Observance (2016)

Why so much hype?

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

There is the skeleton of a story draped around the film, enough to make you think it might be going someplace or mean something, but it will all be abandoned, or ignored in favor of obtuse, confusing, unconnected occurrences strung together for no reason whatsoever. There are some good creepy moments, one particularly effective scare, and even reasonably strong performances, but basically it's a 20-minute student film made by a potentially talented filmmaker, whose sole dictate was to create a mysterious and creepy ambiance - stretched to 86 minutes without the least idea (or perhaps intention) of providing anything more. There is enough of a plot to leave you frustrated when it veers away into disjointed nonsense whose dots will never connect, padded out with a man hearing strange noises, the source of which doesn't matter and is never explained, or hearing strange voices on recordings which may or may not be ghostly voices, and photographing images that may or may not be some time-displacement issue, seeing a bottle filling up with inky liquid for no discernible reason and certainly not connecting to anything else in the film, or showing shots of blood drops run backwards. And then there are the extreme close-ups of rocks, and suddenly spitting out tar. You know, anything permissible under the rubric of "it's surreal", or "it's art" but far more likely "it's kinda like something David Lynch would do." Which might be justification for crafting a 20-minute student film, but not enough to try and pass it off as a feature film. I personally love complex films that make you work intellectually; but that's a far cry from incoherent, lazy film-making where nothing logically fits together however technically accomplished it might be in places. Considering its minuscule budget it is extremely well-done and uses its limitations wisely. Too bad there wasn't a thought-out screenplay that all of this could have been in service of.

Following the death of his son and wife's refusal to talk to him, Parker (Lindsay Farris) takes on a task as a private investigator. He lives in a dump of an apartment as he watches the blonde (Stephanie King) across the street. He descends into madness (or whatever was happening) as he spies on the woman who has an abusive relationship with her fiancé (Tom O'Sullivan). In addition to weird occurrences happening in his apartment, Parker becomes physically ill as he discovers there is something else at play...an offering? Does it relate to the past? the doctor? Who the heck knows, the film didn't give me closure. Almost as confusing as that Jake Gyllenhaal thing (Enemy).Guide: F-word, brief sex. Nudity? Ummm...she lived in apartment 126. He is across the street in 128. Shouldn't one side be an odd number? Just observing.

I had no idea what to expect from this. It was Genuinely creepy which was a good start.It had some unexplained character past, which usually gives you the inclining of a well rounded, satisfying plot.Unexplained happenings, research into other character's suspicious past.Then - Bang! it ends, nothing explained in, not even the smallest detail.Bang, it ends and you're just wildly guessing.It's like they forgot to dot the i's and cross the t's and at the end just went "meh, that'll do."Could have been great, could have been fantastic. Was nothing.

I definitely didn't have many expectations for this and I had no idea what type of film it would be. I love its ambiguity. Many people will hate it for that same reason but I found that it was able to sufficiently explore its story and characterization (it does a great job of developing its main character) while still not revealing itself completely and by sustaining great atmosphere and mood (and well-done jump scares too) throughout its entirety. I think it's a simple, but scary film, one that will only appeal to a specific kind of horror fan but the type of horror we need more of. I would definitely recommend it, although be cautious because it's not for everyone.