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I know how hard it is to make a short film on a tight budget, so I'm not going to slag this movie off.

I'm sure for the budget that was spent on it, they did a remarkable job. However, it really does highlight why movie-making is so darn difficult. Dialogue is hard to write, actors are hard to cast and direct to get truly authentic performances and audiences these days are so accustomed to fantastic CGI and creature design that anything less than that really has to utilize incredible ingenuity and creative skill to compensate.

I know that Matt Wilson has been planning to make a big push towards film-making these days and I can only hope that he recognizes the rather large flaws present in this film and looks to resolve those issues in any future endeavors. He's obviously an incredibly talented and creative individual but creativity in one medium doesn't always necessarily cross over properly into other disciplines. At the very least for his next film I hope that he brings on a co-author to help...his ideas for overall worlds, etc, may be great but based on this particular film his command of dialogue in particular leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Sadly it also doesn't provide me with much incentive to check out the game either.

im not worried about them not having a budget. I've seen films with shoestring budgets that work because of a deep understanding of horror, pacing and atmosphere.

Now I understand why his name is plastered all over the damn thing and for that I'm kinda glad as this might shield the rest of PP from the fallout.

For an independently financed short this was not bad technically, in an objective sense, as personally I think the film's editing was sloppy and did not fit the theme nor atmosphere (cut cut cut cut cut cut looong 2-second shot cut cut - this isn't an action movie!). I won't bash on the actors either, as this is a Z-grade movie after all and I don't mind bad acting. It's that it falls flat on its face on the level of the script. The concept for this movie is weak, it was tired by the end of the 90's, let alone in 2012, the pacing is all over the place, the dialogue is corny, and, most of all, it's a cliche on top of a cliche on top of a cliche.

Frankly, I have seen much, much better independent Z-grade feature films I suspect made on budgets not much higher than Wilson's (i.e. Slashers, 13 Hours in a Warehouse, The Other Side, Shadow Puppets, heck, even House of 9). Reason? Their stories were at least somewhat original and the scripts rarely included such cliche lines as "GOGOGO!" or "Sunnuva!". Really, if you told me to go watch a boat load of conspiracy and alien movies from the 80's and 90's and come up with a script that contains as many tropes and cliches from them, LEVEL 7 would be what I'd turn in. I'd say the script is not much better than Ultramarines', and that's not exactly a compliment, it's unintentionally funny in the way The Room or Birdemic are but without their charm. I'd love for someone to riff on this piece of celluloid nightmare.

Well, that's some unexpected B-movie goodness from an unlikely source - for me they should have gone all out on the cliche's and ramped up the cheese...but it seems they're serious

There are things I like - mainly the idea behind Level 7 - it's not often you see a movie to promote a board game (or whatever it's going to be) and I don't think a cross-media project is a bad idea (although the theme has to be strong enough to maintain interest) but for me it seems like they're almost trying too hard. You can have grey big-headed, bug-eyed aliens, just twist them more towards horror - change the concept to make them more bestial or something? I know it's easy to be an armchair critic but that could have been better with a more measured approach to filming - I have to admit I almost closed the window when I saw the "Abandon All hope..." scratching on the door - sadly that's another classic piece of literature that's become cliche and it wasn't necessary. I feel the concept is right, but the execution is two decades off.

On the game itself it's a pity there are no miniatures - there's no better way to get a more visual involvement into a board game, so the extra expense would have been worth it. The design doesn't look too bad and the main concept on basing it on real conspiracy theories is a good one, but I feel it needs more than that...

...and I know this may seem like trolling but who is Matt Wilson I assume he's the creative director/founder at PP or something like that? Either way the film should have been as far removed from a "real" movie as possible - no need for opening credits, just a scrolling list at the end would have done.

Sorry PP but small grey aliens with "that brain thing" don't scare me...I'd sooner pat them on the head and offer them a cheesy wotsit...that'll placate them

...I was going to make a joke and say "Well at least it's not as bad as Prometheus!", but nah, this is pretty damn bad. Prometheus, by the way, is excellent proof that having a big budget still means nothing if you get a couple of donkey-caves to write the script.

Anyway, Level 7 is looking like kind of a let down. How many people do you think will actually find this interesting? Personally, the game itself doesn't sound all that enticing and comes off as being a little overpriced for what you get, the game universe is so bland and cliche it almost feels like someone unearthed a time capsule from the mid-90's and found that short film in it, and...I dunno, I don't have a third point. I also find it hilarious how deadly serious they appear to be taking this whole thing, I honestly do think it might be some kind of troll and we're all gonna look pretty silly in a couple weeks.

What has been seen can not be unseen.


How can you even take something this .... so utterly tired, seriously?

