MovieChat Forums > Wake the Witch (2010) Discussion > Honest Review

Honest Review

posted 13 years ago by jmbwithcats
2 replies | jump to latest

I think the main problem I have with this movie is that 45 minutes into it nothing has happened. I enjoy, nay, demand development, but this movie is just too slow.

I don't mind the premise, it's rather Blair Witch, in fact it could be considered an unofficial Blair Witch sequel, but it lacks tension or interesting scenes.

I appreciate the low budget attempt, the script is just bad though, and a bunch of kids in dirty hoodies chasing two girls through a blair witch forest is just silly.

The acting of the female lead wasn't bad, I liked her. The story didn't make a whole lot of sense really... we hear about a story of a witch who will answer anything about you if you ask quickly before she kills you... but in the movie everyone just starts getting sick and weird noises are heard all over... this didn't exactly play into the mythology at all we are introduced to, nor did the kids in hoodies make much sense as explained in the film...

Pretty solid camera work and sound engineering, but it just takes soo long to get going, I think the first really bizarre thing happens 90 minutes into the movie... mom in the basement saying, "Deb? Help me, I'm still hungry!" was pretty sweet...

The explanation introduced halfway through the film doesn't really mesh with the one in the beginning, and that sort of hurts the film.

The movie really does seem to take a lot from blair witch, I won't say exactly what, don't want to give too many spoilers, but there are moments you go... wait, that's the bridge from blair witch 2, or that kid is standing in a blair witch corner, etc...

The "friend" who says all the right things says all of his lines in an extreme monotone and it is highly annoying lol.

The little red covered bridge is very reminiscent of the one from In the Mouth of Madness.

The ending was not very good, the script cohesion non existent, and development was intensely poor...

2/10

I think with a bit more work on the script, story development, a few more scenes that tie the myth to the reality together better... this could have been far better, but as it is is rather mediocre but with potential.

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[–] Lokisgodhi 12 years ago

I agree with most of this.

The film would have greatly benefited from more aggressive rewriting and editing.

The biggest dead weight was the secondary storyline regarding the disintegration of the lead character's relationship with her boyfriend.

It was superfluous and should have been cut from the script. That would have meant fewer characters, the boyfriend. the girl he was seeing at the party, the scene at his job, the scene at the party. That would have chopped a good twenty minutes or more from the film and made it much more watchable.

This sort of thing surfaces when the director and the screenwriter are the same person. You're too close to the material to look at it objectively and make the cuts that need to be made.

The finale needed a lot more punch to it. It was unsatisfying and anticlimactic. It gave the viewer no pay off whatsoever.

I don't understand the reasoning behind jettisoning the the Brent character and not having him be part of the finale. It makes developing the relationship between him and Deb kind of pointless.

[–] michael-380-832453 11 years ago

I agree with much of what you said but I think you were too generous. The film is boring and pointless and I give it a 1/10 stars. Not the worst film I've ever seen by far, but I've seen worse films that were more entertaining at least.

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