First Impressions: 6 Films With Great Premises That Didn’t Deliver

6) In the Fog

The Premise: A man, Sushenya, is believed to be in collaboration with the Nazis. He is caught by two Resistance members and is led to the forest where they intend to execute him. The Germans ambush the three, but to their surprise, Sushenya rescues the two Partisans and escapes with them. At a loss of where to go, the three tell their stories while suspicion lingers and haunts the air.

The Failure: This was the film I could not wait to see at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The small blurb that was attached to it included the phrases “dream-like” and “fairy tale quality.” That, coupled with the dark theme of the film meant I opened my wallet and threw my money at it. When the film ended, I was in awe of how gosh darn boring it was. People around me were asleep and someone even asked “if they were serving breakfast since the movie seemed to last 12 hours.” That comment was the most exciting part of the night.

So what went wrong? Well, to be frank, with a premise like that, you’d think something would happen. Nothing did. Instead, it was a dreadfully slow two hour film that could have been much more effective had it been cut in half. I’m sorry, I can’t watch people watch each other for two straight hours.

The Fix: Have something happen. Seriously. Anything.