Andrea (dominican horror film review)

AZB

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Seems like the biggest talk of the town is ?Andrea?. A Dominican movie, written and directed by Dominicans who have no movie making experience and local actors who have no prior acting schooling. The Bencosme brothers and their friend had to put up their houses and all the family savings they had left to start the production of the movie. These guys had a dream and their dream was to make a memorable Dominican movie no matter what it took. So folks, after a long and arduous journey, they have finally reached their dream.
The movie is about a little girl from moca village (villa trina) who took a cross from a grave and installs it on her mom?s grave which didn?t have one. From that point on the ghost of the stolen cross grave possesses the body of the little girl Andrea to get back the cross she had taken. Turns out the man who was buried in the grave had ended his life by committing suicide. Now I won?t tell more so you folks would have to go and see the movie for yourself.
Considering the low budget ($225,000) the lack of Hollywood sophistication and zero training in acting school or movie industry experience, the movie came out very good.
This movie gave me more chills and goose bumps than a 100 million dollar Hollywood movie. The suspense horror theme also intertwines with Dominican humor. All the ingredients together simply equals to a 2 plus hours of pure entertainment. The movie was shot on location in moca, villa trina and juan lopez. The actors are local and I even know one personally.
The cons are nothing more than what was expected naturally:
The film quality was very poor. It reminded me of early 70?s 8mm movie projected on a huge screen. The movie was shot with extreme close-up of actor?s faces. If you would zoom out, the picture quality would become totally blurry. There was a lot of film noise.
I was told that they had only used one camera to shoot the whole movie. However, it was hard to believe this account because the scene change was seamless and I could never tell that only one camera was used through-out the whole movie. The actors had a simple script, but the girl ?crystal? needs to work more on her acting skills. She seemed like she was reading her script from paper.
After seeing the movie I left with a sense of poignancy; this movie was too good to be made by a shoe string budget. This movie belonged to Hollywood. The theme was too good to be left for some guys who had no movie making experience. If this movie had been made with Hollywood budget, it would certainly become one of the top 10 horror/suspense movie of all times.
On the positive note, I am proud of the Dominican producers and director for making an excellent horror Dominican movie with all odds stacked against them. If you consider the resources these guys had to work with to reach this far, you will certainly appreciate their work and the result they had produced with what little they had in their hands. I am absolutely sure this film will win many film awards all around the globe and we will see many more quality films produced right in this paradise island in the near future.

Now I would advise folks to wait and not go see this movie this week. I had to jump and cut the lines to get the ticket and then force myself in the front area to get inside before all seats fill up. There was a crowd outside which reminded me of the first grand opening day of MacDonald?s in Moscow. The lines in plaza internacional had reached all the way back to food court. There must have been thousands of folks there. We had to endure 30 minutes outside the doors in the movie theater with over 100 degrees F temperatures. We were all cramped in shoulder to shoulder in hopes of getting inside before many to get a good seat. I swear, I was going to faint from the abject extreme temperatures. We were all sweating and trying to maintain composure. After a while the crowd became rowdy and they started to kick and punch the doors. There were chanting as they were in a World Series baseball game. Dominicans seem to get a party going no matter where they are. Finally the doors opened late and all the frustrated totally disobeyed the orders from the doorman and crashed through the doors to get inside and grab the best seats. The poor door man never had the chance to hold the crowd back and collect the tickets. There was a stampede. We were all inside within 40 seconds and the halls were full in seconds. If you didn?t get a seat, you would have to stand or be seated on the floor. I was lucky to get 2 seats (myself and my wife) in the front middle of the theater. The bad part was, we were surrounded by tigres from barrios who were talking as though they were screaming.
The movie employees had to come inside to collect the tickets from clients. Finally we were all calm and the movie started 20 minutes late in both halls.
This movie started slow but quickly took on action. The girls were left screaming and holding on to their boyfriends. A few scenes even made the loud mouth tigre jump in the back. I must say, this movie is worth watching. You will walk away with a good sense of feeling that your money was well spent. Now if you already have a mind set of not expecting too much from a 225,000 dollar movie then you will be surprised to see that these guys have created from peanuts.
More power to Dominican film industry.
AZB
 

RHM

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Nice review, Aftab. I will see it when the lines get shorter.

There is something to be said for independent films. The budgets are so small that the artists have to be creative and resourceful. That impresses me. I am typically not impressed when a big time Hollywood company gets a 100 million dollar budget, 4 assistant directors, trailers bigger than my house and they still end up making bad movies.

This one deserves our support. Go see it. If this guy is financially successful it will result in more DR film making.

Scandall
 

MrMike

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Im a big fan of indie movies and especially low budget horror has a special place in my heart. I avoided "perico ripiao" and "los locos tambien piensan" and hope to die peacefully having missed both these movies, but I will go and see Andrea, although I may wait for the chance to see it in my home without having to deal with crowds.
 

