Lyle - short review

LYLE

For a zero budget indie this was a surprisingly well made psychological horror film. Although horror is probably too extreme of a genre labeling. It's very subtle/slight in its chills. The horror is entirely psychological in the way something like Polanski's 'Repulsion' was. Not so much about boos and bumps in the night or slimy creatures in the dark so much as it is about paranoia and uncertainty.

I admire the pacing and the film's suitably creepy atmospheric chills that it gave me in a few key moments but most of all I commend Gabby Hoffman's strong, emotionally exhausting performance. She was really, really good. Without her I imagine this would not have worked since it all hinges on the main character being played convincingly.

The major problem that this film (originally conceived as a web series) has is that it lacks a real ending/coda/resolution. It ends at a crucial moment which is fine as horror endings go but it seems like there wasn't quite enough juice to tell a complete story. So there are some dangling threads and needless ambiguity that seem less engineered than they appear and more like 'this is all we had time to do or could afford'.

I felt there was at least another ten minutes of story-fuel left in the engine.

Problems others may have is that there's nothing all that original going on in the grand scheme. It's essentially Rosemary's Baby but that shouldn't detract from the ambition of the project. And it's free to watch, another plus.

I say Thorndike shows promise as a director and if given a real budget she could make something better. Or at least something as good but with better production value.

It's not a perfect film - too short, slightly muddled, abrupt ending and aesthetically barren (I suspect due to budget restraints) but as a study in a woman's psychological unraveling it was pretty impressive.