Tags:
Film: Le Sequel
Year: 2016
Director: Jason Croot
Writer: Jason Croot
Starring: Kyri Saphiris, Seye Adelekan and Aiko Horiuchi
Review:
This is an interesting comedy of a filmmaker who tried to make a film and it didn’t go as planned. The official synopsis is after the disaster of Le Fear, director Carlos Revalos (Kyri Saphiris) decides to make a sequel with a bigger budget. What could go wrong? Simply everything.
I want to lead off stating that I want to thank writer and director Jason Croot for reaching out to me to review this film. I came into it knowing very little and have to say that I’m glad I did. Now this film is billed as horror film, but it’s not really horror in the least bit. They are trying to make a horror film though. Carlos goes to a film company where if he puts in 50k pounds of his own money, the studio will give the rest. After the struggle with his first film, Le Fear, he believes that this will solve his problems.
What really made this film hilarious to me is that I’ve worked on an independent film before. I came to realize how much planning and everything goes into it. You really need to have good producers and people working together to make everything come together. I bring this up to preface that none of that happens. I’ve seen the people I’ve worked with get frustrated when little things go wrong, now magnify that by ten with everything going wrong and you get this film. It really made me laugh.
I won’t list everything that goes wrong, because it is really just most of the decisions that Efi Womonbongo (Seye Adelekan) makes, because he clearly doesn’t what he is doing. There are people like Berwyn (Catherine Balavage), Jessie (Leila Reid) and even Jacques (Hadrien Mekki) who are good at what they do. They really want to make a good film. Jacques does have some issues though where he is out to have sex with as many of the crew members as he can. Queenie (Victoria Hopkins) seems to also be good, but she is too busy also hitting on everyone. It makes for some hilarious situations when things don’t go as planned and the frustrations of those that believe in the film.
The editing of the film is pretty good. It never really gets into a point that lags. It moves through everything pretty quickly. We get to see enough of the different scenes they are trying to film, but without overdoing it. It is also a fun look at guerilla filmmaking when the budget of the film shouldn’t be that way.
I do have the say that I’m actually very impressed with all the actors in this film, especially after learning that this is improvised Saphiris was really good as the director who is at his wits end. Adelekan is great in a different way of just how oblivious in everything he says he will do and tries to accomplish. I do want to shout out that Aiko Horiuchi is in this film, as she plays in The Grudge 3 as the villain Kayako. As a big horror film fan, I liked seeing that. The rest of the cast do round out what they needed for this film.
Since this is a comedy and really the only horror elements are that they are supposed to be making a horror film. It makes for hilarity with the film not knowing if it’s a zombie or an alien flick. The effects that are supposed for the alien or its UFO had me laughing, especially with the reactions for Carlos.
The film’s soundtrack doesn’t really stand out for most of the part. There is a recurring song that I really enjoyed actually. It was catchy and I was a big fan. The film is really about the characters and their interactions. This doesn’t hold the film back at all.
Now with that said, I think this is a really good improvised comedy. Now this film really isn’t sci-fi or horror, but that is the type of film they are trying to make. It has a low-budget look to it, but I think it still looks crisp. The story was relevant to me having worked on a film to me, so the situations are hilarious. I think the characters did really good and played off each other very well. I thought the editing of the film was good. As I said, the acting was as well. There was some CGI that I thought didn’t look good, but it really wasn’t that relevant to the story. The effects used in the film they are making are hilarious for how cheap they are. The soundtrack of the film really doesn’t stand out, but there was one really catchy song. If you want to see an interesting comedy about making a film go wrong, I would recommend this one. I had a lot of fun with it!
The film has been featured on Larry Charles HBO and is looking for a release soon in the United States. If this sounds like a comedy you’d be interested in, I’d definitely say to check it out!
My Rating: 8 out of 10