HALL
Directed by: Francesco Giannini
Starring: Carolina Bartczak, Mark Gibson, Yumiko Shaku, Julian Ritchings
When a debilitating sickness spreads across a long hotel hallway, a few scattered victims fight for survival, and try to escape from the dark narrow stretch of isolated carnage.
While it boasts some strong production values and a lot of talent in front of and behind the camera, HALL does have some fundamental issues with its script.
The film starts with in-media-res, which as regular readers will know is my least favourite narrative construct. Nowadays, when I see a film start with this, I know that there isn't going to be anything interesting happening for the first 20 minutes or so. I understand why people use it but there has to be other ways to build your film.
We then get introduced to Val, her husband Branden and daughter Kelly, as they check in to the hotel. Its not long before the audience starts picking up on the adult's conversation that not everything is "happy family" between the pair. The atmosphere is incredibly passive-aggressive and they are lucky their daughter is too young to pick up on it. These scenes are played out really well and have a very all-too-realistic feel to them.
We also meet Naomi, a young japanese woman who is heavily pregnant. As a parallel to Val, Naomi has actually managed to escape an abusive relationship with her domineering husband as well as her controlling mother (or, has she??).
The film juxtaposes between the present (Infected!) and the immediate past, while at the same time crawling closer and closer to the current events. The problem with the script is that, while there is some drama to hang on to in the past scenes, those in the present really feel like the story is just spinning its wheels until the past scenes have managed to catch up. The juxtaposition is shocking at first but eventually becomes frustrating.
The film is also very coy about what is happening and why. We do get a great couple of scenes with Julian Ritchings playing a doctor who is certainly involved with instigating the crisis but the reasons why are never explained. There is also an inconsistency as to what happens to those infected, as some seem to be able to lurch after Val while others are barely able to crawl. The film certainly leaves you with more questions than answers. This is most probably on purpose as director Francesco Giannini is hoping to launch a Chapter Two.
THE VERDICT
HALL wouldn't have had a mega budget but the production knew how to spend it well. It keeps the story locations tied to only a couple of areas within the hotel but it does a good job of keeping those locations interesting and integral to the plot. The cast is great and the soundtrack is very atmospheric. The issue here is the script, and its structure. Ostensibly there is a solid 40-50 minute short film here, the remaining running time Is unfortunately padding.