PLOT: A group of friends go camping for the weekend only to find themselves being stalked by a machete wielding psycho with long black burly hair (which looks a lot better than is sounds.) Yes the "story" has been done to death (pun intended) but while it's an oldie it's also a goody (if you're a slasher fan you know first hand.)
After we meet our characters we are in for some nice character development for the next 30-40 minutes only stopping to kill some random campers elsewhere in the woods to remind it's a horror film so you don't get bored.
FILM: SPARROW is a back-to-basics "stalk-and-slash" horror movie. There's no frills here. Unlike films such as SCREAM and URBAN LEGEND you don't have to guess who the killer is here, you know from the opening scene, and the killer actually looks creepy with his machete and long black hair to cover most of his face (and he mumbles a little laugh to himself more than once which is a great tool.)
While there are a good amount of jokes (and good ones) this is in no way a horror comedy, the jokes are quick and the kills are serious.
LENGTH: It's short, and the ending shorter. At a grand total of 67 minutes (65 if you take out the opening & closing credits) which wouldn't be too bad if only the ending was a little longer. As soon as the first main character is found dead the other character quickly start to die in an almost orgy of kill scenes (which may not be as good as it sounds.) Personally I thought the ending was like a cool opening kill scene like they did with the Friday the 13th remake (love it or hate it.)
If only the ending was 5-minutes longer it would be a nice little pay off after the long build up in developing the characters. When films are made usually the writers original vision is changed, but in this case I can't imagine the film-makers would have chopped down a longer ending (unless for budget purposes) so I think it's safe to say that this is one time we can say it's all the writers' fault.
Personally if a film is shorter than 70 minutes I don't feel like it is a true feature (even though it still is.)
KILLS: The kills are good (including a GREAT head slice that they should use as the final shot in a new trailer the current trailer is lame and in need of a new cut *wink wink* ).
NUDITY: One hands on boob scene. Not so good for a slasher movie. At least one topless scene is expected and necessary if you want to get your rental numbers up.
CAMERA WORK: The shots are nicely lit (if strikingly different between angels at times), the location looks nice and the movie looks as if it were shot on film (even though it wasn't).
Some of the shots are really bad, there are way too many close ups of the characters when they are talking and a lot of the frames are very static with no change in angles. The film was shot in Poland where as I understand it the Director of Photography chooses where to put the camera and not the director (which is probably why no Polish film seems to leave Poland). While I don't know that this was the case with SPARROW it would explain a lot.
A couple of the shots are out of focus for a few seconds but the film still looks great to say it was shot for £50,000.
ACTING: There are long pauses between bits of dialogue (possibly an editing thing) and DUNCAN's accent is all over the place (is he British, American, African? Who can tell? Good performance over all either way from Eric something.)
The character of MATT is barely seen and is played a little too serious most of the time but reminding me slightly of Edward from the Twilight "Saga" I'm sure the girls won't notice if he is on screen enough for them to remember he's in it of course.
SITCOM is played by a northerner so his accent is a little annoying but he quickly grows on you.
DAWN is a posh sounding/looking London girl with a high sexual appetite (apparently, you don't really see much of it, her one sex scene is off camera but she does shower herself down in front of everybody bra on, sorry boys.)
OVERALL: While this might come off as a bad review it's not. I liked for film for the most part, my faults with it (other than the slightly lack-luster ending) were mainly technical, being an aspiring film-maker myself maybe I'm just seeing what I would have done differently and nit-picking) but if you're a slasher movie fan then you'll want this in your collection (especially if you want to make a horror film yourself, this will inspire you to take stalk and slash horror back to it's routes.)
The ending leaves things wide-open for a possible sequel which I'd love to see (but with a longer ending)
There is no release date set at the time of writing.
After we meet our characters we are in for some nice character development for the next 30-40 minutes only stopping to kill some random campers elsewhere in the woods to remind it's a horror film so you don't get bored.
FILM: SPARROW is a back-to-basics "stalk-and-slash" horror movie. There's no frills here. Unlike films such as SCREAM and URBAN LEGEND you don't have to guess who the killer is here, you know from the opening scene, and the killer actually looks creepy with his machete and long black hair to cover most of his face (and he mumbles a little laugh to himself more than once which is a great tool.)
While there are a good amount of jokes (and good ones) this is in no way a horror comedy, the jokes are quick and the kills are serious.
LENGTH: It's short, and the ending shorter. At a grand total of 67 minutes (65 if you take out the opening & closing credits) which wouldn't be too bad if only the ending was a little longer. As soon as the first main character is found dead the other character quickly start to die in an almost orgy of kill scenes (which may not be as good as it sounds.) Personally I thought the ending was like a cool opening kill scene like they did with the Friday the 13th remake (love it or hate it.)
If only the ending was 5-minutes longer it would be a nice little pay off after the long build up in developing the characters. When films are made usually the writers original vision is changed, but in this case I can't imagine the film-makers would have chopped down a longer ending (unless for budget purposes) so I think it's safe to say that this is one time we can say it's all the writers' fault.
Personally if a film is shorter than 70 minutes I don't feel like it is a true feature (even though it still is.)
KILLS: The kills are good (including a GREAT head slice that they should use as the final shot in a new trailer the current trailer is lame and in need of a new cut *wink wink* ).
NUDITY: One hands on boob scene. Not so good for a slasher movie. At least one topless scene is expected and necessary if you want to get your rental numbers up.
CAMERA WORK: The shots are nicely lit (if strikingly different between angels at times), the location looks nice and the movie looks as if it were shot on film (even though it wasn't).
Some of the shots are really bad, there are way too many close ups of the characters when they are talking and a lot of the frames are very static with no change in angles. The film was shot in Poland where as I understand it the Director of Photography chooses where to put the camera and not the director (which is probably why no Polish film seems to leave Poland). While I don't know that this was the case with SPARROW it would explain a lot.
A couple of the shots are out of focus for a few seconds but the film still looks great to say it was shot for £50,000.
ACTING: There are long pauses between bits of dialogue (possibly an editing thing) and DUNCAN's accent is all over the place (is he British, American, African? Who can tell? Good performance over all either way from Eric something.)
The character of MATT is barely seen and is played a little too serious most of the time but reminding me slightly of Edward from the Twilight "Saga" I'm sure the girls won't notice if he is on screen enough for them to remember he's in it of course.
SITCOM is played by a northerner so his accent is a little annoying but he quickly grows on you.
DAWN is a posh sounding/looking London girl with a high sexual appetite (apparently, you don't really see much of it, her one sex scene is off camera but she does shower herself down in front of everybody bra on, sorry boys.)
OVERALL: While this might come off as a bad review it's not. I liked for film for the most part, my faults with it (other than the slightly lack-luster ending) were mainly technical, being an aspiring film-maker myself maybe I'm just seeing what I would have done differently and nit-picking) but if you're a slasher movie fan then you'll want this in your collection (especially if you want to make a horror film yourself, this will inspire you to take stalk and slash horror back to it's routes.)
The ending leaves things wide-open for a possible sequel which I'd love to see (but with a longer ending)
There is no release date set at the time of writing.