Not only are we trying to reinvent delta green, resident evil, or the X files, We're doing it with our name plastered all over it, like thats some sort of badge of honor.

And then we bounce back to the game.... Which is now just an utter joke, that it isn't even comparable to anything even on par with PP. No wonder they didn't want it.


Somehow, I'm starting to think that this guy actually thinks he's something special, and that he's pulling an Uwe Boll of gaming on us.

I was disappointed in the first place, but now I'm starting to think that this insult is on purpose, and Matt Ward is behind it in some sort of wacked out GW conspiracy.

Grot 6 wrote:
I was disappointed in the first place, but now I'm starting to think that this insult is on purpose, and Matt Ward is behind it in some sort of wacked out GW conspiracy.

Wait.... Matt Ward.... Matt Wilson....

Both their initials are MW...

THEY ARE THE SAME PERSON!!!

ITS A GIANT CONSPIRACY!!! AHHHH!!!!

<runs off screaming>

I dont need more mini's to paint. If the game is good enough to stand on it's own it will be played. Hows youre dreadfleet games going guys? did you get all your pretty miniatures painted?

fire4effekt wrote:I dont need more mini's to paint. If the game is good enough to stand on it's own it will be played. Hows youre dreadfleet games going guys? did you get all your pretty miniatures painted?

I did! So nice of you to ask!

yakface wrote:
I know how hard it is to make a short film on a tight budget, so I'm not going to slag this movie off.

I'm sure for the budget that was spent on it, they did a remarkable job. However, it really does highlight why movie-making is so darn difficult. Dialogue is hard to write, actors are hard to cast and direct to get truly authentic performances and audiences these days are so accustomed to fantastic CGI and creature design that anything less than that really has to utilize incredible ingenuity and creative skill to compensate.

I know that Matt Wilson has been planning to make a big push towards film-making these days and I can only hope that he recognizes the rather large flaws present in this film and looks to resolve those issues in any future endeavors. He's obviously an incredibly talented and creative individual but creativity in one medium doesn't always necessarily cross over properly into other disciplines. At the very least for his next film I hope that he brings on a co-author to help...his ideas for overall worlds, etc, may be great but based on this particular film his command of dialogue in particular leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Sadly it also doesn't provide me with much incentive to check out the game either.

I'm afraid I can't be quite so... indulgent, I suppose is the nearest word. In simplest terms, I would point out that whenever a critique uses a variation of "for an X, it's pretty good", it's a really bad sign. It's a sign that you realize the item being evaluated fails on its own terms, so you're going to have to re-frame things to avoid calling a spade a spade.

I have close family in the film business, and if nothing else I have learned that everything in film is frenetic, haphazard and a virtual miracle to make anything work. And yet it does. The secret is that things that work match the ability set of the filmmaker to the project.

Looking at LEVEL 7, it's just so painfully clear that Wilson's reach has exceed his grasp: there are plenty of ways this could have been rescued from it's prison of mediocrity, but they were denied because it's clear Wilson wanted a flashy, high budget style look... on no budget at all.

Consider, for example, a low budget movie in a similar genre, Attack the Block. Now, that movie is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but it takes an almost insane premise (aliens attack a housing project) and makes it work... or at least, be memorable.

Block is chock full of things you aren't expecting: some characters have hidden depths, but a lot are simply realistic portrayals of not-particularly-inspiring individuals in a wild situation. People both rise to meet the challenge and fail horribly, but memorably, and the monster effect manages to be transparently cheap and yet work really well in context.

Can we say anything like that for any part of LEVEL 7? Again, the problem isn't he made a cheap movie; it's he tried to make an expensive movie on a cheap budget.

I mean, the most obvious problem is... so darned obvious: we know nothing about the "protagonist" at the start, we know nothing about him by the end, and in the middle there is some... stuff. Nothing we see matters at all in the end, nor is any real information conveyed. The CGI at the end is not bad, but it's such a slog to get to it.

Finally, 2:30 of credits? Really?

Buzzsaw wrote:[
Finally, 2:30 of credits? Really?

Yeah, one of the first things I noticed way back in the day at film school was that amateur filmmakers love credits...both long intro and end credits because they are defined portions of a film that are easy to replicate and that help to signify (at least in an amateur filmmaker's mind) that it is a 'real' film. Its the same reason that people love to make trailers of a movie without any intention of ever making a movie out of the material...because trailers have a very set formula that is easy to replicate.

So the joke back in film school was always to check the amount of screen time taken up by credits on a short film in relation to how long the overall film is. The more time spent on credits, the worse the film usually is.


