Room 106

Before I even get around to reviewing this short, I have to address something. Molotov himself has said this movie doesn't make any sense. With this in mind, it becomes hard to review (at least plot wise) so I'll try to let it not affect my viewing.

Under the genre "horror" (which is always a difficult one to churn out in 3dmm) we're expecting atmosphere, creepiness and a jump or two. At the very least, a reasonable manifestation of these things that aren't insulting to the viewers intelligence (IT WAS ONLY A DREAM!). The film kinda manages these things but all are relative disappointments. Atmosphere is created and then ruined. Creepiness turns into downright confusion. And to top it all off, the "jump" moment is not only uncalled for but seems to be a last ditch effort to save the film. Yeah this film commits a few sins along the way. Mainly in the second half. If anything this film is about building atmosphere, but renders itself pointless as you will see. Seeing as it's fairly short I've addressed most of the events in the film.

We open with a slowly zooming camera shot into the "Maroon Lake Hotel" (I get it) accompanied by slow brooding piano music. There's nothing about the place that seems particularly isolated but the scenery and animation is fine, or at least above average. In fact, the whole movie looks good. There's nothing particularly outstanding but nothing looks out of place either. Well, actually, the next shot is kind of distracting because it makes me think "THE SHINING". Anyone who's seen the film can't really avoid the comparison. Camera pans down an isolated hotel hallway. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being influenced but damn it looks the same.

Over this we hear some guy's voice over "I know I should really get out of here if I want to get back to the mainland". Man trapped in isolated hotel. THE SHINING? Then the next shot zooms into the room number 106 (ROOM 237? Okay, I'm gonna have to stop doing that, it's unfair). We finally see the man standing in front of the door, the television is all static which I assume is to show how isolated he is. Why doesn't he go through the door?, I hear you all ask. He explains:-

"But everytime I go the door. Oh god, the drills...the drills keep tearing....AT MY BRAIN!"

* DRILL SOUND EFFECT *

Ouch. Well I guess that's as good a reason as any. Is he insane? Are they real drills or are they a figment of his imagination? I don't know. All we get is a zoom into the spyhole of the door and it all goes black. Okay so we've established some mood here. This guys got issues and he's having trouble getting to the outside world. Where do we go from here?

* black screen and the typical heartbeat *

He now sits on the floor. "I don't know why they keep me here. I haven't been here since a long time ago. The place looks the same. maybe a little dirtier, but still the same". Okay so he's been here a long time. How long? He then tells us that he's been trying to forget something for the past three days and he thinks the "drills" will stop if he does. What is he trying to forget? Okay I'm sort of interested. This could be going somewhere. He hasn't slept for days and his supplies are running low. Well okay he's gonna have to make a decision about what to do right? BAM, there's your movie huh? This is a perfect opportunity for things to kick into gear. Right?

Not quite. Suddenly we see....something flying through the hotel. I say something because well...I dunno what hell it is. It kinda looks like a shield with blood on or something. This all happens whilst our lead character is talking about his brother. Is this his brother? What river? These questions are piling up. So far in this movie we've been dropped deeper and deeper into this guys situation but we haven't seen a reason for any of it yet. This is not the greatest thing for a short. If this was a longer film and these plot points were developed it would have the potential to be a pretty damn good movie. The scenery, animation and angles are all okay so with a decent plot, it could be great. Well anyway, my point is that it's at this point (about halfway through) you realise that there's not going to be much in the way of a satisfactory answer.

Anyway, the man continues to gripe about his brother and there's a shot of him being really small and for some reason there's a really small window presumably to "speak" to his brother. I think it's symbolism. Or something.

"That's why I did it! That's why it was right! He wasn't alone either! He's probably enjoying his days more than I am."

What? More confusion. Did he kill is brother? Is that why he's a shield? So many questions. So little sense. He continues to rant on randomly without giving any indication to what's going on anymore. It's not like before when we were learning stuff about him. Now we are just listening to vague mumblings of some guy that doesn't even leave us a CLUE as to what's going on.

Blood starts dripping from the ceiling etc and we start to see everything the movie was heading towards deteriorate suddenly. It's like you can almost see the director losing patience with the movie and just giving into a quick silly ending.

Oh the ending. I don't even know what happened. I didn't even know what was happening anyway so I can't even begin to guess what happened. All I know is that it was some kind of attempted scare (LOUD WAV SOUND EFFECT!) but nothing actually happens. It seems to be building up to something, the music picks up and the mans rant seems to be coming to an end. We're zooming into the door and....* FUZZY COMPUTER MIKE SCREAM *. I mean, you expect the door to BLOW open or for him to get attacked by something but NONE OF THIS HAPPENS! The door remains closed and we quickly cut to his head twirling in his madness or something and it's suddenly ALL OVER.

Now I know this should be treated as an unfinished movie because it was apparently intended to be longer, but the ending really wrecks the entire thing for me. It's just that the first half has promise and you get interested in at least getting some idea what's going on. Then the second half just falls into random strangeness and renders the film almost pointless. The ending itself is a huge cop out. Nothing happens. At least not to my knowledge. All I saw (or heard) was a loud sound effect.

I guess in some ways the whole "It doesn't make sense anyway" is okay when done WELL. But this was a film that relied on being atmospheric. Drawing you into whatever disturbing things are going on there. All you had to give you any indication of what was happening was the narration by the main character, and when he stops making sense then you're not following a proper story anymore.
It wasn't something you could even think about because you already know it makes no sense prior to viewing (if you read the readme file). So basically, I was a little annoyed because the entire film is just one gradually deteriorating monologue.

Even the most random films have some form of meaning or another layer to which things can be viewed. This at best is a few set pieces and confusion. I have to say, I liked the music and the atmosphere. With a good plot there's potential here. I just think it was a bit of a waste.

In the end, for what it is ( a "practice run") it doesn't do any harm. It's got some nice scenery and had some okay camera movement. I wasn't entirely convinced by the voice but it got the job done. I just think there's no real way to build tension or an atmosphere if the audience already know that it won't make sense in the end anyway. Overall, it's a nice short but not satisfying or resolving in the slightest.

[Molotov]

Ta, thanks.

[Blooman]

The part starting with the Fuzzy Computer Scream made me laugh a lot, but when I watched the movie, it made me jump.

[bl0ppin]

You said you were going to stop bumping old threads, also, this comment has nothing to do with the review, only the movie. You bumped the wrong thread.