"Loneliness" is a small independent film from The Adrenalin Group. Short at a run time of only 15 minutes it removes the risk of a large time investment if it turns out to be not what you wanted while still being long enough to be satisfying.

Jennifer is newly widowed and dreams of visiting with the spirit of her husband. She can't bear to let him go despite his pleas for her to do so. This leads to events that I won't spoil here but serves as an explanation for a particular trend in life that you will most likely recognize.

This next paragraph is going to give away something, the ignorance of which I think is part of the charm of the movie, but is necessary for me to discuss in order to have a complete review. It's labeled as a horror movie, which is accurate, but it might not be exactly what you expect. The first portion of it, maybe even as much as three quarters, is more of a supernatural drama leading up to a disturbing payoff. It's more fun when you don't see it coming, but if you're going into this expecting to see 15 minutes of wall-to-wall scary then you might not stick around for the payoff when you think you're in for a Lifetime movie of a grieving widow coming to grips with her loneliness. Call it sweet, call it dramatic, call it inspiring, but you can't call it horror. Fear not, though, (hm, maybe that's not the best phrase to use on people who are into horror movies) the payoff is coming; and I, for one, found it satisfying. 

The mood here is somber but not particularly dark. This can be good or bad, I suppose. The good is that it works for the story and contrasts appropriately with what happens. The bad is that when watching a film you've seen listed in the horror genre you might be expecting something with a spookier atmosphere and then be disappointed when you don't get it.

One thing you have got to recognize if you're going to watch this is that it is a low-budget, independent production. Think of it as a well done college film project (even though it's not made for such a class as far as I know). If you go looking for high production values, A-list acting talent, and a chart-topping musical score then you're not going to think much of "Loneliness." I find a charm in these independent endeavors when they can bring something to the table that catches my imagination and think it's great that people who aren't a part of the Hollywood establishment can pull together the resources and talent to make such a film. I guess the downside is that if you don't appreciate where the story goes then the limits of the budget are going to stand out a lot more. 

The acting, while not bad at all – I've seen larger budget movies with far worse – is not going to blow you away. The biggest issue with that is that there is a tendency to overact but not to the point of feeling like we're watching amateurs who are in this simply because they can't find work in larger studios.

The sound design does not have the slick feel of a big studio, but I have to admit to being sometimes nit-picky. I can get annoyed by sound problems in my church services that other people don't even notice (hey, I'm on the sound team so it's my JOB to watch out for sound issues). Specifically in this production I might have faded the music more smoothly, dialed down the high frequencies on some of the voices, and things like that. I like the score when it uses a piano sound but don't really care much for the more synthesized sounds later on.

Now for some praises. I like the way the director plays with colors. There's an artistic quality to it that enhances the emotion of the scenes without becoming so artsy that it spoils the realism of the world we're seeing. The insertion of the semi-transparent spirit gets the point across that he is dead without beating the viewer over the head with it. So I would say that the overall style is a high point.