Mjeteconer
Just perfect...
Pluskylang
Great Film overall
jessicafischerqueen
The Ideal (2011)must be as close to an outright copy of The Shining as it could be without getting sued for making it.It also appears to have had a production budget of $1, or perhaps "around three fiddy."I almost stopped watching it six times during the first 20 minutes, but something kept pulling me deeper into the film. It's utterly without pretension. For example, the pretty, but dressed down, heroine has very attractive and very large breasts. Wisely, the filmmakers portray them in a naturalistic manner; they don't keep shoving them in your face. Not that there's anything wrong with that. All of the characters have a goofy kind of charm, and this ingenuous production may sneak up on you too, if you give it a chance. I'm glad I did.The film does introduce a central theme distinct from that of The Shining, involving an esoteric "interpretation" of time seen through the lens of Nazi Germany, Nietszche, and Kafka. I found this aspect to be quite interesting. I wish I had been given the chance to watch this film in Philosophy 104 instead of having to wade through desultory and truncated text books that were probably also published on a budget of $1.This movie is definitely not for those in a hurry. It takes time to get into this, but if you do keep watching the atmosphere becomes more and more creepy. The plot arc is just different enough from The Shining that I wondered how it was going to end. IMDb users give it a gaudy 3.8, but I give it a 6.5 and a thumbs up.
final_enigma
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
ginoraimondo
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!
alictwomb
"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.
