Rent Coherence on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: James Ward Byrkit (screenplay by), Alex Manugian (story by)
Directed by: James Ward Byrkit
Starring: Emily Baldoni, Maury Sterling, Nicholas Brendon, Lorene Scafaria, Elizabeth Gracen, Hugo Armstrong
Rated: NR [R]
Watch the trailer
Plot
Strange things begin to happen when a group of friends gather for a dinner party on an evening when a comet is passing overhead.
Verdict
A intriguing, extremely low budget thriller. The way the story continues to grow in complexity prevents this from becoming boring, but it is nearly all dialog that takes place in just one room. If you like budget sci-fi mind benders, this does a great job of making you want to watch it a second time. It's a great concept that works great with a limited budget.
It depends.
Review
This reminded me of The Invitation, another movie where crazy things happen at a dinner party. I had to make sure I wasn't confusing this movie with that. In the same vein of low budget dinner party conversation movies, The Man from Earth also falls into this sub-genre of budget sci-fi.
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| Emily Baldoni, Lorene Scafaria, Maury Sterling, Elizabeth Gracen, Hugo Armstrong. |
This was filmed in five nights at the writer/director's house with a fifty thousand dollar budget and improvised dialog. It's an exercise in extremely low budget movie making.
Shots are hand held and this feels like an indie or even documentary. The power goes out and whenever someone goes outside things get stranger. Reality seems to be unraveling. To say more would lead to spoiling the movie.
One of the party guests just happens to have a book the explains everything going on. That seems a bit too easy, but the concept of Schrödinger's cat/box and how two states existing simultaneously are how the guests try to explain what's happening. I appreciate the movie is deeper than that, otherwise it would be lacking. The longer you watch, the more entangled this conceptual ball of string becomes.
Once I got a handle on what's happened I wanted to watch it again and look for the clues. The lingering question is when did the plot start twisting.
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