It seems as though that the indie horror community is moving away from you typical slasher genre, focusing more on the characters, the plot and having a killer that isn’t just some mindless guy in a mask killing for fun. The only problem is that because they are indie and most of them are first-timers, it’s hard to direct somebody without any kind of experience. However, some movies do a good job at doing so and I recently saw Lethal Obsession, which unfortunately wasn’t a diamond in the rough but it certainly wasn’t an awful movie. The film is about a small community that is being terrorized by a masked female-like killer who only appears to be murdering ‘cam girls.’
I want to first state that I enjoyed the production of the movie and that the director and his producers set out to make a slasher movie and they succeeded. They seemed to have a really good cast who looked like they really enjoyed each others company. There were a lot of good-looking girls in the movie and shockingly there was also a lot of gore, and the special effects made me cringe a little. You have to admire indie directors because they make something out of nothing and this is one of those films that show exactly that. They created a mood to the film that really reflects the eroticism of the killer’s passion in killing.
Lethal Obsession felt as though I was watching a poor man’s Dressed to Kill and that’s not necessarily a bad thing because there are plenty of films that are like that are good. (Romancing the Stone is a poor man’s Indiana Jones but it’s still good). When comparing it to this, you can isolate some of the problems that the film had and most of it had to deal with the script and the performances. There was a lot of filler dialogue that I could tell right away that didn’t need to be there and if there had to be filler dialogue… it should reveal the intentions of the characters or the personality of the characters.
Also, I think having a killer talk, on camera, should be avoided because it does make the movie look a little corny but it didn’t take me out of the story it just felt really weird. Now, I can’t really complain about the acting that much because indie directors usually gather people who don’t have acting abilities but I will say that at points, the acting got a little hammy.
However, despite a couple problems here and there, I was fairly entertained by it. I really wanted to see more of the killer because it seems as though he has a purpose and that he is insane for a reason. It felt as though this film could have gone in the direction of either Silence of the Lambs or Seven and that tells you that the director knows his craft but that he needs practice translating it from thought to paper to movie. I think there is potential in this script and I know there is potential for Dark Rider Studios.
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