seriously well directed and amazing storyline,it could be a sole movie based on this screenplay! i loved everything about this story but especially the battle between Dante and his apprentice so "now you see me" and the effects really nice!not such a horror story but overall the best for me !
shareyea all the segments on viral sucked except dante & his cloak
that was kick ass viral was 3.5/10
dante the magician :^)
The only thing lacking was the acting. The male lead did alright, but the female assistant was a terrible actress, but I agree. i'd love to see this redone with bigger star actors and a bigger budget taking it to full length. I'd also like this director who did Dante to re-do both Clive Barker films Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions. He's got a good digital sfx crew that could pull these films off better as reboots.
shareLord Of Illusions is exactly what this segment reminded me of, except a really lame version. The only segment I thought had any potential was the alternate reality story which was then ruined by ridiculous effects and ideas.
shareI didn't like it. Plus it looked too polished for a found footage segment. Pass.
sharethe story was ok, but man that fight scene withe dante and his assistant over the cloak was dumb as hell. You mean to tell me this guy destroyed a number of cops but can't kill one chick?
shareWell she was using the cloak as well dude. And she knows how to use some magic.
Stand up for what is right, even if you are standing alone.
No that bit was ridiculous
He could've killed her in 2 seconds flat without even getting close to her or letting her even remotely near the cloak
Just like he did with the SWAT team
Instead he had to get close to her, and she got the cloak... good scene visually but totally falls apart in terms on logic
He did prove he can kill from afar
There was just no need to get close to her and give her a chance
Bad plot point!
Cool scene though
Also she dies at the end anyway so that makes it ok
The effects sucked. Cheap "After Effects" anyone can use in their home videos. The acting was really bad too. And.. it wasn't found footage, what the *beep*?
shareThat segment wasn't meant to be entirely found footage. It included cell phone videos from the entire crew of the play and security video from the interrogation room. If you expected it to be exactly like a found footage film, you missed the point of the film entirely. It's VHS: Viral. The evil is going viral through cell phones and from there, all forms of media.
shareDante was the weakest to me. Magic stories are always lame. I will give it a slight pass because i think it would have done better as alonger story (seemed to rushed) But the FX were cheap and the acting was terrible.
Honestly the best acting in the entire film probably goes to the skater kids...although they were annoying...they seemed like real skater kids.
The apple iphone came out in 1990.I HAVE PICTURES OF THE BERLIN WALL COMING DOWN ON IT. -DChupra
It was the only good segment
shareDante had a great storyline but terrible direction, interesting and neat ideas, but the director had all his actors hit the notes too wrong, had awkward casting, extremely uncreative "liberty's" with the camera angles. It became tedious and inconsistent, he suddenly fears her getting his cloak so badly, but then he has an unnecessarily complicated fight with her, then they gotta go with the oh so original "HE'S STILL ALIVE!" and the final *beep* scare.
Creative ideas, and writing, absolutely silly direction.
I couldn't disagree more. Direction was spot on for this one. Awkward casting? Can't get any better than Justin Welborn from The Signal, Justified, Final Destination. Camera angles were on purpose (like District 9) and really creative. How was his fight unnecessarily complicated? He didn't want to kill her because he loved her. What's the "HE'S STILL ALIVE" beat your talking about? Where he gets shot and switches places with the swat guy? That is genius & fits with magic theme. Final scare made me leap out of my seat.
So, yeah. Direction was strong. :)
The direction was weak, he has his actors hit lines in awkward ways, the killing of the boyfriend was incredibly silly, and I doubt it was meant to be as corny as it was. Then the main guy, Dante, just an awful performance, he comes off as some guy in his backyard making hardcore youtube videos where he thinks he's an extremely edgy dark and mysterious, than an actual frightening mustache twisting evil that he was supposed to be. Now I know the director was all trying to get up his own self-impressedass by claiming "OH MAN I'M BREAKING THE CONCEPT" except he couldn't find actually fluid ways to move the camera about in the fight scene except a lazy explanation the filmcrew for all the overdone camera angle changes, even though Chronicle explained the cinematic camera angles as him using his telekinetic power to move them around, cutting from device to device and we know and feel the environment and logic of each camera angle cause of the device's own niche.
In this one he just puts a subtitle THE CAMERA CREW under it to explain his lazy direction for the final fight, and also the SWAT camera angles dying in perfect composition was lame as well. And what I mean was he acted so frightened and scared that she had his cloke, then when he finally gets it he tries to kill her but then just takes forever to do it "he loved her" is a lame excuse, he didn't have any yearning for her, she was just a fleshpuppet victim like all the rest, he just hated how she exposed his secret and power.
"you guys are real funny for a bunch of unemployed *beep* The delivery, the line itself, everything about that one bit is awful, the actor isn't given the right direction to make the hokey line not so hokey.
