I was genuinely excited when this fanfilm was announced and the trailer came out. I did not expect it to be particularly great, but I am always interested in Harry Potter Fan Culture.
This movie was a disappointment sadly. However, not for the reasons I thought it would be. When it comes to fanfilms on YouTube, I am used to ... no great camera work, no good lighting, no good special effects.
This Fanfilm manages to do these things surprisingly well though.
The camera work, the editing and the effects are not amazing but very solid, probably a result of the 15.000 Dollar Budget.
So, when people defend this fanfilm with the argument that it is Low Budget, they are really missing what went wrong here, because the flaws (for the most part) are not a result of the budget:
The writing is terrible.
The dialogue is often horrendous (it does not particularly get better with the very distracting dubbing in every scene) and the story itself is incredibly pointless.
This does not add anything new, interesting or even a little bit creative to the Harry-Potter universe. The portrayal of Tom Riddle is not very well written here, it is sometimes even a very unnecessary contrast to his character in the books.
The plot is not interesting. Should it even be called plot? In fact most of the runtime is just a very boring story (that we already know), told by bad dialogue, spoken by bad actors.
Its not even an hour long but feels really bloated.
There is a middle section, where they show a scene out of the books, which I really enjoyed, probably because it was left out in the official movies. You can tell, in this scene, that the writing comes from Rowling, because the characters and dialogue are suddenly very exciting and focused.
The rest is, to be really honest here, just not very good. The setting is... lame. The action does not feel like Harry-Potter to me. (its just coloured lightning bolts, no real curses)
The plot is pointless, the twist in the end is laughably awful.
I know this is a fanfilm, I know its made as a free video for YouTube. And I appreciate the work that was put into this project. But that does not mean, that I cant criticise it. Like I said, most of the flaws are not a result of the budget.
Its the writing, the acting and the storytelling.
I wish that people, who spend so much time and money in a fanfilm, would put more work, effort and love into the script.
If you have a good story, nobody cares if its low budget.
