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
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