User Reviews

Kiosk rental is the graveyard filler for many movies that couldn't make it anywhere else. Cast of three with no previous acting experience supported by very brief half dozen others with zero experience in their resumes. No subtitles with poor audio and enunciation making it difficult to follow the dialogue. Not that it mattered since lines seldom exceeded five words with interminably long pauses between each line as if people were either reading an off screen teleprompter or couldn't memorize beyond five words. Lines consists of lots of pop science terms like "equation"; space time; dark matter and energy - latter ideas not present in the 60s.

Setting and props consists of a contemporary rural home filled with 60s era science equipment e.g. ohmmeter, oscilloscope, circuit boards, cathode tube monitor. Computers gave off beeping sounds as lines of code scrolled resembling 60s B grade scifi. Add cheap prop of flasks & beakers filled with colored water; lots of yellow cable and tubes running in and around the house that do nothing but look yellow. Intent was to represent electronic monitoring and hydroponic feeding of plants & trees. Lots of scenes of an oscilloscope test signal - means nothing, but looks cool. The hooking of a single alligator clip between plant root and ohmmeter doesn't work. Bizarrely, a Swarovski glass prop ball was added so that 90s era popular feng shui and qi would add a mystical element. Fits with the lawn pyramids.

Storyline had something to do with two pseudo-scientists who find a girl sitting in the woods who claims to telepathically communicate with space beings so they hire her to sew burlap bags for their plants? We briefly, thank goodness, see her anti-science boyfriend who likes to cut the yellow cables and disrupt science. Final scene is of a really bad Photoshop style CGI of floating white sphere covering girl supported by plastic covering the lens. Girl and scientist ride off on their bicycles.

Final thought, bad script and a storyline that made no sense and equally bad acting and equally bad props but it has a nice photo on the DVD cover - caught me!

The haphazard mish-mash of philosophical musing, hard science, mysticism and budding romance manages to maintain the interest of the viewer, and bring some emotional satisfaction at the end. The tale revolves around Dr. Roberts (J. Michael Craig), a physics professor doing some independent research at his isolated home, and his two young assistants. Frank (Jeter Rhodes) is a grad student hired for the summer whose fiancée died recently, and Helen (Jana Danae) is a mysterious young woman whom Roberts found sleeping in the woods and to whom he offered a job. (The fact that she is leggy and attractive probably didn't hurt her job prospects.) Roberts has been tracking an unidentified energy source that is slowly nearing the earth, and has laid out an extensive array of equipment in the woods around his house to help watch its progress. Helen is somehow connected to the energy source, as is John Moon (Creighton Barrett), an artist and woodsman who lives in the forest. There are odd encounters with the locals involving zithers.

Something is going on, and the producers are not particularly interested in sharing exactly what that is. This may come off as annoying, but it really isn't. Exactly what's happening and exactly why isn't important. It's not the point of the film. What's important is the (often odd) relationship between Roberts, Frank and Helen, and how that reflects the (also odd) philosophical themes interwoven into the film. Plus, it looks pretty cool and has a great soundtrack of independent folksy rock songs. Even though the budget is obviously and painfully low, a lot of the film is shot in beautiful forests and countryside and in real locations, which contributes to a grounded look, which contrasts nicely with the surrealism of the story. The effects are generally very retro, and while clearly cheap effects are quaint and pleasing to the eye. They lack the garishness and seeming absence of care that often mar the effects of low budget films. Nightfur is like a pleasant dream, fairly undemanding but often not making much sense. None of the main cast have acting credits on film to speak of. These are not seasoned veterans of the silver screen. But they do pretty well. These are still better performances than one finds in a lot of independently produced material.

The direction is confident. Writer / Director Jason Brown definitely knows where he's going and what he wants to say. At times, he does not share this information with the audience, but not in an insulting way. The ambiguity is simply more interesting. The film does have flaws, the fact that one never knows, from beginning to end, just what the heck is going on is one. But it is an enjoyable, leisurely ride. This one is hovering between RENT IT and RECOMMEND IT, but the benefit of the doubt is probably appropriate. Nightfur is recommended for anyone looking for a film very different from what usually screens at the multiplex.

-- DVD Talk, Jeremy Biltz