Omni's Random Video Noise

Ughhh...

****, man...

Bring back Coraline.

So, I guess this movie is about a girl who gets demonically possessed by satanists living in her apartment who are the descendants of Salem witches and who want her to give birth to... the Anti-Christ?

And she does.

...

I really don't want to say much more than that. I had gleaned that much from the friggen' promtional material, exactly what you think happens happens and it's much more of a traditional horror film than I had hoped it would be.

I've liked some stuff Rob Zombie's made. Mostly songs off Hellbilly Deluxe, but still. THIS... this was just unpleasant.

I'm just gonna list off the notes I took watching this movie, here's verbatim what I wrote:

Nah.

Alright, so here’s what I’m gonna do: I’m gonna show you one clip from the beginning of the movie and if it clicks with you, WATCH IT. The rest of the review is going to be hardcore spoiler territory, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Let me preface this review by making a case in favor of it’s objectivity:

I had only seen the initial trailer prior to watching the movie. I didn't know anyone involved in it's production, what budget it had, or even that it was independently made. And even if I did I do not believe those things necessarily inform the quality of a movie.

Whether it had a lot of money or not does not matter.
Whether it started a legacy or not does not matter.
Whether it features any recognizable talent or not DOES NOT MATTER.

Save the trailer, I was totally blind, and after it was over I was in tears and that self doubt kicked in like a JET ENGINE; Was it really that good? Did I miss some major plotholes? Am I overlooking some bias here?

I immediately watched again and was in tears for a second time. It's a great movie, and shortly thereafter I decided it was my favorite movie I've ever seen EVER.

That's why I'm going to explain to you, to the best of my ability, why I like this movie so much and in the spirit of what I believe to be the most fair and transparent way one can review something they love, I'm going to start off by telling you
EVERY SINGLE ****ING THING THAT'S WRONG WITH IT.


That's right. This movie isn't perfect, NO movie is perfect, and I'm going to give you every single possible reason I can think of for you to hate this movie because fans should be the harshest critics. So strap in, we're gonna rip into this movie and I ain't using no anesthetic!


So here's the premise:

After night has fallen and the weary have retreated to their beds, invisible beings called Storytellers pop into the world and grant good dreams to those asleep, while a rival faction, the disturbed Incubi, spread nightmares. One night a new creature steps onto the scene, an ugly man by the name of Ink, who inexplicably wakes a young girl, Emma, into their dimension and kidnaps her for the purposes of becoming an Incubus.

The story is presented from three perspectives: That of Ink, Emma, and Liev (a Storyteller), that of Emma's estranged father John, and that of Allel, Gabe, Sarah, and Jacob, Storytellers out to restore Emma's soul.


The effects are stupid fake.
Actually, that's a bit broad. Only one or two effects need work, the rest are fine. Very simple special effects, filters, and editing tricks are used throughout the movie and they work well. They're not a focus of the movie, but they compliment it and don't detract from it, just as they should be in all movies. But there's one special effect that's REALLY bad right at the start of the movie.
It's when the Incubi are first shown delivering nightmares. Storytellers deliver dreams by placing their hand on the head of the sleeper and their arm glows white. The Incubi's shadows move independently to consume the person... and it looks REALLY half-assed. Like... totally obvious bad Photoshop half-assed.
Fortunately, it only appears a couple times throughout the movie, once at the very beginning, and again later on, at which point you really won't care.

The nightmares are disturbing.
As mentioned above, at the very beginning of the movie, you witness some Incubi delivering nightmares to people. The images you're shown are very disturbing, extremely visceral, and very out of place with the rest of the movie's tone. It makes sense provided the context; they're providing nightmares, they SHOULD be disturbing. But unlike say... the game, Dante's Inferno, where the unsettling depiction of hell is horrifyingly believable and actually incentive to descend deeper, this is effectively just shock material, and it proves to be the only really uncomfortable part of the whole movie.

What the **** is "The Pod"?
The "Pod" is an unnamed device that occurs twice in the movie. The viewer must infer how it functions because it is never explained what it is or how it works. Apparently, Storytellers carry "remotes" (depressible rods) wherever they go. These remotes, when activated, trigger a previously placed "beacon" which acts as an emergency alarm, calling waves of Storytellers to come help.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this plot element beyond a single thing: You forget about it. It appears at the very beginning of the movie for a brief instant to call all the Storytellers to chase Ink who has just kidnapped Emma, and at the very end of the movie at it's climax when it's shown not to work. This needs more emphasis, we barely had time to absorb what it MIGHT be over an hour ago, so what makes you think we'll understand the dilemma now? "It's not working?" What do you mean? What is that thing? What's it supposed to do?


