User reviews

This is bad. Very, very bad. The story plays out as if written by children, with endlessly long and pointless scenes filled with wandering dialog and incredibly wooden acting. There is no atmosphere whatsoever, and no sense of plot, suspense, story arc, or any of the other most basic elements required of a film script. Yet as bad as the acting and story are, the lighting, camera work, direction, set design, and basically every other aspect of the production are worse. The lighting in particular is just awful. Every scene is difficult to look at.

The reviews giving 8, 9, 10 stars are all written by people related to the film. Dead giveaway: every one of the fake reviews recites a list of credits. No real review would carefully note the names of some of the worst actors who will never grace the silver screen again.

I challenge you to make it to the end of the film. I don't think it can be done. Truly terrible.

Come on! Who ever wrote that review is seriously lacking in viewer talent. That's right viewer talent! I give the viewer enough credit to understand good from bad. This movie had the potential to be good and the actors destroyed it. I never stop watching a movie once I start but I had to with this one..thats how bad the acting was. I have been acting for 20 years and am stoutly character and story driving in my tastes. The cinematography was great, i concede that, but the acting had absolutely no peaks and valleys, you don't care about the characters and what happens to them. Alas that is the whole point! When you have a story, yes, very much in the vein of the shining and very well shot in that respect as well, then put in a cast of characters you don't care about. Don't care if they live or die..you lose me and the audience. Look, when a story has an "unknown" entity lurking int the background, the characters MUST pick up the slack to heighten the storyline. They absolutely fail here. Please audience. Watch this film and tell me who's right!

This movie has achieved something special for me, it's managed to make it onto my personal list of 'worst ever movies' with some of the poorest film-making I've ever come across.

They've tried to buck the trend of repetitive jump scares or OTT CGI, but sadly have replaced them with 1.5 hours of tedium instead.

The acting is so wooden that even an immobile Pinocchio would look more animated, the script is rambling and nonsensical, and even the location which should have been a high point from merely looking at the exterior of the building, was instead made to look like any other high school in the US with absolutely zero feeling of age or character.

Much like other movies in a similar vein, it promises to deliver on suspense and a clever theme, but instead falls utterly flat on both counts leaving nothing more than a miserable 90 minutes of sheer boredom.

Not only should you avoid this like the plague, I began to wonder if actually contracting plague would have been vastly more entertaining and in fact a better way to have spent my time......just awful

I gave it a five just because, it was creepy and weird. BUT if the setting had been in Germany, I would have gone higher. They find a book from Germany (haunted, I guess). How did it end up in the US, in a school, that would be more at home somewhere in the Britsh Isles? Or as a mental asylum in the US, in the early 1900's. Can't say much more without being a spoiler. I was confused.

To start with what i liked about this movie is that it was a unique story. I would imagine its hard to come up with a plot that hasn't been already done or similar to something that's already out there. The Ideal is neither. Also to learn that it was written by a student who was a junior at the high school it was filmed, Rivka Rappoport, also intrigued me. The imagination and vision of a young mind put to film. This is where the director Wes Tomasz Ciesla comes to play. He does an excellent job with the character development and changes that happens from the introduction of the characters to the end of the movie. Especially the relationship between student Alexander Dessler and his teacher Mr.Zenidro. This movie is hopefully the first of many films for the cast and crew. I look forward to see what Wes and Rivka's next project might be.

"The Ideal" is Wes Ciesla's cinematic masterpiece of horror from the opening of innocence to the horrifying climax that leaves you questioning your personal acuity. While it is based on the story written by the high school student, Ciesla's cinematography certainly brings it to the level of mainstream classics. When Julia and Alexander take the summer job at the vast and empty high school building to work for Mr. Zenidro, the mood takes viewers back to their own high school days. First scenes invite them for more comfortable chair position (I watched the film on the big screen at Anthology Film Archives in New York), but not for long. The high school building has a secret with a sinister life of its own which gradually invades main characters as well as viewers minds. Use of music specially composed for this film; along with sound effects meticulously enhance the horror. Most scenes were screened at night. Ciesla directing is brilliant; from camera angles and lightning to artistic and dramatic aspects of the film. The cast delivers performances that are uniformly outstanding. I'd definitely recommend seeing it on the big screen.

The Ideal is a hauntingly marvelous film. With obvious inspiration from iconic films such as "The Shining," this film doesn't fail to capture the audience's interest and attention throughout the entirety of the film. The suspense is wonderfully accompanied by a hauntingly beautiful, original soundtrack that does not go unnoticed. The eerie feel of film is not only attributed to suspenseful soundtrack and plot, but beautifully juxtaposed with outstanding imagery of the intricate and well crafted, rustic architecture of the high school where the film takes place. The building resembles an old fashioned castle both inside and out, and its structure is a crucial component to the film that is expertly captured through the cinematography. The performances given by supporting actors Todd Murphy, John Dean, and leading role Dennis Brito will leave you satisfyingly spooked and wanting more. The Ideal successfully brings forth a reality of an extremely intolerant world driven by madness and does this by blurring the lines of past and present.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the screening of this movie. This movie is a definite character study in its extreme. All movies throw us in hypothetical situations and we imagine a solution with the characters in the movie. In the most suspenseful way this movie throws us into a situation of all teenagers' nightmare; How to deal with a broken heart. I hope I am teaching more than math in my class. I hope students are learning how to persevere and deal with difficult situation whether solving math or broken hearts. This is a movie that all schools around the world should have a screening with its students and have a discussion. Because I sincerely hope my students learn to deal with the situations depicted in the movie. The movie also shows what happens when you do not learn to deal with the situations. Go see it you must!

"The Ideal" is a film whose atmosphere grabs you from the beginning. Wes Ciesla's use of the actual school he taught in with its Tudor details and secret nooks and crannies is the key to the movie. The high school itself becomes the main character as two teenagers, Julia and Alexander, explore its corners one summer, find strange people from the Custodian to a German teacher, and a pair of students who seem to be transformed into zombie like students. They find their history teacher, Mr. Z, has become obsessed with writing a history that frightens the students..As the summer goes on, the mystery deepens to its dramatic conclusion.