AZB

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MrMike said:
Im a big fan of indie movies and especially low budget horror has a special place in my heart. I avoided "perico ripiao" and "los locos tambien piensan" and hope to die peacefully having missed both these movies, but I will go and see Andrea, although I may wait for the chance to see it in my home without having to deal with crowds.
Mr.mike, I don't think you will fully replicate the horrifying impact this film has to offer on a small TV screen. the movie has to be seen in a movie theater with surround sound with big screen magic.
to my relief, the scrift is spoken with simple spanish which could be understood by anyone with little spanish knowledge. Clearly this movie is targetted towards a bigger latino audiance which means the spanish spoken in the film is clear and well pronounced. Thwe dialogues are spoken slowly and with proper pronunciation. I had no trouble understanding a single word unlike some colombian and mexican movies I have earlier.
Enjoy it.
AZB
 

Eddy

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AZB said:
Mr.mike, I don't think you will fully replicate the horrifying impact this film has to offer on a small TV screen. the movie has to be seen in a movie theater with surround sound with big screen magic.
to my relief, the scrift is spoken with simple spanish which could be understood by anyone with little spanish knowledge. Clearly this movie is targetted towards a bigger latino audiance which means the spanish spoken in the film is clear and well pronounced. Thwe dialogues are spoken slowly and with proper pronunciation. I had no trouble understanding a single word unlike some colombian and mexican movies I have earlier.
Enjoy it.
AZB
AZB, how would you compare it to Pasaporte Rojo? Another film that was presented in Montreal in 2004. Also a low budget movie totally Dominican.
 

aerobaticman

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Nov 10, 2004
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Vcd

Did anyone by chance video it?

I know I'm going to get flamed big time on it, but really what do you think are the chances of us living outside of the DR being able to see it? I think quite small, so it's our only chance.
 

rellosk

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Mar 18, 2002
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aerobaticman said:
Did anyone by chance video it?

I know I'm going to get flamed big time on it, but really what do you think are the chances of us living outside of the DR being able to see it? I think quite small, so it's our only chance.
Give it time. I'm sure within 6 months you will be able to BUY a legitimate copy of the film and if it's as good as AZB thinks it is, it will make the rounds in the US theaters.
 

aerobaticman

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Nov 10, 2004
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Rellosk,

Yes that sounds all great if you live in the USA. But I live in europe and such indie films rarely wind up on the shelves here. And most online merchants based in the USA don't send DVD's to a european address due to all the copyright issues with regional DVD's...

Yeh I know, I've got some good cheese to go with that wine....
 

AZB

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Hey guys, don't get your hopes too high. This is not hollywood blockbuster hit. All I am saying is that, considering the money they spent and the zero movie making training these guys had, the movie is worth watching. Its 2 hours of total entertainment.
This movie will be released in DVD and the producers are trying to make it to cans movie festival in france. The director was very hopefull that the movie will win a few awards.
So wait and see where this movie lands in international screening.
AZB
 

MrMike

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aerobaticman said:
Rellosk,

Yes that sounds all great if you live in the USA. But I live in europe and such indie films rarely wind up on the shelves here. And most online merchants based in the USA don't send DVD's to a european address due to all the copyright issues with regional DVD's...

Yeh I know, I've got some good cheese to go with that wine....

If you don't get a chance to find a legally distributed copy it shouldn't be any hard thing to find a non-licensed copy.

DVD copiers are getting cheaper every day, and I know they are being used because I sell the drives and the blank media, and we are selling alot of them.
 

AZB

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MrMike said:
If you don't get a chance to find a legally distributed copy it shouldn't be any hard thing to find a non-licensed copy.

DVD copiers are getting cheaper every day, and I know they are being used because I sell the drives and the blank media, and we are selling alot of them.
I 2nd mr. mike. Dvd copying is as common as downloading mp3 and making CD's for personal listening in DR and in the rest of the world. This movie will be out and pirates will copy it. This is the reality. So my friend, you will get a non-licensed copy which will be as perfect as the original.
There are DVD copying program available that will make an exact copy of a dual layer dvd movie onto a single layer blank disc without any noticeable degradation in picture quality. I am taking about if the image is projected on a 10 foot screen. on a regular 27 inch TV, you will not see any differance.
Anyway, I hope you all know its illegal to copy rented movies, so don't commit any crime.
AZB
 

mariel

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Apr 7, 2004
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living in europe and interested

i too would like to know when the dvd release is, to buy it. my dvd player is an all-region one so that the dvd is region 1 is not an issue.
 

Wag

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You could not pay me enough....

I have not watched the darn movie but I was there with my novia in Plaza Internacional and saw AZB. After 10 minutes of sweating and standing around you could not pay me enough one more minute of the chanting, door kicking anb punching plus the smell of 100 tigres around me.

I sold my tickets for a nice little profit and left. I promised myself not to see this friggin movie until it is released in DVD. I feel sorry for my girlfriend since she wanted to watch "Andrea".
 

AZB

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Jan 2, 2002
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Wag said:
I have not watched the darn movie but I was there with my novia in Plaza Internacional and saw AZB. After 10 minutes of sweating and standing around you could not pay me enough one more minute of the chanting, door kicking anb punching plus the smell of 100 tigres around me.

I sold my tickets for a nice little profit and left. I promised myself not to see this friggin movie until it is released in DVD. I feel sorry for my girlfriend since she wanted to watch "Andrea".
I understand brother, I had told my girlfriend that if the freakin doors didn't open up within the next 10 minutes, I was also leaving. I was about to faint from the heat. Some how the girls don't feel the same heat as we do. They don't even sweat like we do. She insisted I stay, so I stayed. Once inside, it was all forgotten.
I saw you behind me with 2 beauties (your girlfriend and your sister). You were a bit distant behind me so I couldn't call you in all that noise. In reality, I was also about to quit and leave.
I advise you to go see the movie in weekdays. I am sure the crowd is under control now. Your girlfriend will love the movie. The horror effects will not have the same impact on small TV.
AZB