The explosive pill paints a really graphic mental image.
This is also really out of place. Early on, Ink force feeds Emma a mysterious pill which is later implied to be an explosive when he reveals a device strapped to his arm, we flashback to him giving her the pill, we zoom in on Emma looking at her stomach, and Ink pulls the line: "You'll wear her guts!". This is just... weirdly gruesome for a movie without any actual gore. Why does Emma look at her stomach? Can she FEEL the pill or something? And the idea of Emma exploding into viscera all over Liev is... horrible. What does it accomplish?

We already know Ink is an ******* because he kidnapped Emma's soul leaving her body to die and we just finished watching him try to kill Liev with daggers, so we really DON'T need it to prove how desperate he is. All this amounts to is Liev's surrender and we really do not need to go as far as a contrived exploding pill to do that.

The "lioness" subplot is pointless.
Throughout the majority of the movie, a recurring theme is Liev trying to convince a scared Emma that when she passed into their dimension she began transforming into a brave lioness. It's an eye-rolling moment every time because it never amounts to anything beyond a couple throwaway lines, and even Emma doesn't believe it when she outright says "You're full of it".

Even so, Emma's given a couple moments of rebellion where she roars at people, but the takeaway is virtually nil.

The keys are miniature bongos? Seriously?
By far the SILLIEST part of the movie is the fact that any time Ink or a Storyteller want to move between dimensions, they whip out a pair of mini bongos, play a tune, and a door of light opens before them. This... is... STUPID.

I know this sounds harsh, I mean, look at Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the actual title of the game is about using a small instrument to play a tune to transcend some fabric of reality, right? Well, think about it: What do we associate flutes and ocarinas with? The delicate chirp of graceful music, right? It almost sounds magical. Well, what do we associate BONGOS with? I'd sooner see a childrens' xylophone in this movie than bongos.


Occasional lines of dialog are just BAD.
Some lines of dialog are just... not done well. They either sound like they should have been cut out, or they just left in a botched take. They pull you out of the moment every time.

The Incubus Leader isn't developed.
This guy needed depth. At the end of the movie, the characters confront the leader of the Incubi; the only Incubi who doesn't wear glasses or a faceplate, instead he has black eyes that occasionally flicker. Who is this guy? They just introduce him in the last few minutes of the movie, and we've heard nothing of him up to now. The entire movie Ink is trying to get to "The Assembly". It'd be a big step up for this character if instead Ink was try to get to "The Incubus Leader", it would actually establish him as an existing character early on and give us reason to expect him, not be surprised by his sudden appearance right before the movie ends. Let's see some build up for this guy.

Another thing that's strangely noticeable is that even though this character is given lines, you never actually see him speak them for what short time he's actually on screen. What's up with that?

The work scenes are confusing.
The scenes in which we see John at work are practically impossible to follow. A mixture of lingo and names we're unfamiliar with make understanding who John works for and what his problems are incomprehensible without extreme scrutiny. Fortunately, the movie only requires you to know one thing: ****'s going down at work, and he's gotta make a deal big time.


'John' is the most boring name on the planet.
JOHN? REALLY??? Are we seriously calling a protagonist John?
Masterchief is John.
Rambo is John.
John McClane.
John Connor.
John Bender.
John Shepherd.
John Anderton.
John Dunbar.
John Smith.
John Shaft.
John Carter.
Papa John's Pizza.
John is also a euphemism for a TOILET and someone who pays for SEX.

Why not call him something humble? Like... Isaac? Or George? Or Luke? Or Chewy-come on, not JOHN!
*see you thought I was going for something different there but I wasn't*

'Storytellers' & 'Incubi' don't jell at all.
The name, "Storytellers" make sense. They give dreams and, in effect, tell an appreciable story. But "Incubi" is just random. There aren't any "Succubi" in the movie, and they don't resemble their mythological depiction at all beyond the fact that they're all male (for some reason) and attack sleepers. Ultimately, their names just don't mesh together well.

Jacob's kind of annoying.
Giving that he is plainly a comedy relief character in an otherwise very serious movie, this is, to a degree, acceptable, but a couple of Jacob's scenes are a bit offputting. He's kind of hysterical and at least the reactions from other characters are appropriate, but when he's first introduced and a second time later on, we're given a mini montage of him counting to himself "1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4..." and, especially when you're watching it for the first time, it's a bit lame. It's not as short as it could be, and there's only so much 1, 2, 3, 4ing you can sit through.


Religious subtext? Spare me.
Yeah, if John wasn't enough, the movie portrays souls as the form people take when they die. This is totally fine by me because it's used merely to serve a fantasy context. A couple characters mention God though, and even though it's never implied in any religious way, I can't help but think that as a modern fantasy movie could do with leaving God out.