The entire segment is trying to emulate district 9, for no real reason, there's dramatic editing and all this other Fox reality editing even though this is supposed to be a documentary from the very end after he ripped apart a bunch of cops. Then the way he brings her THROUGH a chair, ACROSS town, and she confronts him like "I SAW WHAT YOU DONE, I KNEW YOU MURDERED THOSE WOMAN!" As if that's the most astounding thing happening right now, she'd run and fear at the most terrifying thing ever in existance, she's confronting him like he's her little brother who killed a few hookers and she's worried about him, not like she's confronting a man who actually holds supernatural powers and can split her apart in one go.
Then to make things worse on the logic scale, after he just murders and rips apart a swat team with his mind, two more swat officers show up andthey just witness 6 of their fellow officers being slaughtered in the most incredible, horrifying, reality-bending way possible, and they just shoot him like he's a normal man? Normal people don't send fireballs, levitate officers and force them to shoot their team mates, or rip their chest open with their will alone, and they fire a few times.
The professor guy and the old man in the shop were incredibly bad, they talk about him like he wasn't a guy who murdered a swat team with supernatural powers or got dragged under a cloak and eaten.
And I meant the cloak, but with the whole ambigious mother being all crazy and MAH SON VISITS, I just assumed he was still alive, but now I realize it was just the stupid cloak. But eitherway, the final downbeat horror final scare where the evil wins is so overdone and uncreative.
The whole segment stinked, save for the creative ideas, but awful direction, it could have been amazing, but it's visually uninspired, logically all over the place, poor acting choices and dialog, and just an all around meh execution with great ideas and story.
The entire segment is trying to emulate district 9, for no real reason, there's dramatic editing and all this other Fox reality editing even though this is supposed to be a documentary from the very end after he ripped apart a bunch of cops.
and they just shoot him like he's a normal man? Normal people don't send fireballs, levitate officers and force them to shoot their team mates, or rip their chest open with their will alone, and they fire a few times.
The documentary format, cutting between "experts" and "people" he knew and cutting from documentary footage to rough footage, another poster mentioned it as well so I'm not pulling it out of nowhere. I have no problem with the idea of it, but they all talk about him like he didn't just rip apart a swat team and got eaten by a cloak crocodile. And he didn't break the found footage format, he just didn't have a consistent logic, Distict 9, Chronicle, The Borderlands, Zero Day are all films that had their own consistent logic.
District 9 is a documentary style film for the first 20 minutes, then it switches to a cinematic perspective with occasional documentary cut ins and interviews to exposition what's happening. Chronicle starts out strickly found footage but it utilized his super powers to explain the more "cinematic" camera set ups later on, The Borderlands switches between documentary, found footage, surveillance, and other devices, and Zero Day is found footage for the majority of the film, but then it's surveillance footage of the school when they finally shoot it up.
This one is found footage at the beginning, then it's a documentary and interview that's happening parallel, but then after the intense fight it goes back to documentary and the director and editing is so nonchalant, they act as though they didn't just capture the most amazing and incredibly frightening footage of all time, and just treat it like just another saturday night segment. I mean the editing and logic is awful, the documentary team and the people they interview are wondering where he went, even though they clearly filmed him being eaten by a cloak crocodile. And his fellow towns folks have zero care or show any reaction to the fact he killed people in impossible ways.
And any SWAT team that witnesses impossible supernatural things happening, are gonna react with fight or flight, not with their training, so yes, they either unload their entire rifles into him, and shoot him with overkill because they know he isn't normal, in fact he's impossible, so that or they run away.
The magician segment was very well directed. Anyone else notice that 75% of the trailer were shots from Dante the Great? LOL
shareThe thing that pissed me off most about Dante the Great, aside from it's bad acting and story, was the format was lifted from district 9 with all the interviews of what happened to him.
sharered_skin123: I disagree with about 95% of everything you wrote. I was going to break down how and why, but honestly it's a bit of a chore to get through your writing. lol. No offense. :D
I will comment on this though:
"I mean the editing and logic is awful, the documentary team and the people they interview are wondering where he went, even though they clearly filmed him being eaten by a cloak"
The guy was a magician, so no one would believe any of that footage. They would think it was manipulated for show. Especially the authorities, they would think there is a logical explanation for it all.
They never filmed him being eaten by the cloak.
shareTo be fair REC3 was by far the worst REC
The only one where Balaguero doesn't direct and it freaking shows
I kinda enjoyed Dante, but my favorite ep was Parallel Monsters
I just can't resist any parallel reality story, they click with me
Lol jeeez the internet truly is a haven for people to bitch about movies eh?
The movie had potential given more time, but it was rushed, otherwise it was very enjoyable.
Stop trying to widdle it down, it wont make you feel better.
I want to be a filmmaker, so I can bitch and moan about what I love all day long, I don't go out of my way to discuss metallica and pick it apart because I have no interest in the subject matter, but I'm sure they're a very nice little "metal" band. Zack Wildd is my favorite metallica brah
shareHow old are you?
Honest, genuine question
Like if you're still in school it's totally cool, you have every right to rant to get prepped for when you do make your first movies
I meant it
If you're any older than 20 quit b##ching and go get a short done already