Customer Reviews

Sweet Insanity

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I happened to see this film in January 2006 at a sneak preview and it rocks! Unlike most current horror films, Director Daniel Hess has created a truly scary film without special effects and/or phoney creatures (no vampires!!) This film reminds me of Identity - it takes real mental illness and creates numerous scares that could really happen. His style reminds me of Hitchcock, especially the ending that completely surprises. The subtle clues that Hess leaves throughout the story all point to the ending, and I had to watch this a second time to catch them all.

The music, although not from any bands I recognized, was great. And Rebekah Isaacs is very, very hot.

Prepare to be scared - don't miss this one; it's really different and well worth it.

I've viewed this film a number of times and completely disagree with many of the comments by other reviewers. First of all, the cinematography is first rate, obviously shot by a pro not "someone with a home video camera." That comment is totally bogus. The plot was very interesting and the ending is not "predictable." I liked the creative use of power tools in the kill scenes. The acting is pretty good too, much better than I've seen in many other genre films - the characters were believable and not just "acting." The editing was better than most low budget horror films and I liked the music alot - especially the ending song. This film is definately worth watching - go rent it and see for yourself - don't believe some pimple-faced 14 year old reviewer who only likes films that are 98% special effects.

Whoever wrote the previous review MUST be on drugs. SWEET INSANITY is a very capable horror pic that holds some genuinely disturbing ideas presented to us by a very confident attitude to narrative pacing and strong approach to imagery. It sets itself apart from other pics in that instead of beginning `cold', like too many low budget horrors these days, it eases us into the story and eventually taking us on a frightening ride. The film is a solid visual experience and occasionally startles us with well-placed images such as the numerous `out of the box' killings. You won't be disappointed by this chiller. SWEET is sweet indeed!

Thank goodness I brought it for $1.89 and re sold it on here, sorry who ever brought it. This movies looks like it was filmed in my back yard.

Think "Toolbox Murders" (2004) meets "Sixth Sense" (1999); with a lot of embarrassing self-reflexive stuff randomly inserted by a homage-frenzied writer/director.

"Sweet Insanity" (2006) is currently nursing a lowly 2.2 rating on the IMDb and a lot of "worst movie ever" comments. I bought DVD's of 400+ marginal (mostly horror) movies last summer when our local video store went out of business, and it is safe to say that this film is nowhere near the worst of that group. "Sweet Insanity" has great DVD cover art, excellent lighting, quality cinematography, and three great looking actresses who actually look young enough to be believable in their parts. A lot of those other movies don't have nearly this much going for them.

So the question is why did this film generate by far the most viewer hatred of these 400+ marginal releases? I think that aspiring screenwriters would be well-served to examine where this thing went wrong.

Caution: Spoilers ahead!! Here is how the DVD cover summarizes the story: "Stacey is a typical senior; she sits through boring classes during the week so she and her friends can party on the weekend. Then she meets Christina, the new girl in school. Christina's friendship with Stacey quickly grows, until it borders on the obsessive. And something from Christina's past has followed her to her new school - something dark and sinister. Suddenly, a popular classmate disappears and a chain of deadly events is set in motion leaving Stacey to confront an impossible evil".

But what really happens is just your basic multiple-personality slasher dynamic, where the writer/director spends the entire running length attempting to misdirect the viewer and no time providing background motivation or character development. You can't figure anything out when the director provides no useful information.

Of course the twist at the end is the most obvious one and one that everyone familiar with the genre saw coming before the title sequence even hit the screen. As you watch and think ahead, you wonder if the writer will somehow pull this all together into a satisfying resolution. But deep down you know that it will end with a lazy "deus ex machina" cop-out; whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object.

And herein lies the source of the incredible viewer hostility to this movie. This director violates the language of film and he lies multiple times to his audience. This is very different than fooling the viewer. For example, early in the movie Stacey gets into a car, as it drives away the camera pans slowly up the now deserted sidewalk and the scene goes out on an unknown character (named Lex in the credits). In this scene the character is shown from the point-of-view of the audience, and according to the language of film a situation like this means that the director is confiding to you (the viewer) about something of which the characters are not yet aware; violating this confidence is cheating and a lazy brain dead misdirection.

