Such a frustrating disappointment

People are voting emotionally.

Best movie of this year hands down!

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Jonathan Dueck's 'Final Draft' doesn't show us much what we haven't already seen before. The director tries to make it mysterious, suspenseful and ambiguous but not much happens until the last half hour. Darryn Lucio writes and costars. While the premise is interesting, the pacing is at fault. It takes almost an entire hour for the story to take off. 'Final Draft' seems to take much of its inspiration from Stephen King's 'It' and 'Secret Window'. Even though it's made within a small budget, it' quite well-made and the visuals in the last half hour are quite well done. The dark and gloomy atmosphere is The characterization was quite clichéd and that makes the situations less interesting. James Van Der Beek turns in a decent performance as the tormented writer suffering from writer's block and fighting his past but the rest of the cast is uninteresting. So, there is nothing refreshing about 'Final Draft'. It's painfully slow, clichéd and tries too hard while failing.

Final Draft - A screenwriter (James Van Der Beek) locks himself into his apartment and succumbs to psychosis in an attempt to write a horror script. Not a terrible premise, but the execution is awful. This feels like a first year direction and writing job, and probably is. The director jump cuts the hell out of everything. It's meant to be disorienting. What it IS is annoying. So much so that small chunks of film are incoherent. The writing is predictable, and doesn't use follow through on most of the ideas it offers (bag of oranges). It's like they ran out of time and slap-dashed it together for the Toronto Film Festival.This film is not jaw-droppingly "oh my god it's so bad it's good" bad. It's boring bad, and irritates you for a long time afterward. James Van Der Beek is not a terrible actor, and keeps the ship barely above water. But he's too normal for the kind of psychosis the film tries to offer. He is merely a withdrawn guy who one day sees people and hallucinates things, then decides to act mildly deranged. Cause follows effect. Maybe there's something in the water. Now Darryn Lucio, who plays his "friend", is a terrible actor. He shares the likeness of Chris O'Donald and is even more annoying, a superhuman achievement.The atmosphere the film provides is good (dull gray and somber), but as it's the only thing the film achieves it means nothing. This film wants to be Jacob's Ladder or The Machinist. It isn't even Secret Window. It's the preppy girl in class deciding to turn goth.Not irksomely terrible, but the sheer stupidity of it will ebb at you. I've already put more thought into this critique than the filmmakers did for this.D

Paul Twist (James Van Der Beek) is a screenwriter, who suffering writer's block and he wasn't been writing for two years. When his friend/struggling actor David Hockin (Darryn Lucio) asks him to write another screenplay for him to star. After Paul mentions, he dreams about an clown was frighten about. David wants him to writes an supernatural slasher/horror film about the clown. Since Paul only has an idea in his head, when David made the deal. They want the script in three weeks and Paul thinks, the only way he could write it. If he's locked in his apartment for three weeks. When his friend agree with the odd situation. Now Paul starts writing his script but he also thinking of what went wrong with his ex-wife (Tara Spencer-Naim), his brother who committed suicide (Devon Sterling Ferguson), an bully from his childhood (Adam MacDonald), his imaginary friend (Jeff Roop), an model he fantasized a lot (Melaine Marden) and especially himself.Directed by Jonathan Dueck made an OK watchable film but nearly dull surreal horror drama. This has an good premise, although it does reminds me of the work of Stephen King movies like "It" and especially "Secret Window". But oddly enough, it reminds worth a look for Van Der Beek's decent performance. Who certainly deserves better material than this movie. Nothing really makes sense in this unpleasant independent feature and some viewers will find this off-putting as well. Actor:Lucio also wrote the screenplay of this instead forgotten movie. (**/*****).

For anyone who's about to watch this, keep in mind that it's a low-budget indie-film. Don't expect spectacular locations, spectacular plot twists or spectacular acting. The movie moves forward pretty slow and it takes a long time before anything actually happens. I also have a problem with the dialog, which lacks a lot of subtlety. What's wrong with letting the viewers figure out for themselves what's meant by certain lines...Still, the film was enjoyable and I have no problem recommending it to friends. Seeing how there are so few decent horror films out there, this deserves some credit. I felt a bit let down by the last half hour, but that part of the movie does score well on unpredictability.To sum it up: a decent psychological horror movie with okay performances and some intense scenes. Worth the watch if you don't mind a slow pace.6/10