Details: Written by: TGM; Published: 08 November 2012

Fell DVD Review

Written by TGM

DVD released by Chemical Burn Entertainment

Directed by Marcus Koch
Written by Katie Walters, Kristian Day, & Jeff Dylan Graham
2010, Region 1 (NTSC), 75 minutes, Not Rated
DVD released on July 10th, 2012

Starring:
Jeff Dylan Graham as Bill
Katie Walters as Jenny
Kristian Day as Derrik
Barron Christian as Psychiatrist

Review:

Fell is all about the mental spiral of a man named Bill, an annoying emo train-wreck who just lost his job, his girl, and his will to take his multitude of psych meds. In retrospect, I’m surprised they opted to uncharacteristically name him Bill, because he looks and acts like those disheveled whiny bitch-babies that you always see clutching steaming overpriced cups of cappuccino with black-painted fingernails at Starbucks, sporting names like Donovan, Aiden, or Stewart and an unwarranted sense of entitlement. The kind of douche who dourly sulks because he quit his dead-end jam band due to “artistic differences”. A guy that you want to grab by the collar of his $100 intentionally distressed shirt, steal his keys off his carabiner, smash his iPod full of Bon Iver and Arcade Fire tunes, and smack the ever-living shit out of.

That’s not to say that Bill doesn’t have some legitimate problems to worry about. There is a dead woman face down in his shower, he has an unaccounted for black eye, and no recollection of the events from the night before. He immediately places numerous frantic calls to his former girlfriend that unfortunately go unanswered, finally confiding to his stoner best friend who keeps stopping by to try and get him out of his depressive funk. Not surprisingly, there’s more moping than true soul searching throughout the course of Fell, while these two MENSA candidates decide on how to dispose of the body.

Fell would transition very well to the stage, as it all takes place solely in a small dingy apartment, with only a handful of characters. It works fairly well as a movie, if you can get past the distaste for the unsympathetic main character. The acting and direction are universally above average for such a low-budget production, and it does offer some decent insight into someone suffering from psychosis. There is a very cool twist at the end that unfortunately gets ruined because the filmmakers wanted to go all artsy and couldn’t help themselves by incorporating yet another additional twist that completely deflates the story. M. Night Shyamalan be damned!

Video and Audio:

There is nothing remarkable or particularly egregious with the audio and video for this release. Much like Bill’s lackluster existence, it is what it is.