Kantemir (2015)

Excellent but underrated film

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

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 film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The story is very slow to bring up the point of the movie. The movie would be nothing without Robert Englund.

I like to think of myself as a cine-phile.As someone who loves and appreciates he art of watching movies. Finding the appreciation in a work of art can be challenging however. And 'Kantemir' is a prime example of that.This viewing is painful simply due to the fact it was just a tedious venture. The premise sounds promising. Washed up has beens or never wases gather to perform a play. Then the director shows up. This guy can't act. Not one bit. He looks like he's going to kill someone at any given second. He just looks like a douche.Non of the actors are memorable. Robert Englund does deliver a string performance considering how weak the script is and how bad the direction he receives is. Cinematography is probably the best thing about this film. Even though it takes place in a few settings the scenes on the mansion look really nice.The biggest problem for me was the pacing. Its very "one note". The score tries to add urgency but the direction never delivers. In fact, I'm not convinced this movie HAD a director. There is so much inconsistencies in the scenes it just seems like the director wasn't on set much.Over all this movie seemed like a giant waste of money. I mean aren't there worthy scripts out there needing to be shot? Why pick this incomplete script? It seems like the script would have done better in more capable hands. This director made it worse.The even though the director of the play was horrible he wasn't as bad as the white cop. Holy shite that guy is so clichéd its ridiculous. His acting was some of the worst I've ever seen ESPECIALLY in a low budget horror movie. And that's saying something.This movie was a mistake. The producers should be ashamed of themselves.

"Kantemir" is mind-numbingly awful, and you wouldn't think it was going to be that bad when it started. The look of the movie is great--nice colors, decent cinematography, and decent mood-setting music. And then, as luck would have, the characters begin to speak...The participants have all gathered in a remote setting (natch) to rehearse a play. Most of them are washed-up actors, newbies, or just wannabes. Robert Englund (of "Nightmare on Elm Street" fame) plays the lead. It seems he is estranged from his daughter and is trying to make amends. You never really find out definitively WHY he's estranged, although I think it may have had something to do with his drinking. The remaining cast is a collection of caricatures: a nymphette who will screw anybody to further her (nudge/nudge, wink/wink) career, the stoner, the wife of the alcoholic Englund, an innocent, wide- eyed virginal girl (who looks like she's just been hit in the head with a brick), and the director/author of the play. This is without a doubt one of the worst movies ever made. The "writer" of this script should be drawn and quartered. The dialogue in here is so cliché-ish, so hackneyed, so tedious, it's worse than listening to nails on a chalkboard. The viewer is expected to believe the actors for this play are somehow transformed into the characters of the play because of some curse. I lamented in another review about how Eric Roberts must have hit rock bottom for his appearance. Such much be the case for Robert Englund. This POS is beneath him, and I don't know why he touched it with a 10-foot pole.Rated R for violence. NOT RECOMMENDED.

A fascinating existential examination of the nature of reality and the struggle to grasp its meaning. Director Ben Samuels is clearly a quite gifted film maker and while this is on the surface a horror movie, that is only the structure within which a deeper story is expressed. Mark Garbett and Ralph Glen Howard have fashioned a compelling and engrossing story that is intensely disturbing, fantastical, and terrifying. Samuels truly excels at creating an atmosphere of dark unease and hovering horror. The suspense and mystery is unrelenting as a journey through a hellish landscape that questions life itself is taken by the characters and in effect, the audience. Robert Englund gives a superb performance and once again proves once again what a fine actor he can be. Astonishing set design and cinematography heighten the surrealistic tone of the film and help make this motion picture a frightening, unnerving, and powerful intellectual experience.