The sound design overtakes the visuals.
In a few instances of the movie we get a lot of ambient sound effects to accompany what's going on onscreen. In one particular scene we have Ink enter a warehouse full of junk and it sounds like Pee-wee's breakfast machine is chuggin' full speed inside. You never see it though and you just know they had nothing to show for it. At least the set seems to be a plausible enough place for a Mouse Trap-style cannon.

Collision sounds also sound a bit too crunchy.

Continuity errors are amateurish.
I SAW that teddy bear move! That was NOT the position it was in in the previous shot! You should feel ashamed of yourself, movie! ASHAMED!


ENOUGH with the yellow bloom filters!
Unlike movies like Avalon and Ghost in the Shell 2, the color filters here actually serve to help orient the viewer in what dimension we're seeing events play through. White means the real world while gold means the dream world and green means the nightmare world.

I don't have a problem with this at all as it's a productive shorthand to establishing certain scenes (the video above isn't revealed to be a dream sequence, you have to figure it out).

I do balk at the bloom though as it can strain the eyes and it obviously wasn't necessary to achieve the same purpose in The Matrix.

Make me sick with the camera, why don't you?
A combination of shaky cam and rapid cuts can get old after a while and really only seem to serve making the movie appear more brisk than it actually is. As much as that may help it can also be distracting, they really could have toned it down.

Liev is just a walking plot device.
Liev is actually a major character in the movie, right up until the climax, but she's the only character in the whole movie with such a title... and isn't even particularly likable. Her actor isn't bad, she's just not written anywhere near as well as the rest of the movie, and in a movie this good it really sticks out. Her concept isn't handled to it's full extent, she doesn't do or say anything particularly interesting, and since she's never given any sort of backstory, she's just... there.





....................................okay.

I can't really think of anything else to criticize right now so now I'm going to explain what I do like... no more spoiler tags now.


Here goes:

I think Ink is a story of redemption and never before have I found myself caring for a guy so easy to dislike.

We're first introduced to John in a flashback/dream sequence, but we're shortly given a glimpse of his real personality when we see him drop some papers on the sidewalk and he steels at an offer to help.

You could easily take this to mean he's simply having a rough day, but as it's implied by the movie later on, independence is critical, or put another way, "You need help? With it, shame."

The massive deceit of the movie is that John IS Ink or rather John will become Ink if he continues down the path he's taking. I'll talk about how this works narratively later, but for now I'd like to analyze this piece:

The idea that independence is shameful is an aspect of pride and pride is the true antagonist of this movie. This is never explicitly said however a tiny line is given away at the end where the the Incubus Leader says, "Pride is what we are made of."


Ink's path to becoming an Incubi parallels John's path in life. He's a recluse, he favors his wealth and what other people think of him, and even genuine offers of family from his step-father, Ron, bring out anger at the thought. The GALL this guy must have to ask ME to be a father after he stole custody away from me?

John's feelings are totally understandable and as we see from the nightmares fed to him by the Incubi, he's tormented by a past wracked with poverty and social ostracism. It makes sense for him to bury into his job which feeds him financial success and social comfort even at the expense of his own family.

This is also paralleled by two scenes which I honestly didn't really understand the purpose of when I first saw them. Ink visits two "Drifters", unaligned but allegiant to the Incubi and both of them are massive caricatures of this dichotomized sense of pride: Materialism and Vanity. One is obsessed with "what's mine" and the other is obsessed with "what they think of me". The reality is both are totally alone except perhaps with their dealings with the Incubi which trade in such superficialities.

The "Keymaster" Incubus who said that need of help is shameful also gave away another clue in the form of Ink's incentive: "You only have one opportunity... to become... numb."

Numb to what? To pain? So pride numbs the pain of life? Now suddenly we have a picture!

We have the Incubi as fantastical representations of society, a borg-like collective that, in it's writhing struggle to endure life, cross-imposes on itself a solution: that all you need are things and people to pat you on the back. What matters isn't a personal feeling of success or the bonds you might share with a significant other, what matters is MONEY, ALL THE **** YOU CAN BUY WITH THAT MONEY AND THE LOOKS TO FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT. YOU WANT TO BE A COVER GIRL, SO YOU GOTTA HAVE THIS COLOR HAIR, THESE SIZE BREASTS, AND SHOES WITH A HEEL TO MATCH BECAUSE IT'S ALL THE RAGE NOW.

This is also reflected by the nightmares and dreams at the beginning of the movie. While some of the dreams are forgiveably shallow and arguably ENCOURAGE these values, the nightmares specifically funnel them. It's not just drowning and teeth falling out, it's being alone, it's being a victim of gossip, and it's failing to rise to expectations.

