Someone that knows that I run this site bought the Silver Cell DVD. She asked if I would be interested in watching it. I have seen some great indie horror films. However, I had to sit through 20 turds to get to the great one generally speaking. This is not a knock on indie horror. I really like them, but the good ones are often far between. I decided to give Silver Cell a shot and I am glad that I did.
Hoping that this would not be 72 minutes wasted, I popped it in with an open mind. The film was much better than I had expected. It will not likely win any national awards simply because of limited exposure and not because it is not worthy, but I found it entertaining nonetheless. Silver Cell is an indie film in every sense of the word. It is also one of the better that I have seen in recent years. In fact, it may be my favorite indie horror in quite a while.
My problem with independent films in the past has often been dialogue. Many of the indie writers just can't seem to make the dialogue flow well enough to keep the viewer interested. They can do some gore or tell a story, but the movie often falls apart in the interactions of the actors. The only real issue that I had with the movie was that it tried to be philosophical unnecessarily at times. There are a few interactions that tried to be much deeper than the movie called for.
A woman attempts suicide by shooting herself in the head. She ends up comatose in the hospital rather than dead. She begins to mentally experience a nightmarish sequence of events. Playing in her head appears to be a string of memories as she tries to understand what drove her to this state.
I felt that the acting was fairly strong and, as noted earlier, the dialogue was much better than expected. I especially liked the few scenes at the end of the film. The dialogue there, as well as the acting, is very good. I will not go into details as to not spoil the film for you, but will say that the dialogue is very strong and the acting is far better than I had expected.
I do recommend seeing this one if you get the opportunity, especially if you like indie films. I think that this one was well done on several levels and look forward to Schotten's next release.