By Geno McGahee
The horror tree has many branches. Although there are torture elements to ALL I NEED, this movie falls under a suspense/thriller rather than torture porn. Written and Directed by Dylan K. Narang, ALL I NEED presents an interesting story with some unique reasoning. There are things that are done incredibly well in this film and then there are a few things that could have been done better, but all things considered, this was a good watch.
Andrew (Markus Taylor) is trying desperately to reconnect with his daughter, Xoe, but his financial problems have proven problematic. His ex and mother of his child is not happy that he is behind on child support and he feels backed against a corner. A possible blessing gets dropped at his door in the form of a package with a couple hundred dollars and a phone number. He calls the number and a Russian guy is on the other line and asks him to become his delivery man. Reluctantly, he agrees, and the deal soon turns into something very big that leads to a very wealthy woman, Elizabeth (Holly Twyford), and a deal that would be a huge financial gain but consists of doing something that may ruin him as a human being.
In the meantime, a large group of attractive women are locked in a room, in their bras and panties. Some of them are dead and others are alive and rather confused as to why they are there and what is going to happen to them. Chloe (Caitlin Stasey) immediately tries to escape but a man with a mask stops her and continues to kill girl after girl. Chloe doesn’t give up and keeps trying to find alternate ways to escape when the masked man is away. She keeps failing to do so, but her toughness is always evident and she doesn’t give up.
We bounce back and forth between the delivery boy story and the masked man/torture story and the two paths eventually meet and it was an interesting crossover. I did particularly like the performance of Twyford as the rich woman in this. She was cold and said a lot without saying much initially. Her posture and her look set the tone and I was really impressed with how she played it. Stasey and Taylor were also cast very well in it. I felt for both characters as the frantically attempted to solve their problems.
I want to give some credit to Collin Brazie, the cinematographer for ALL I NEED. It was shot incredibly well and just looked very nice overall. It brought a certain grit and polish at the same time. I loved the look of it and the various camera moves used to increase tension. The production level overall was rather good. They did a lot of things right.
The problem that this film has is that it almost feels like a short film stretched into feature length. There is a lot of repetition with Chloe trying to escape when we got the point pretty early as to what is going on. There wasn’t much to break it up and I kept just waiting for those parts to be over and to get back to where the story was really moving with Andrew. The reasoning at the end was decent and very ending was rather neat, but there are parts of this film that drag on, most of which are with Chloe finding new ways to get out of captivity.
ALL I NEED is worth a watch. They were on the right track, but the story should have been developed a little more. Andrew’s plight and journey was very interesting and sincere but it played second to the women in their bras and panties. The thought may be that sex sells, but I believe that the father trying to make things right part of the story was more compelling and could have carried more of the movie easily. Despite this being quite the mixed bag, I do recommend it. It’s worth a watch.
Rating: 5.5/10
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