When John gets into a car crash on his way to the big business meeting, the Incubi influencing him says "Your whole life is going to crumble". This deceivingly implies that his entire life extends only to his job. Beyond his job nothing matters.

Yet when he pursues it it's the loss of his daughter that deepens his depression, fuels his drug habit, and incites him to commit suicide, becoming Ink, losing all sense of self and repeating the process over again until he becomes an Incubi, another cog in this machine of narcissism and misery, OR he discovers what really matters... personal pride be damned.


It's a movie that unpretentiously suggests humility and I am SO INTO THAT.

Everything else helps too.

I like the subtle but interesting character design. The Incubi are appropriately uniform, Jacob's electrical tape Xs over his eyes are ENTIRELY POINTLESS yet still appeal to me, and Ink himself has me fondly call back to the Mystics in Dark Crystal.

The soundtrack is a more than appropriately moody mixture of piano, strings, synth, and chimes and The Fort leitmotif is just ****in' amazing.

The acting is excellent, particularly with regards to Chris Kelly as John who manages to pull off both subtle mixed expressions and serious tearjerker drama with Quinn Hunchar as Emma also managing a believable precocious little girl.

A couple setpieces are especially memorable in their creativity, the best, I think, being "John's Walk" where we intercut John walking through a hospital with a fight between the Storytellers and Incubi battling to gain influence over him and become the new devil on his shoulder.

I loved the little spice they added to reality to shake it up and add emphasis. The rumbling wall clock and the ambient light dimming to just a glow above John and Ron's argument were great little touches. I eat that stuff up. A lot of great shot composition too.


I like that the movie managed to not only to put me in a good mood, but also make me cry and laugh as well. Jacob's "we meet again" moment totally got me and it probably helped to brace me against his obnoxious personality.

The ending is also the best ****ing ending I've ever seen to any movie ever. It's brought me to tears almost every time, more consistently than anything else I've seen.

We even got a strong likable punky girl with Allel!


I'll close this review out on two final points. The first point being the plot twist:

When I first saw the movie I did not suspect the twist that Ink is John at all even though other people have said they predicted it early on. I don't entirely buy this since while they may have suspected it, it couldn't have been rationalized until late into the movie.

The reason it didn't get me is it's plausible they're related characters only up until you see the Storytellers interacting with the real world anachronistically. If Ink is John, then why is John here and now reacting to something Ink has come and done? It's impossible UNTIL Liev says that "time works differently" late into the movie.

Only at that point can the connection be justified and even then renders itself practically impervious to scrutiny. It's never described exactly how time is measured or to what degree that the two timelines exist, it's just said "time works differently".

I suppose you could call that a cop-out, but to me it doesn't really stand far apart from Inception never explaining the dream device. You don't need to know HOW it works for the plot to make sense you just have to suspend your disbelief long enough to accept that it is what it is and considering how late into the movie this comes you've probably already come to accept a whole bunch of reality breaks by then.

It's also not as if this is deus ex machina either, these separate arcs are synchronized from the very beginning of the movie so saying one is an overlapping continuity is no ball out of left field.

On another note I think this movie distinguishes itself from other "twist movies" like The Game by being conceptually much deeper than it appears to be. It's much more rewatchable in that respect.


My second and final point is in regards to what is doesn't do.

In what it manages not to **** up like so many other movies ALMOST ALWAYS DO.

1.) The drug-addicted ******* protagonist is actually redeemed!

2.) There's a romantic subplot that is believably initiated, reasonably time-lapsed, with chemistry AND it features neither kissing, weddings, or even "I love you"!

3.) There are no non-humans to be seen ANYWHERE IN THE MOVIE!

4.) And there's no food anywhere EITHER!


...Except a cake.



It could be vegan.




Probably isn't, though.






****!
What else can you say?

Well, if you want to pick up the movie, bear in mind that since it was never picked up by distributors (THE **** IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?), the creators have released it themselves which means DVDs are both ad-free and region-free.

And you know what? Isn't it a pretty scummy thing to do to stuff ads into something I already bought? Not to mention limiting it's playability to a country because of some cock-brained, glue-huffing, notion that imports will hurt your sales?

**** YOU, I'll take my awesome movie WITHOUT any of your slimy corporate fingerprints because I CAN NEVER WASH THAT **** OUT!


As a final final final postscript addendum shutthe****upalreadythisistoolongasitis, I'm going to concede that my most recent viewing of Ink has, unfortunately, DROPPED my opinion of it.

It is no longer my #1 favorite movie, so expect my Top 10 to shift somewhat in the near future. Regardless, I still highly recommend it.