A Brilliant Conflict

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The acting in this movie is really good.

'Anna' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an intriguing if not particularly original premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive as well as the low rating and poor reviews. It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws those films have are present here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'Anna' is terrible, with a plethora of problems (huge ones too) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There is really nothing to recommend.Lets start with the sole positive. The setting, while going too far on the simplicity, is fairly spooky at times.Unfortunately, it is not done justice by the rather direct to video schlocky way it's shot and edited and the drab colour palette, so much so it was hard to appreciate it, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm. In particular, the camera work was a nauseous assault on the eyes with its excessive amateurish-ness. Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates.Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. The effects are ropy at best, the sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and it's best not mentioning the uniformly lumbering and histrionic acting that shows a huge indifference to the situation and what is going on and extremely awkward prolonged pauses.Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés, lots of unintentional humour that makes some of the film play like a really bad spoof and no depth whatsoever, while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags on forever with very little going on worth caring about and useless padding, never recovering. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Would not have minded the lack of originality (the film is extremely derivative and in a dumbed and watered down way) if the story and atmosphere were at least alright in execution, in reality they were both incredibly poorly done.A lot of 'Anna' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. The ending makes the film finish on an incomplete and confused whimper, while there have been far creepier and better used titular dolls and the film often fails to make sense, at worst it's incomprehensible.There is not enough threat, and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, it is completely unimaginative and more odd than creepy, completely failing to show any sense of horror or creativity. Everything here is neither creative, suspenseful or nail-biting. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is leaden and like their heart was not in it or ill at ease, with the chemistry between the characters and actors coming over as constantly random and aggressive with the subtlety of an axe. This is very dreary and amateurish stuff that fails to be scary, interesting or easy to follow.Overall, awful with no redeeming value apart from an element that is difficult to appreciate with it being complemented so badly. 1/10 Bethany Cox

This movie had a good story line going for it. I can't say that it's "unoriginal" because the events occurring in this movie actually happened. But as soon as the movie started, I could tell it was going to be bad. The acting, to start off, is by far the worst acting I've ever seen in a movie. It's almost as if these people acting in the movie were strangers picked up off of the street. Not only is this the worst acting I've ever seen, but considered that this was based off of the true story, the plot doesn't make sense AT ALL. How does it expect us to be able to fallow this bad acting when the plot is equally as bad. The only reason that I picked up this movie was because I wasn't thinking straight when at the rental store and though that it was related to Annabelle. As I got home though and put the movie in, I remembered the back of the disk case and that I had heard this story before and still thought this was going to be a good movie. In the end, I'm glad that I rented this movie and can just return it tomorrow. I do not whatsoever recommend buying or renting this movies unless you just want to waste your time. But if your into really bad movies, go for it.

Jacob (Justin Duncan) and Shawn (Gerald Crum) are dumb and dumber when it comes to paranormal investigations. They swipe a doll from a paranormal museum that is supposed to he haunted. The doll doesn't do much of anything until they realize they need a woman to sacrifice to the doll. Eventually the doll takes control. The film is designed to be a spoof of the haunted doll horror craze. I liked the characters, the dialogue, the dumb look on their face, the girl who responded to the ad, the fake psychic, the satanist woman, and the scissors on a stick weapon. The negative side included the basic plot and failure to create a viable spoof. The cinematography needed improvement and the sound guy needs another profession. The sound was uneven and in one outdoor scene near the end you can see the wire that connects to the microphone dangling in the picture. No sense in doing a re-shoot. Who will notice? Smile funny. Not for everyone. Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity. Brief scene of a woman in a nude suit.

My experience with watching this movie was a pretty bizarre one. It is played out like a straight up doll themed horror yet there are some scenes which have comedic elements when it comes to dialogue. It leaves me questioning whether this is a horror-comedy or not.This is what I was thinking about the two main characters (who are friends, not brothers as the back of the DVD tells me): Imagine two people, who at times acted like they came straight out of a cartoon, taking a wrong turn and ending up in a horror film and occasionally bumble around trying to figure out what to do or how to talk their way out of crazy situations (i.e. The bar scene and the Satanic ritual scene). These two also follow the brainy friend/goofy friend schtick. Understandably, they act this way purposely as part of the plot involves stealing the doll, Anna (or Susan or Suzanna according to the paranormal museum owner) and using her to make a series of vlogs to record any paranormal behaviour she may exhibit during the week they plan to keep her for.Now I have that off my chest, let's move onto the positives and negatives I have:NEGATIVES: Dialogue audio at times is extremely poor and noticeable. Though there are a few scenes where it fixes itself only to go back to distortion and static feedback (there is one scene in particular where it's clear and crisp with one person talking but with another it's bad). Like what you hear during a low connection Skype call.In the first half of the movie, there is an excessive amount of stock sound effects used to the point where it becomes increasingly annoying to hear. The biggest culprit being the same creaky door sound playing at least ten times on a loop. It does halt as the movie goes on and it then gets replaced by dubbed in heavy breathing, pants and grunts during the more suspenseful scenes.The majority of the dialogue at times is cringe-inducing, especially during the more comedic moments.POSITIVES: Aside from cringy delivery and poorly performed screams, the acting is so-so. The only credit I can give for a halfway decent performance is Justin Duncan who plays Jacob. There was a scene where our two leads are arguing in the middle of the street after running away from home and this was where I thought that Duncan's performance in that scene alone proved to me that if he was playing a more serious role in another movie, he would've done pretty well. The only time he really faltered were the supposedly unintentionally comedic moments in the movie. The two leads, to me, sounded like they were better off doing voice acting for an internet cartoon series since their character's personalities seemed more suited in that category.Overall, I can say that this is all baby steps for this independent movie. Horror-comedy or not, I'm still keeping hold of my copy.