NATALIE’S LOSE LOSE Review

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Imagine what it would be like to watch a torture porn movie that featured no torture.  Sounds pretty boring right?  Well, such is the case with Eric Williford’s microbudget horror film Natalie’s Lose Lose.  It’s like Saw minus the gore and clever twist all done over a bombastic dub step soundtrack.

The film begins with the central character, Natalie, played by Danielle Adams waking up gagged and tied to a chair.  She’s unaware of how she got there or who is keeping her captive.  A mysterious woman in a gas mask enters the room and creepily leers at her.  A voice that sounds eerily similar to Jig Saw comes on an intercom and begins interrogating her.

With the exception of a few spurts of violence, this interrogation is the entire film.  The mystery man on the intercom accuses her of being a domestic terrorist, she denies it, they argue back and forth, the gas mask girl leers creepily, and on and on.

This structure wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, we’ve seen it work in films before, but the conversations between Natalie and the intercom are only sometimes interesting and most of the time mind-numbingly boring.  To make matters worse, by the end of the film everything felt pointless, especially since the twist is fairly easy to spot early on.

From a visual standpoint, the film has an industrial feel, with a color palette featuring lots of blacks and pinks.  This worked well, and it looked pretty good overall, considering the low budget of the production.  Unfortunately, there was so little light used that most of what you see the entire time is either Natalie sitting in the chair, gas mask girl standing by the chair, or the intercom on the wall.  This not only limits the visual surroundings but also makes everything bland and uninteresting.

With such a minimalist film, the keys to success are an enthralling story and a strong lead.  Unfortunately, neither are present in Natalie’s Lose Lose.  The character of Natalie is completely unlikable and I found myself wanting her to just die already so I wouldn’t have to hear her sarcastic remarks anymore.  Even after witnessing the death of her loved ones she seemed to care so little, that it was simply impossible to feel any empathy towards her.  Couple in the poor performances from all the actors, including the gas mask girl who has no lines, and the bumpy ride gets nearly unbearable.

There also seemed to be a complete lack of motivation from everyone involved in this situation.  The actions of the kidnappers as well as Natalie herself were confusing and completely unfounded.  Why did they go through such fantastic lengths just to reach the end result?

Through all this negativity there is a spark of something in Natalie’s Lose Lose.  Eric Williford competently directs the film, and I would be curious to see what he comes out with next as he refines his technique.  There’s a specific style to the film that he sticks with and the marketing and posters for this film are fantastic, it’s just unfortunate that there was nothing there to accentuate it.

Official Trailer for “Natalie’s Lose Lose” from 95Forty Productions on Vimeo.