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Reviews
Demonic (2021)
This is a strange one
The concepts and even the plot in here are actually pretty great. The cast is decent, and of course the effects are good, even with the film being as truly independent as is it. Unfortunately I think the screenplay just didn't really hold it all together very well. Some real fresh and unique ideas in here though, and a glossy finish for sure. Actually it all looks a lot nicer than you'd expect from the ratings it's received. I think if you've followed and enjoyed Blomkamp's work right through to his shorts, you'll probably still get at least a little bit of a kick out of this, even if it's not great as a whole.
Dark Whispers: Volume 1 (2019)
This deserves better reviews
Not sure what's going on with the extreme negativity here (well actually it's pretty obvious if you read between the lines, or some cases, just read the lines themselves). This is a decent bunch of indie shorts with a good wraparound story that works as well as it has to in holding the segments together.
From the get-go it's clear this is not something like Creepshow, which was made with one holistic vision, or even like the VHS anthologies, which were intended to run together. Most of the segments in this anthology seem to have been made at different times, with different aims, and as such they generally all have a different voice, a different style. So it's less an anthology and more like a presentation of short films that can loosely be lumped together as dark fiction with a twist.
As that, it's very successful at showcasing these disparate film makers, who all show promise in one way or another. They're all names to keep an eye on, for sure.
If you expect this to be polished Hollywood stuff you're looking in the wrong place. This is pretty raw, but it's full of honest, authentic, creatively told stories. Nothing more, nothing less.
Personal highlights: the twists of The Man who Caught a Mermaid, the atmosphere of Storytime, the concepts of Grillz, the tone of Little Sharehouse of Horrors, and the overall vision and uniqueness of White Song.
People need to stop calling things "bad" just because it's not what they want it to be.