FEEDBACK SAMPLE
"CHROMOPHOBIA"
The director of Chromophobia wanted to receive honest feedback and get a deeper understanding of how the viewers interpret his film.
You can watch the film below and read a sample of the feedback the filmmaker received below, or you can read the feedback in Excel.
FEEDBACK #10
Age - 38
Gender - Female
Profession - Online Rater
Did you like the film?
Very much
Anything you'd like more of?
I’d like to see more of the Dr Jennifer, I really liked her character and felt like I was on her team. When it seems like she hangs herself at the end, I felt a nudge of that knife-in-the-heart sensation that great horror makes you feel when your perspective character turns against you. I think seeing even more of Dr Jennifer would only increase that feeling of betrayal at the end – like the mother in Hereditary, when she turns bad, it’s the most horrific feeling because you’d been staunchly on her side for the majority of the movie!
Were there any moments/scenes you particularly liked? (Please list and explain)
I loved all of the horror reveal scenes, the first suicide was great with all that bright red blood in such a bleak room, when she finds his drawing of the suicide, when she pictures her mom’s suicide, and at the end when it is implied that she’ll do it as well. All those moments had great music building up, and a satisfying reveal to the tension.
Were there any moments/scenes you particularly disliked, or felt didn't work? (Please list and explain)
During the final climatic moments, when she sees he’s drawn his studio on the hospital wall – it kind of flashes around and shows her at the entrance to his studio again, and then both she and he are dressed differently, he’s in what looks like formal black and she’s back in the outfit she wore when she picked up his pastels, there are shots of a bloody window on his drawing… I thought, maybe that the blood this time was opening a portal to his studio where she was going to kill herself. I could not tell if it was in the past, as in, she killed herself when she first went to grab his pastels, or did she do it at the end, or did she do it at all? The last two, “Did she kill herself or not?”, to me, are the fun kind of questions to be left with at the end of a horror movie. However, the first two questions, “Was it in the past or in the present?” were just reading as confusing to me.
Were there any moments you felt annoyed or frustrated by the movie? (Please list and explain)
Well, when the doctor hears from the patient, “They’re waiting for you in my studio…” it doesn’t seem like she has enough motivation to actually choose to go there. At that point, I want her to buy a pack of pastels at Michaels and make him draw with those.
Were you confused at any given time? (Please list and explain)
Only at the end, the timeline of her (possible!) suicide. The wondering about whether she dies or not is a fun horror movie question to talk about with friends after a movie is over, but wondering about the timeline just feels confusing. I do watch a lot of Asian horror, and they don’t often spell things out for you, often the less explained the better, so there are times when obscuring the truth works but in this case, I think I was supposed to understand what was happening during the titular scene and I did not.
If this film was going to be expanded into a feature film, what part of the story would interest you to see expanded most? Please explain why.
I would love to see more of Dr Jennifer, because the crux of the film is loosing her at the end. I was surprised at how much empathy I had during such a short film, for a character I didn’t get to know all that well. I can imagine feeling ten times more affected if I had a more established journey with this character, and then when her fate was left hanging in the balance, I’d really be wrecked. They did so much with the visual imagery in this movie, the hospital was so big and bleak and engulfed these tiny little characters, and the doctor really stood out as a beacon of goodness all in white, trying her best to help these patients from a fate she had terrible experience with in the past… really affecting character for such a short film!
How would you explain Arthur's character?
An enigma. At first, he seems like a sad patient. I wasn’t scared of him really, I felt sorry for him and was intrigued by his repetitive drawings. When he’s questioned about color, and says that sometimes it makes bad things happen and he has to resist… it makes me feel like he’s a “good” guy or an innocent victim in this. However, it seems he gives in to temptation to use color, or was always bad and wanted to hurt the doctor from the get go, because during the ending, he’s smiling as if he’s proud of his work, and happy with seeing her so unsettled. During her possible suicide scene, he’s just watching from the background with his arms folded as if she’s carrying out his orders.
So I really liked the character because he kept me guessing! And betrayed my expectations of him!
How would you explain Arthur's powers and what part of his power would you like to see more of?
Either he has the power to make people commit suicide when he puts color into a painting, or he’s drawing out their own desire to commit suicide when he puts color on a painting, OR, he is possessed by an entity or some supernatural force that is bent on doing those things.
What do you think is happening with Dr. Haver's character?
I think Dr. Haver (she’s Dr. Jennifer to me because I like to think she’s a doctor who would ask you to call her by her first name, she looks sweet!) is working at the hospital because of a trauma in her past, because of the situation with her mother, she became a doctor to help other depressed people before they’d take their own life. So, the first patient suicide really bothered her and that’s why she’s taken so much one on one time with Arthur, because he’s been committed for hurting himself and she doesn’t want to loose another person. She’s really a beacon of good, and the actress really has a kind and gentle look to her, so I think she fits perfectly within a grim horror setting… like when you meet a pretty girl in the Silent Hill video games who is actually nice and sane when you speak, the juxtaposition of the pretty & feminine (and SANE) against the bleak and scary insanity really gives me chills!
If Arthur's character were a figment of Dr. Haver's psyche and Dr. Haver was actually a patient — would you find this to be a predictable story twist?
No! I just thought about that now as I read the sentence, it didn’t occur to me to guess that any earlier. That’s really interesting! I would feel the betrayal you feel during a good twist, like in the Shutter Island movie.. you’re really on the main character’s side and invested in his story, so when the reveal happens that he may not actually be a detective but a patient, it was mind-blowing to me!
Is there a direction the story might go that you would suggest would be very unexpected?
Well, maybe Dr. Jennifer doesn’t die by hanging at the end, maybe she’s rescued by the staffers at the hospital during the last minute, and Arthur is shown dead on the bed with rope marks. And maybe Dr. Jennifer is doodling days later, just absent-mindedly on the phone, and however it happens, it is revealed that she now has the “drawing suicide” powers, like they’ve been transferred to her. So you see her cut off her hands or fingers, or something to really mutilate herself and prevent her from ever drawing something like that. Time lapse & she’s in a psyche ward now herself (you assume the powers and the act of cutting herself got her landed in the same ward she worked in), being drugged up on medicine and abused by the staff and doctors because she’s pretty and female. So she puts a pen in her mouth and crudely sketches out a picture of an atomic bomb blowing up!
Or maybe she doesn’t mutilate herself after realizing the powers have been transferred to her, maybe you see her resigning from that psych hospital and taking a job elsewhere at a children’s hospital… so you’re left thinking, well, I know she’s good and she means well but what if something happens (especially if it is established earlier that Arthur’s powers may not be under his direct control).
Or, finally, she could show up to work the next day after getting the powers and have a wicked glint in her eye as she rolls out the new program for the hospital, “Art Therapy”.
Any other comments or feelings about the film?
I’m a big horror fan, I watch a lot of horror movies, and some of my favorite authors are Edgar Allen Poe, Shirley Jackson, and Stephen King…. I think this movie got the tone of what I like to see just right, a creeping dread that follows you throughout the movie and makes you feel on the edge of your seat. There weren’t any cheap jumpscares, but with the amazing violins screeching and the bleak atmosphere, I was on edge the entire time watching – great job & I would see this in theaters if it were expanded into a feature film!