Bottom Line: Compulsions is one of the rare occasions that a show I was looking forward to seeing didn’t disappoint. It’s sharp, well acted and leaves you looking forward to the season two. More than that it shows that an open-ended Thriller can be done and done well on the web, something that other web producers should take note of.

Everyone has a compulsion, most of us fight them, repress them, and keep them hidden. Compulsions tells the story of three seemingly normal people who instead of repressing their dark desires, act on them as emotional outlets.

Compulsions is a serialized dramatic thriller focusing on the internal dark sides of the leads juxtaposed with their “daily lives”.

Details

Cast: Craig Frank, Janna Bossier, Annemarie Pazmino, Seth Caskey, Taryn O’Neill, Sean Spence, Andrew Clemons
Website: Compulsions (RSS)

Twitter: Follow Them On Twitter
Facebook: Join Them On Facebook

Ratings

This is an incredibly stylish Thriller — cold, dark and hard as steel. while the blood effects are a little B grade, the editing and the acting more than make up for it, breathing life into the torture scenes and tying the action of the series together. (Style 4.5)

Pacing 3.5

While I understand the need to maintain mystery, I do wish that they were a little more clear about some of the plot elements. There were times, especially early on, that I had trouble tying the characters into the plot and I was a little lost. (Storytelling 3.5)

Polish 4.5

Watchability 4

You have never seen anything quite like this in web series land. The story concept is unique, three people letting their inner demons run rampant in order to accomplish some mysterious goal and the acting is rock solid. It is right up there with Girl Number 9 as one of my favorite Thrillers. (Novelty 5)

Overall Rating: 4.16 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: Dark and moody, this story has a lot of bite for a series based around what amounts to an ARG. Even with the somewhat wonky chronology you will find yourself quickly drawn into the intrigue if you can piece the story together.

DELETED: THE GAME is an interactive web series that promises to blur the lines between fantasy and reality by drawing viewers into an interactive social game. The 12 episode series begins with Tyler who is struggling to piece together her life after an accident left her with an amnesiac condition. Unexpectedly, she finds herself embroiled in an identity theft conspiracy and feeling overwhelmed, Tyler turns to her new online friends for help. All the main characters eventually become open for interaction. There are hidden trails of clues in each episode, all over the internet and even in real places, setting up a massive search for answers. For their participation, viewers earn points towards weekly prizes including the grand prize of an all-expenses paid trip to do a cameo with the cast.

Details

Cast: Charlene Miller, Shawn Parsons, David Rudd, Brian Seibert, Elia Monte-Brown, Megan Channell
Website: Deleted: The Game

YouTube: Watch Them On YouTube
Vote For It: Deleted The Game

Ratings

Style 3

Every episode delivers something interesting, the characterization is strong and in general it is a fun and addictive show for thriller junkies. That being said, the dialogue gets a little melodramtic in places but not so much that it will distract you from the overall arc. (Pacing 4)

Storytelling 3.5

Polish 3.5

The story hops around a lot, which does add to the mystery but also takes away from the plots coherence. There are a lot of scenes that are used over and over again with slight variations, which can also be distracting. (Watchability 3.5)

Novelty 3

Overall Rating: 3.41 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: They need to make more episodes of this one. I know that Brett is doing a series of experiments and that it wasn’t necessarily designed for an extended run, but this is sharp, entertaining and has just the right amount of mystery to keep the plot from being overrun by camp.

It’s a web series about a mysterious set of cards and a group of people trying to uncover their, er, mystery.

