Uh lighting?


There is no point in "watching" this movie because you have no idea what's going on. Sure it is set at night but seriously? It has to be the darkest movie I've ever seen. It was so dark that when the sun finally comes up it burns your eyes. The story line was cool, the ending sucked and so did the LIGHTING!

reply

well, yeah, it would have been pretty comfortable if all was lit uniformly with nice warm diffuse light, and soft shadows, so we can see exactly what was happening in the pitch-black forests and the cave with the lacking electrical installations. Just like in a Disney picture.

the point of it was to make you see the movie from the point of the characters, and re-live what they are going trough. And it preformed well. Pity you had your imagination castrated when you were newborn, so you never got any of the experience.

reply

[deleted]

[deleted]

[deleted]

um, i gotta agree that it was too dark. i'm a huge horror fan, i understand theater of the mind and ambiance but between the lighting and camera work i could barely tell what was going on most of the time. kept thinking to myself "well this part sounds like there's something scary going on". i have a feeling i didn't miss much anyways.

reply

i agree....too dark and too many movies relying on the cover of darkness these days. sometimes things are even scarier in the daylight! this seemed like it could have been a better movie if i could have actually seen ahta the heck was going on. i kept ff-ing to see if things ever became more visible. nope.

reply

I'm with you guys, I had no issues with seeing everything that was going on. I have great night vision, but I really don't think that would contribute in this case, seeing as I saw it in the morning. Maybe just don't have the sun shining on your TVs, people.

It was set at night in the countryside. The darkness contrasted with the whiteness of the demons. I just don't see the problem so many people are having with it.

~See? The man's immune to sweater yams~

reply

I totally agree!!

My family and I were on vacation at the beach this weekend and we picked this movie up from the local supermarket (the only place on the island where you can rent movies) and the whole time I was shouting "I can't tell what's happening!!!!"
so I had to be the hero and pause it and turn the brightness on the tv up to like 75. Then I could see everything!!!
the brightness, however, didnt help the shaky cam. ugh!

still an entertaining/fun movie though :)

--------------------
Scatty wow!

reply

Seriously, I generally don't have a problem with shakey camera work or dark lighting, but this was way too much of both.
I was so annoyed I really didn't care what happened to anyone, I just wanted someone to light a match!

What really sucks is that I could tell it was a decent movie, so it was all the more annoying that you couldn't see a thing. I felt like I was listening to a radio show.

reply

I just watched in On Demand, and it way took dark on that as well. I had to turn the brightness of my TV way up to even see any of the night scenes.

reply

I agree.. this was the most poorly lit movie I've ever (not) seen. The "fear.net" logo on screen was plenty bright so it wasn't our TV. A total waste of time... find ANYTHING else to watch and you'll be better off.

reply

I'm like so many other's, I couldn't see much either.

We had to replace our tv a few months ago, so I know the settings are good, but I didn't want to mess up the main settings just for one movie.

So I kept hoping I'd be able to see......nada.

Much as I hate to admit it, I'm not sure what happened to her hubby.

Thanx to those who posted some clue's to the premise of the pic.....I never would have known otherwise, but I'm still not sure..........

Thanx again.

reply

The whole movie is told using very dim lighting and a shaky camera. If, as someone outrageously suggested, we need to depend on our imagination, we might as well just sit in a dark room on a rickety chair.

The people who made this movie had no clue how to tell a good story. That is why they resort to complete darkness for 95% of the film. Poor storytelling, no character building, poor lighting. Sure, such creations of art will always have that niche of followers who will rave about it (probably cos they haven't seen a good horror movie in their lifetimes).

reply

[deleted]

I just got done watching this and thought it was pretty good except for how dark it was. I had to turn my brightness all the way up and I could still barely see anything. A little more lighting would've helped this movie a lot.

reply

I could not feel any empathy towards the characters due to the darkness; this is pivotal in a movies development. I could'nt see them or anything that happened, which is hugely frustrating. I commend Sanchez for the attempt however, he did not entirely pull it off. He fully encapsulated the POV of our protagonists--great, but noises and guessing seem to be cheap tricks for a director without resources or a proper vision--probably a better screenplay. Moreover, just show me something, not even the demons, they were fine being indiscernible and obscure; but little white lights in our protagonists eyes is not commendable for 9/10 of the movie--it really only worked up until maybe midway ACT II when i stopped caring about the two devoided nobodies.

It also could've used more character development, especially since the premise of the movie is the first element shown to us via intertitle. This may have helped with feeling empathy for our nonexistent (too dark) characters and their actions.

Altogether, some scenes I did enjoy, most were disappointing. Could've been a better ride if executed properly.

Also, just noticed, there might be two different versions because the trailer at the top of the page is so much brighter than what i saw. Who saw this via fearnet? It's like im looking at two completely different movies.




The only truly natural things are dreams,which nature cannot touch with decay

reply

I would love to review this movie, but unfortunately I can't since I have essentially no idea what happened. It seems the entire thing was lit by an Itty Bitty Book Light.

The sound was decent.

reply

This is a filmaking fail. I understand it was supposed to be dark, but this was annoyingly so. No lighting in the car, no lighting even though the moon is supposedly full, no lighting period. If I didn't know what Amy Smart looked like from previous movies I would have had to imagine how the two main characters looked. The story was pretty good from what I saw, but finally I just got tired of listening to noises and trying to imagine what was going on.

reply

My problem is, wasn't it supposed to take place on a full moon? They kept showing a full moon, but man, the landscape was NOT lit like the moon was full.

If the movie had been set during a half, or even no moon, it would have made a lot more sense. Or a cloudy night, etc. But no, the clear full moon was pivotal to the plot, yet outdoor scenes were absurdly dark.

It reminds me of that MST3K where giant leeches die in sunlight, yet every other shot is day-for-night (or just plain day). Even when the plot specifically underlines the lighting conditions, we're just supposed to ignore the blue skies--or in this case, dark nights.

________________________________________
!

reply

I didn't have a problem with the lighting, but I did hate how pretty much every time the creatures were on screen they were shown way out of focus and/or blurred and obscured by various dirty windows and etc.

someone will surely try to tell me "oh that's just to add to the suspense/mysteriousness/creepiness of all! it was brilliant!" yeah, more like "oh hey I know how we can save a fortune on make-up and effects!"

reply

I agree that the movie was too dark throughout, especially combined with the shaky, quick-cut camera work and extreme closeups. While the darkness was important in many scenes, they should have included better-lit and more clearly shot early scenes, and a few more interspersed throughout.

Instead, it was impossible to see even the main characters. I would not recognize either one of the actors if I saw them in another film. Since we never get a good look at them, we never really get to know them, which makes it hard to empathize or follow the story from their POV.

reply

uh you're an idiot

reply