IMHO, since this is primarily a promotional piece for his game, it was kind of inappropriate to have any opening credits at all (even if it was only 'a film by...') and end credits, if necessary (maybe for union requirements, although I highly doubt it) should have been kept insanely brief with a link to a website with full credits if necessary.

But anyway, its a little piece on the internet that helps to introduce the game setting. I don't think it is very flattering for the game, but its certainly not an affront against humanity or anything like that...just not a great effort, IMHO.

cincydooley wrote:

fire4effekt wrote:I dont need more mini's to paint. If the game is good enough to stand on it's own it will be played. Hows youre dreadfleet games going guys? did you get all your pretty miniatures painted?

I did! So nice of you to ask!

Now how often do you play with them?

That said I disagree with fire4effekt. Good games will get played, yeah...but good games with good minis will get played, too.

'nother preview: http://privateerpress.com/community/privateer-insider/insider-6-15-2012

Another resounding "Meh." Looks like a combination of any number of video games, with any number of tile games, and a cluttered card. Like every preview I've seen for this game, nothing feels original.

I feel this could've worked better as a card game as opposed to a board game.

HOSTEL, the game.


shh, don't let old "I know Quinton Tarintino" Eli Roth hear you spouting too loud about this game. He'll take it and say he came up with it, as well.

Hopefully this is a field test for a Warmachine movie--which is why I'm assuming he chose a one off board game/setting to test his film making capabilities before sinking everything into PPs main IP.

The good;

Special effects were pretty good/cool
The lighting


The bad;

The dialogue
The acting


They say the best written satire is the one where you can't tell if it is satire--so either this is very good or just very badly written. I couldn't tell if it was to be taken serious or was all tongue in cheek. Still, a great first effort from someone that I presume has never done film---hopefully he gets some serious writing chops to help him with a future WM film.

BrookM wrote:I feel this could've worked better as a card game as opposed to a board game.

I think you're on to something, there...

yakface wrote:

Buzzsaw wrote:[
Finally, 2:30 of credits? Really?

...

IMHO, since this is primarily a promotional piece for his game, it was kind of inappropriate to have any opening credits at all (even if it was only 'a film by...') and end credits, if necessary (maybe for union requirements, although I highly doubt it) should have been kept insanely brief with a link to a website with full credits if necessary.

But anyway, its a little piece on the internet that helps to introduce the game setting. I don't think it is very flattering for the game, but its certainly not an affront against humanity or anything like that...just not a great effort, IMHO.

The thing that blows my mind, and what I think explains the insane credit sequence, is that this isn't in Wilson's mind "a promotional piece for his game", I think he sees this as a first foray into film making. I mean, look at all the stuff on his blog about it, it's the "short film that I have dedicated the last eight months of my life to"!

It's a real shame (though, obviously, far from affronts like the ending of ME3), and it makes me wonder, who is Wilson surrounded by that this flew past? No one thought that this could, for example, have been cut to like 1 minute and been a better ad?

AgeOfEgos wrote:Hopefully this is a field test for a Warmachine movie--which is why I'm assuming he chose a one off board game/setting to test his film making capabilities before sinking everything into PPs main IP.

I hope not. Let him ruin one franchise that's still in the crib instead of one that's already out there.

BrookM wrote:I feel this could've worked better as a card game as opposed to a board game.

Yes, it would have made a great $35 card game and one that I'd probably add to my collection.....

The movie itself wasn't that bad, but its not what I'd use to basically intro everyone to a "new and upcoming" IP

Has anyone heard anything about the Monsterpocalypse movie lately? Last I heard was awhile ago when they got Tim Burton to direct it.

I thought the MonPoc movie was dead or in development hell?

If ever there was a movie I would Want Michael Bay to get a hold of, it would be MonPoc. There's not really any story to ruin, not much nostalgia value at all, just giant robots and monsters beating the crap out of each other and leveling a city in the process. Just Try to tell me that doesn't Scream Michael Bay!

Nah, because he would still over-dramatize everything, and center the movie mainly around the military dealing with the monster attacks and not the monsters themselves. Monsters which you probably wouldn't be able to see because of all the shaky cam, and I assume they would be needlessly complex in their design so it would be hard to really tell what the hell they even are.

Tim Burton was signed on to direct, but this was quite a while ago:

http://www.slashfilm.com/exclusive-tim-burton-developing-monsterpocalypse-full-details-revealed/


Although IMDB still lists it as a 2013 release, so who knows.

Being developed as a 3D movie

Big fething surprise, lol...just like every single other movie now.

Makes me wonder how he'll cram Johnny Depp into that one.

What? You don't see the obvious resemblance?

You know, a MonPoc movie done in ye olde Godzilla style, as in, guys in suits, that would be fun.