The viewer eventually learns that they could never have seen Lex on the sidewalk because he and Christina are figments of Stacey's imagination; a low budget multiple personality thing as she does not dress up like them. Accordingly, each time they make an appearance it is because the viewer is seeing them from Stacey's point of view. On the commentary feature the director refers to scenes where Stacey's three persona's appear at the same time and interact with each other as "metaphorical constructs" during which her personalities wrestle each other for dominance, unfortunately this is shown to the audience with the same realism of the rest of the movie.

The director would do well to check the definition of "metaphor" next time. And if he felt the need to insert some expressionism into the movie (a dream, vision, or hallucination is the only way they could appear together) it must be identifiable as something other than realism. He can't use expressionism disguised as realism for his misdirection; or at least he can't use it and expect viewers to delight in how cleverly they were fooled; it was not clever - it was cheating.

When the motivational elements of the story are finally and vaguely revealed, they don't explain what has occurred. Friends, enemies, and neutrals are all sliced and diced. The director's commentary is full of rationalizations and explanations for the many sequences that failed in their intended purpose and did not adequately communicate the story to the audience. The director claims to have viewed many films in his chosen genre, but somehow he failed to grasp even the most basic elements of film language or to gain an understanding of how a viewer reads a film. For the screenplay/storytelling reasons noted, this is a weak effort but it could be a useful "what not to do" example for a film student.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Scary as hell! Horror the way it used to be! I watched SWEET with my man and I'm still having nightmares. And that lead is such a hottie!

Ambitious describes this movie well. Someone with ambition, a camcorder and some cash made this movie and somehow got it distributed. Someone below said it reminded them of Identity. Okaaaaay. If Identity had a poor cast, poor lighting, poor film quality, poor sound effects, maybe. This really wasn't scary and I can't imagine how they managed to get such a cool cover or two copies placed at the Hollywood video in my neighborhood. The fight scene is so laughable. The kill scenes are laughable. I didn't cringe or get scared once during this movie. The premise could have been interesting with better writing, acting, sound, film...well you get the idea. Hess leaves clues that are about as subtle as car bombs throughout the move that point to the surprise! ending. The ending was kind of a surprise but it got there too quickly after a lot of drawn out nonsense. Eh, maybe 1.5 stars might have been more appropriate. The girls who played Stacey and Christina weren't too bad, the rest of the cast should be put out of their misery promptly. For the love of God, don't waste $22.00 bucks on this. Heck, I kind of want my $3.99 back...

Perhaps the most absurd horror film, next to Cabin fever, I have ever had the misfortune of viewing. From a technical point of view this film was terrible and amateur at best. For example in many scenes the lighting was too dark and shadowy. The acting was futile and the script was clearly written by a person who couldn't sell a novel for free. This bad script was topped off with some really poor sound editing which certainly didn't contribute to this already lousy movie. The entire movie was abound with horror cliches which made the movie very dull and easy to figure out what would happen next. There is no suspense in this trashy movie other then the fact that the viewer is wondering how much worse this movie could get. Much more if you continue down this dead end road folks! The death scenes are not worth mentioning to be quite honest. The premise of this movie is entirely laughable and inexcusable . This was not a scary movie at all and at times I questioned whether this movie belonged in the comedy section, or in a video store at all. Please do not bother with this movie because you will have lost about an hour and a half of your time that could have been better spent doing something worth-while. The other reviewers who gave this movie such high ratings are either lying or have this movie confused with another.

I was very disappointed in this movie. It had such cool cover art on the DVD that I took a chance and rented it - foolish move. It just isn't scary. It is a typical slasher type film, but with no scares, storyline, etc.. I watch many, many movies and can honestly say that this is perhaps one of the top 5 worst movies I've seen. I highly recommend staying clear of this movie.

I love horror movies of all types, i decided to pick up this movie thinking hey i could at least get a good laugh but NO!!!! the cover has nothing to do with the film, it made no sense what so ever, the shooting of the film made it look like a cheap porno film without the porno!!!!. Filmed at home.