I really liked "Anyone There". The actress was gorgeous and believable. Couple of things I noticed; there were too many effects in the first 2:30 which made it feel as f you were trying too hard. Also the blood splatter when the female stabs him automatically reminded me of "300" and it took away from the action. Other than that - it was really great.
Close your eyes was actually kinda cheezy imho. The green color fluid looked amateurish and the shots of the "poison" emblem on the one bottle made it seem like you had to push the idea onto us because we were not going to be able to get it. I didn't think that was necesary.
I must say I was not expecting the guy to be a "zombie/walking dead", so that was a nice surprise. And the makeup looked rally good on him.
On the technical side, great shots and a really good/creepy conversation between her and the him. Really good work!
I think both were really good. The cinematography is tight, the acting was good, and the music and sound effects were in all the right places. The only thing that threw me off was the after effects blood splatter in the first film- but i guess it is hard to get around that, you can't get practical effects to splatter on the camera lens on demand like you can with vfx. It just reminded me i was watching an independent film. Nice job overall.
Watched "Anyone there?" Really professional looking - nice cinematography, lighting and colour grading and good music and sound.
Story was a little cliched I thought - I know its a fairly straight horror and its quite difficult not to be in that genre, but things like:
1. Attractive woman gets undressed / dressed in semi-porn style and then dances sexily on her own. Does this ever really happen? If so, why doesn't it happen in my house?
2. Woman gets concerned by a noise. Then immediately forgets all about it, has a super happy face and puts the music back on, thereby making sure that if anything concerning was making a noise she would be unable to hear it.
I know the ending maybe kind of justifies this - but if she was expecting it surely it wouldn't be a very good test? Also if she were expecting the attack, she would be even less likely to do number 1 above.
Blood effects were a bit OTT and sometimes distractingly CG.
Didn't really buy the ending - it was fine and not exactly predictable (in that there weren't really many hints towards it in the film itself) but it reminded me of some other films quite a lot and so was a bit predictable in that way. Also seemed a very unlikely scenario.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film, it was very polished and it held my attention - but it just fell into genre conventions a bit too much.
I'd have to agree with dandevans, shot very nice, good lighting etc. but was rather generic horror convetion, axe wielding maniac come to slay gorgeous woman. That said, you seem pretty talented in the horror genre as in able to maintain suspense and keep the audience interested.
thanks to everyone for the great comments and criticism!
i really appreciatetaking the time to watch AND write something.
i'll definitely keep on writing and shooting more horror shorts if i ever find the time again (kid, work, travel, party... u know how it is) and i'm actually working on the feature debut at the moment.