Details

Cast: Katy Stoll, Brett Register, Craig Frank, Haley Mancini, Nellie Barnett
Blip.tv Channel: Absolute Disaster
Website: Brett Register
Support the Show: Watch The New Season Of The Crew At Babelgum

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Feed: Feed
Twitter Page Brett Register

Ratings

Style 3.5

This is another show from Absolute Disaster, the people who brought us Craig: The Werewolf Roommate. Unlike Craig, this one is a lot easier to follow and because they use the same device — the cards — in every episode, they manage to drum up some suspense with their comedy. Overall, this show is really well paced for having videos that come in at under 3 minutes. (Pacing 4)

J.J. Abrams says that when he’s designing a show he always tries to set it up with mystery boxes, which is to say, he wants to leave unanswered questions in the minds of his audience to keep them coming back. Lost and Found is not Lost, but as a series that takes more than a few nods from Mr. Abrams, it manages to hold true to the idea. It’s short, punchy and leaves you hoping that they develop the series further. (Storytelling 4)

Polish 4

Watchability 4

Novelty 4

Overall Rating: 3.91 out of 5 stars

Coming off of a fight with her boyfriend, a woman finds herself trapped in a bathroom with a puddle of blood and the voice of a woman who is crying out for help.

It’s also a horror film so I’m pretty sure you can guess what happens next.

This is a short, creepy little tale that is not particularly innovative but is very well executed.

Details

Cast: Medi Broekman, Nasrdin Dchar, Déna Massque, Sergec Geworkan
Vimeo Channel: Love Hurts
Website: Shariff Nasr

Ratings

Very, very cool special effects. The blood and the corpses had some serious flair. (Style 4.5)

Pacing 3.5

Storytelling 3

Polish 4

You’ve probably seen this movie a few dozen times before, that being the case this is a pretty good interpretation of the iconic horror movie bathroom scene that is worth watching just for the clever special effects. (Watchability 3.5)

Novelty 3

Overall Rating: 3.58 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: Cafe Insomniac is a thinking man’s machinima. The visuals are well crafted but the real beauty of this story is trying to unravel what’s real and what’s a delusion.

Machinima is animated film-making within a real-time virtual 3-D environment. It uses the technology developed by computer gaming and transfers it to film-making.

Machinima has been around in a primitive form since the 1990’s, but it’s only been in the last year that the technology has existed to produce quality content.

Recently Warner Brother’s became the first film studio to release a machinima series – ‘Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series’.

Details

Creators: Hardy Capo
Vimeo Channel: Cafe Insomniac
Website: Callous Productions
Support the Show: Hire Callous Productions For Machinima

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Feed: Cafe Insomniac
Twitter Feed Hardy Capo

Ratings

Style 4

Pacing 4

This has just about everything you could ask for out of a Machinima. The story is one twist after another, the camera work and animation is brilliantly done and the voice work is excellent. Not only that but each episode feels complete, which is the most common problem web series face, they are usually just under 10 minutes long and by the end you feel like the plot has actually moved somewhere. (Storytelling 4)

Machinima is pretty hit or miss. The trick is to make it feel like you’re not just watching a cleverly edited video game with voice overs. Cafe Insomnia does the job. The editing is crisp, the voices fit the action and the world manages to breath. We can only hope that as the series continues, some of the open questions are answered the the writing continues to be as good as the first three episodes. (Polish 4.5)

Watchability 4

Novelty 4.5

Overall Rating: 4.16 out of 5 stars

We haven’t seen a really good revenge movie since Ai, I was waiting for something great to come along and Wrath is it. It was written and directed by Sam Hendi, the same person who brought us Gone. Unlike Gone which holds its plot elements close to its chest, Wrath goes straight for the jugular.

Hyette Duffy plays a scorned lover who has kidnapped the woman (Tracy Villiers) who she believes seduced her partner and “forced” him to cheat. The action builds steam as it segues from a low-key monologue to full out verbal assault as Hyette tears into her “rival” and we start to see that maybe, just maybe this woman has a few more problems than a cheating spouse.

This film skirts the line between a character sketch and torture porn, and it chooses the right side, side-stepping violence and replacing it with a carefully crafted look at Hyette’s rapid descent into madness.

Once again, Sam leaves us with answered questions but much like in Gone it’s better that way.

