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Read
Me A Story (2005)
Host
of Unfilmable.com Craig Mullins gives us his first
effort "Read Me a Story", a short and
rather disturbing tale inspired by the works of Lovecraft.
A story of a mother, who reads her child a bedtime story
(from the Necronomicon) as the stars align in the sky,
this movie is just creepy...though it does have its rough
spots.
To start, Rebekah Morrison's performance is a bit lackluster.
Her delivery of lines is rather bland and
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no sense of reality. I think the film could have really
popped with a better performance, though I enjoyed the movie
regardless. |
There
were a few inconsistencies in lighting, as the mother moves
through a hallway, carrying a hurricane lamp the hall is so
brightly lit as to leave me wondering why she was carrying the
lamp in the first place.
That isn't to say this movie is without good points though,
far from it. The imagery in the film was superb. The shot of
the night sky, the stars aligning and the lunar eclipse were
very well done. The moment where the mother caressed the child's
tentacle was disturbing, almost seeming to be pornographic in
a way. For me though, the final shot of the film was the most
effective.
The voice of the child, calling to his mother in the beginning
of the film was eerie, and I thought quite effective. Keeping
the child out of view makes it doubly so, as even the most creepy
sounding child can spoil the effect by being seen, shattering
the illusion.
I would have thought that the film needed more back-story. Being
a short film and so tightly packaged, there is no real explanation
of where this is or who these people are, but I noticed some
folks picking up on that right away. The connection between
the husband and wife does show through, despite never having
been mentioned.
Watching this film last night, Halloween, I truly appreciated
it. I think it works well and is a fine freshman effort. I think
there was room for improvement and I'm sure we'll see that in
Craig's next film.
- Bob Brinkman
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