller.