The Chosen One (2009) - By Duane L. Martin

Film Reviews: The Chosen One (2009) - By Duane L. Martin
Posted on Friday, May 01, 2009 @ 16:11:51 Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

When a pregnant woman is bitten by the undead, she carries her baby to term, but dies during the childbirth. A local doctor who came to help with the birth, frees the baby from the mother, only to discover after it bites the father, that the baby is actually a vampire. The doctor takes the baby and raises it as his own in an attempt to discover the secrets of vampirism, and perhaps even a cure. Unfortunately, his quest ultimately leads to he himself becoming infected, which then leads to a tragic end for a man who only wanted to help humanity.

This film was a very mixed bag for me. It had its good points and its bad points. Unfortunately, the bad outweighed the good in one major way. Let's talk about what was good about it first though.

There were actually many good things about this film, so I don't want to come off sounding like there isn't. Forst and foremost of these is the look of it...although not the entire look, which I'll get to in a minute. The set design, costuming and personal appearance of the actors were all spot on for the time period in which this is to have taken place, which I'm assuming is the latter half of the 1800's. All of these things are so important in a period film, that if any one of them is off, the whole thing becomes a serious waste of time. There were some other aspects of the film that were pretty cool as well. The doctor's tools, the way he drew blood from his patients etc... I think the only place I didn't find all that appealing visually was the tavern. It seemed overly small and thrown together compared to the settings in the rest of the film. The fact that the film was done in black and white rather than color really added a lot to the feel of it as well and was a wise choice.

Now, onto the bad things...

I guess I might as well start with the one thing that hurt this film more than anything else. The story. The story was very disjointed at times, and lacking in body and substance. Those gaps were filled in largely by either long scenes of filler shots, or over-edited quick flash shots. This film could have been cut down in its running time considerably if much of the unimportant filler had been removed, or if more story had been added. Personally, considering how good the film looked, I'd have gone with more story and less filler.

The other major thing that really bothered me about this film, is that the whole thing was either shot or edited in that slightly jumpy, reduced framerate look that was made so annoyingly popular on MTV back in the 90's. Personally, I can't think of a single use for that effect that is ever appropriate and not completely annoying, and it certainly had no place being used in this film. I can see where the assumption could be made that it would add to the nightmarish feel of it all, but it doesn't. All it does is make it look fake and distracts the viewer's attention away from an otherwise great looking film.

There were a few other things that weren't all that great as well, like some of the acting, but I don't want to get too heavy into the bad stuff. Some of the acting was good, some wasn't, and some of the characters, in my opinion, were mis-handled. The vampire girl for one. So much more could have been done with the character, and yet she's not even allowed to speak.

Technically however, other than the annoying visual effect and the inconsistent editing, the film was quite well done. The camera shots were nicely set up, the outdoor scenes were beautifully shot, everything was well lit and the sound design was great. There were even some nice visual effects, such as the scene where the doctor opens the chest of someone and is messing with their heart. I have to say though that the blood in the film looked WAY too thick. It looked more like it had the consistency of paint rather than blood.

So basically, I'm torn here. Part of me wants to ay that it's worth checking out, but another part of me wants to say don't bother because it's too long for what it is. I guess I'd have to say that if you get a chance to see it at a film festival or something then see it. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't go out of my way to see it simply because of the lack of real substance in the story.

If you'd like to find out more about this film you can check out its MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/filmthechosenone.