Welcome to Film Apocalypse!



HOME

REVIEWS

FAQ

CONTACT

LINKS

R    E    V    I    E    W    S

The Confession (2006)



The Confession


The Confession is a dialog driven suspense film with an entertaining story and good character development.  Although The Confession is not an action or horror film and although it doesn't have gore or skin, it fits in with other Film Apocalypse movies simply because it is and independent film with such a unique presentation and clever execution.  

The premise of the movie is as follows: an unknown host invites five people to a party.  Some of the people know each other.  Some have never met before, but the one thing tying them all together is the death of a mutual friend.  Early on, we learn that the host of the party is the ex-boyfriend of the dead woman.  He was just recently acquitted on murder charges and let out of jail.  He is convinced that one of the five people in the house killed his ex-girlfriend, so he has brought them together to discover the identity of the real murderer.  


The aspect of the movie that impressed me the most was the ingenious use of security cameras to film the entire movie!  This avoided the expense of shooting on film, but still delivers a product that doesn't look low budget! I also thought the story was clever and kept me involved up to the end. Many low budget and no budget films fall short in this area, but The Confession actually does keep the viewer entertained throughout the film.

There were a couple of minor technical issues that kept the film from looking truly big budget, but overall, these issues pale in comparison to the ingenuity of the basic idea behind the film.   Some of the dialog is difficult, if not impossible, to understand due to overlapping lines and screams that made the microphone levels peak and distort.  However, this just adds to the realism of the security camera idea and comes off as a stylistic decision rather than a technical flaw.

With all of this said, the big marketing push of the film isn't the story or the clever use of security cameras, it is another feature which I have yet to mention.  The first 30 minutes of the film can be watched from any of the security camera angles; thus giving the viewer access to multiple angles for each shot.  The footage is also available as a separate product called Film School In A Box which is basically the raw footage from each camera.  The purchaser then has the option of editing his or her own film from the footage provided.  To be honest, this feature didn't interest me very much, but I can understand that without a gimmick it's tough to stand out in the film market these days.  I was simply more interested in the final edited product.  Part of the reason the film worked for me was the clever use of security cameras as a way of avoiding film.  Since it would be somewhat redundant to use that idea again, I'm very curious to see what these guys come up with for their next project! 


Gore-o-meter rating: 0 out of 5 (no gore)

Skin-o-meter: 0 out of 5 (absolutely none)