Throughout the uncertainty, fear, and turmoil of the Covid pandemic, the only thing I created was a questionable online footprint. It was a completely different story, however, for the four student filmmakers behind 4085 Productions, who took their isolation and boredom and turned it into art. Their debut feature, ALL ALONE TOGETHER, was made with an impressive $15,000 budget and every cent of that budget is present on the screen. Just by looking at it, you wouldn’t guess it was made for that little as it is technically gorgeous, the sound and lighting design are both fantastic. This speaks to the vision of 4085 Productions, who state on their website that their “goal is to deceive the audience, making [their] incredibly-low budget be a shock compared to the genuine quality of the film.”
ALL ALONE TOGETHER itself is a meta exploration of the art of filmmaking and the often-blurred line between a creation and those who create it. We meet Lincoln (Alex Nimrod), a young filmmaker promoting his horror movie that ultimately hits too close to home. The longer he spends with the film, the more it bleeds into each part of his life from his work to his personal relationships and even to his sense of self. The audience is brought into Lincoln’s tormented psyche, leaving us wondering what is real as much as he is. This is achieved through reliance on tried and true staples of the genre (creepy smiling extras, glowing eyed creatures that harken back to several Mike Flanagan properties) along with several creative devices likely created as a result of the budget this team was working with. The result is successfully nightmarish at its best, trapping the audience in the downward spiral playing out in front of us.
It is a delightful feat to see how much was able to be accomplished with so little, and an important thing to consider when going into this film is meeting it where it’s at. What shines is the concept of ALL ALONE TOGETHER, the turmoil of the creative process taken to its ultimate extreme. However, there were still noticeable elements of this to be improved upon. The biggest hurdle, in my opinion, is the lack of time spent to establish Lincoln as a character. As the audience, we don’t really get to know him before his descent into madness, so it’s challenging to notice when his behavior is off. I found myself surprised when he says, “I haven’t been feeling like myself,” since up until that point, I had assumed he was just always kind of like that. Once things really begin to go off the rails however, it’s an unmistakable fact that something has turned within Lincoln, offering a handful of intentionally painful scenes to watch.
Above all else, ALL ALONE TOGETHER is a feat of amateur filmmaking, and an inspiration to all up-and-coming creatives to get out there and make the damn thing. It’s a movie about movie making created for and by movie lovers and that shines through the entire feature. With loving tributes to the horror genre and a clear display of technical prowess, I for one am eagerly looking forward to whatever may come next from the 4085 Productions team.
ALL ALONE TOGETHER was presented at Panic Fest, Popcorn Frights, and the Chicago Horror Film Festival and comes to VOD on July 7th
Tags: 4085 Productions, Alex Nimrod, Chicago Horror Film Festival, Horror, Indies, Jordan Rice, Kaleb Manske, Low Budget Films, Maximus Jenkins, Panic Fest, Popcorn Frights, Riley Cassidy
No Comments