Creator’s Description

Lisa remembers the good times she had with her partner but is there a dark side to their relationship…

Details

Cast: Hyette Duffy, Tracy Villiers
Vimeo Channel: Wrath
Website: Sam Hendi

Ratings

Style 3.5

It’s fast paced without being frenzied, a stunningly well made interpretation of the classic “interrogation” scene. (Pacing 4.5)

Storytelling 4.5

Polish 4

Hyette is incredibly good in her role as the scorned lover, it’s a performance worth watching even if there wasn’t any movie around it. (Watchability 5)

It’s the acting and script that brings this film up, the plot elements have been seen a thousand times before but very rarely executed this well. (Novelty 3.5)

Overall Rating: 4.16 out of 5 stars

I like this one for what it never says.

If that isn’t too cryptic then I’m glad you joined me for this review. Gone is a story of a woman who discovers that the same friends who came out to mourn her sister’s suicide might, in fact, be responsible for it. It’s a story about a diary that tells her the dark secrets that her sister hid away until it was too much to bare. More generally, it’s a story about pain that never gives a single hint as to its source.

That’s the thing about this film, you know that most of the cast are really bad people but you don’t know why. No one really does anything particularly upsetting either, but the implication is that each of them had a hand in the sister’s suicide. It’s dark, confusing and leaves you with more questions than answers. It manages to do all of this while remaining coherent, who can really ask for more?

Creator’s Description

A woman explores her sister’s suicide through the entries in her diary and discovers that her friends might not be who she thought they were.

Details

Cast: Rachel Button, Yeukayi Ushe, Emma Barnard, Laura Lloyd, Solomon Israel, Ana Valerio, Amy Gallagher, Abena Bentum, Stephen Adeluku, Leylan Saad, Kate Shaw
Vimeo Channel: Gone
Website: Sam Hendi

Ratings

Style 3.5

It’s good but It’s a little uneven, it’s starts out really slowly, ramps up near the middle and then slows right back down again in the third act. (Pacing 3.5)

It leaves unanswered questions without becoming muddled in its own sense of mystery. Overall it’s a well executed drama. (Storytelling 4)

Polish 4

If you really, really need closure this might not be for you, otherwise it is a great watch coming in at just under 10 minutes. (Watchability 4)

Novelty 3.5

Overall Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: Pink is a stylish assassination drama that gets the job done.

Natalie Cross works for the government – any government that pays, that is. Technically, she’s a subcontractor – like Haliburton, only with guns.

She gets hired to hunt down scum and dispose of them – and she always gets her man. Always.

Natalie loves the color pink. As in, “pink mist” (you can figure that one out).

Her prison psychiatrist called her “unstable”. Blame her dad, he was the dangerous one. Old School. Black Ops. And he always wanted a son (that’s why he called her “Nate”). He taught her things like, how to skin a deer and how to fire a rifle. So please forgive Natalie for being a “little girl” in a woman’s body, for wanting a childhood she never had, and for trying to walk away from The Life she was born and bred into.

Prison was a haven for her after she quit, and she’d still be there if her biological clock hadn’t started ringing. So she’s back on contract, working The List. But looking for two men now.

One she’s trying to eliminate. The other… well, she’s got something else in mind.

Details

Cast: Natalie Raitano, Matthew Tompkins, Sheree J. Wilson
Hulu Channel: Hulu Channel
Website: Pink The Series
Support the Show: Visit The Pink Store

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Feed: Feed
Facebook Page Pink The Series

Ratings

This show simply drips cool. You have a hired killer committing herself to prison. You have episodes filled with guns, BlackOps, assassinations and angst. If you are a little sick of all your web series being served up with a big side of comedy, then Pink is your place to turn for a little mayhem. (Style 4.5)

The episodes could be longer. They are going with the one episode, one concept model of storytelling but it does leave you wanting and not in that “oh my god what’s going to happen next” sort of way. It leaves you thinking that if they just gave it another minute they could tell a much better story. That being the case, it’s fun, kinetic and the off-screen violence is strangely satisfying. (Pacing 3.5)

Storytelling 4

Everything about this show is top shelf, the camera quality, the directing and a few cringe-worthy lines notwithstanding the script. (Polish 5)

Watchability 4.5

Novelty 3.5

Overall Rating: 4.16 out of 5 stars

I usually have trouble deciding whether to use a “mind-bending” tag because well, I sat through Mulholland Drive and now everything seems pretty normal by comparison. This film got one though because in the realm of “going back in time to save a loved one” films this one has some serious panache.

