The Forever Room

source: The Forever Room

Stayed til the end for an explanation or SOMETHING to happen but by the end I didn't care. I wanted to scream at the screen will SOMETHING please happen!?!? I wasted 90 minutes and wrote this review so you don't have to endure a bunch of nothing.

It's a solid 7.5/10 super low budget psychological indie horror flick. I gave it ten because I feel like a lot of these 1s are unfair. The writing was a little stiff and heavy-handed at times and I would have added a few things but otherwise I was entertained for my couple of bucks. For the $4-5 it'll cost to rent it, give it a shot :)

Claire (Samantha Valletta) wakes up chained in a room. She is being injected and has no memory. A woman who claims to be her mother (Vickie Hicks) brings her food and bathes her. She tells Claire she had a child and she murdered a mom, dad, and their son. Claire has hallucinations of a man, woman, and child who she can not place. (Not too hard to figure out.). The film goes along until you have the explanation and twist. The gimmick was cute for about the first 30 minutes or so, but then got old real fast. The script hasn't good enough for our star to carry the whole feature. Guide: F-word. No sex. Butt nudity (Samantha Valletta)

Listen here for a real review. Let's break down The Forever Room". Toilet, is what this room should be called. It's full of excrement, bad acting, the puppets should be illegal they were so cheap the voices were not scary nor convincing and I'm 100% positive the last review of 9 stars is the writer of this gem or a glorious troll. There is no way we watched the same characters/ subject matter. These women are average actors (self proclaimed) at your local free impromptu acting classes at the community center. Another white girl screaming in a basement. Over what? A predictable shyt show. The puppets lit a match on this dumpster. It's a dumpster fire if you value yourself at all, skip it. If you're into self loathing watch this.

Independent films are often compared to Hollywood features, which is unfair as they don't have a 200 million dollar budget and 400 team members. This indie film has top-notch actors. Samantha and Vickie could be cast in a Hollywood film anywhere. Their acting is strong, and most importantly 100% believable. Samantha WAS her character and there wasn't a moment I didn't believe her. Same with Vickie/Helen. Casting is crucial and The Forever Room hit gold with these two. Combined with beautiful shots, great sound design, puppets that honestly, will haunt me, and you have an indie film that shows creativity, good writing, and a talented crew delivered a quirky/errie film.

The credits reveal a family affair which never bodes well. The money saved by not hiring a competent screenwriter is matched by the respect lost by subjecting us to a flick in which a 3rd grader could discern the backstory within 15 minutes and a denouement that was telegraphed over and over throughout the (yawn) film.

Sometimes I don't agree with the IMDB rating and this is the case. Samantha Valletta still has a lot to learn and Vickie Hicks could teach her a lot. It would take me longer than the movie to say how bad it is, but I've given it a chance but don't do it.

Do not waste your time ... read a book or do something else .

"The Forever Room" involves Claire, a woman (Samantha Valletta) who is being held hostage in a basement by Helen, who turned out to be her Mother (played by writer/producer Vickie Hicks). Helen continually tells Claire information about her background and that she is being held there because she killed people, a claim that Claire categorically denies. Is Helen right and she is holding Claire there for her own good because she's unstable? Or is Helen the unstable one, hold an innocent woman against her will? "The Forever Room" has a lot going for it -- Samantha Valletta gives a powerful performance as Claire, making her a more complex character than you might expect. It's claustophobic and creepy and suspenseful as we watch Claire try to deal with what could be memories or could just be reaction to her ordeal. The biggest problem is that given what we see, there really is only one possible answer to the "Is she or isn't she?" question, and so as we watch things unfold, we're sort of just waiting for the inevitable. But the details are a nice surprise, and I like the fact that the movie goes all-in and fully explains what happened, whereas too many films these days cop out and leave the ending ambiguous. And the movie does have a couple of surprises in store, and the fact that you might be able to figure it out it advance just sort of shows that it actually fits in with the events of the movie. Nothing earth-shattering here, but a pretty solid thumbs-up from me. Worth checking out.