{"id":45472,"date":"2024-11-08T23:48:26","date_gmt":"2024-11-09T04:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=45472"},"modified":"2024-11-10T23:57:58","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T04:57:58","slug":"despiser-2003-visual-vengeance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/11\/08\/despiser-2003-visual-vengeance\/","title":{"rendered":"Despiser (2003) [Visual Vengeance]\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Now available on Blu-ray from Visual Vengeance\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

An artist who was just dumped by his wife and fired from his work finds himself in an unexpected version of purgatory. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Written and directed by Philip J. Cook, Despiser is a film that will greatly appeal to a very specific audience and absolutely not to the rest of the movie-watching world. The story here is not too complex but has a few layers to keep the attention, but the writing doesn\u2019t make the most of many of the situations. There are some good ideas here and there and some good moments through the run time, but it all comes together a bit clunky creating a film that doesn\u2019t really come together in the most coherent or interesting of ways. The direction being from the film\u2019s writer leads it to a film where the connection between the writing and direction is very close which in this case may not have been a good thing. A bit of distance between the writing and direction may have helped. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The cast here is ok. Sadly, not much more than ok in any of case, giving performances that all kind of blend together once the film has ended. This means that for a reviewer, the performers do not stand out from each other. Thankfully, it also means that none of them stand out negatively. Sadly, it also means that none of them stand out positively. This all makes it difficult to point out the cast and what they did great and what they didn\u2019t do great on. It could be said that this is an ensemble cast situation where everyone is on the same level or just about. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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In terms of the visuals or technical style, the special effects here are not aged well. The computer-generated bits and pieces are just not on par with what we see today, so they need to be looked through an early 2000s lens and well that only helps them so much. The CGI here feels more like it\u2019s from the mid-1990s than the early 2000s, but they do have their charm at times. There is something nostalgic about these effects, so they aren\u2019t too annoying.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Working to showcase the performances and the CGI is the cinematography which leaves a lot to be desired here. The images work but they do not feel like they were planned all that much and it feels like the framing of the scenes was done on the fly without too much forethought about it all. The lighting to go with this is also not great unfortunately.<\/span> The practical effects do fare better however, bringing some fun to the film and becoming one of the highlights of it all.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Basically, Despiser is a film that will appeal to a very specific demographic and this viewer is not one of them. The writing and direction need a bit more time cooking and so does the cinematography. The performances are ok throughout and from every cast member, nothing really standing out here. The new cover art for the Visual Vengeance version is the best part of the whole film.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In terms of this new release, the extras here are numerous and not all worth the time, but some of them are a lot of fun. All films should come with a blooper reel, deleted scenes, and outtakes reel which this release does. The commentary with director Cook with Mark Redfield and Gage Sheridan is decently interesting. The archival interview with cook and actor Mark Hyde is also a highlight.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now available on Blu-ray from Visual Vengeance\u00a0 An artist who was just dumped by his wife and fired from his work finds himself in an unexpected version of purgatory. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[349,477],"class_list":["post-45472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collectors-den","tag-fantasy","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45473,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45472\/revisions\/45473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}