The premise is pretty simple, a man goes to a parallel dimension to be with the woman he loves. Unlike similar explorations of this concept, instead of hiding away from his double in the new universe and wallowing in angst for about an hour, he decides to cut out the middle man and brutally murder his doppelganger.

As it turns out, this isn’t the first time or the first universe in which our “hero” has come up with this idea so what follows is one of the more bizarre looks at the nature of death and identity that I’ve seen.

Creator’s Description

Sometime in the near future. Three parallel universe, the girlfriend dies in each one, the guys cant take the loss. With an unsecured technology that accidentally made its way to the wide public, They decided to go for a ride to another parallel universe – our universe, in which the girl is still alive…

Details

Cast: Ehoud Eitan, Johanna Thelander
YouTube Channel: Kaus Media Films
Website: Kaus Media

Ratings

I have to respect a world where dimensional transportation devices are left completely unguarded and you have to use a motorcycle helmet as a heads up display. (Style 4.5)

Pacing 4

This pretty quickly devolves into murder porn, which is probably why I like it but does take away from the fact that he’s doing all of this presumably out of love. (Storytelling 3.5)

Polish 3.5

Watchability 4

Dimensional travel really hasn’t been this fun for a while. (Novelty 4)

Overall Rating: 3.91 out of 5 stars

A man who suffers from terrible dreams wakes up to find himself unsure of who he is, what his real purpose is and how to escape. This takes a page from a lot of other secret agent, amnesia, “I kill people but don’t know about it” films like the Bourne series but the difference is that this entire movie would fit into Bourne’s first act.

While I really liked some of the concepts, I spent a lot of time feeling like I’ve seen this movie before. It took so many nods and used so many genre tropes that it ironed out a lot of the qualities that make it unique.

It is a fun movie to watch and the film work is solid but Jacob Ares just feels like it could have been a lot better if more time was taken to put a unique spin on what is becoming a tired premise.

Creator’s Description

Jacob Ares is a man with a sinister past. A past that shines light on a very dark soul.

Details

Cast: Phoenix Romero, Reagan Pfifer, Ja Elam
Openfilm Channel: Jacob Ares
Website: Ralf Bremer

Ratings

Style 3.5

Pacing 4

As a homage to the genre it works well, but as an independent film it feels like they could have done more with the script. (Storytelling 3)

I found myself straining to hear it. Some extra work could have been done to polish up the sound. (Polish 3)

Watchability 3.5

Novelty 2.5

Overall Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars

Hotels have a rich history in the horror genre. By now you would think that people with seedy pasts would know not to hang out in them. Either way, Do Not Disturb tells the story of a serial killer who has decided to take up residence inside of a hotel to hide away from law enforcement who apparently has something against senseless murder.

It’s dark and moody, with a story the quickly takes a turn for the weird about midway through. In all it’s very entertaining film that looks really polished. While it is a little on the long side for a web video, you still almost wish that the director had more time to explore some of the film’s questions. I wanted to know more about the copycat killer and I wanted more time understand the protagonist – even though we spend just about the entire film right next to him, by the end we are still left without strong characterization.

These minor problems aside this is as good an entry into the web based horror genre as you could ask for, and it makes me hope that director Patrick Rea continues to turn out movies of this caliber.

Creator’s Description

A creepy tale about a mysterious man staying in a hotel, who is visited by a unseen entity.

Starring: Allen Loman as Philip

Details

Creator: Michael Stine
Vimeo Channel: Do Not Disturb
Website: Michael Stine

Ratings

The cards are a little on the cheesy side (Style 3.5)

Pacing 4.5

While I always hope for more character development as a slice of life it works beautifully (Storytelling 4)

Polish 4

Watchability 4

Novelty 3

Overall Rating: 3.83 out of 5 stars