Thanks!

I'll address all of your points paragraph by paragraph.

First Paragraph:
Thank you. The concept came first from the thought of telling it from the villian's point of view and the hand-held came in after.

Second Paragraph:
Yes I agree that that is the most scary part. That someone would choose to kill under "God's word." It's as if the people don't have a choice. I think this was portrayed best with the scene with the religious woman (Courtney Case). I didn't want the dialogue, or that scene to be on the nose but if you read between the lines Ishmael is just trying to find away around her to see where she has sinned. Obviously he does not know her but "we have all sinned" so he fakes a test just so he can get his point across even though he's clearly wrong. I thought this was a great way to show how psychotic he was on his diluted mission to purge the world of sin. The line "we are ALL sinners" is a foreshadow to what he does at the end and what he plans to do with Jacob even if he hadn't attacked Ishmael.

Third Paragraph:
The coined expressed "religious massacre" is part of the film's back story. If you'll notice, the tape takes place in '85. After this tape gets out, when the cops find it, one of the police officers watches it and agrees with Ishmael and goes on a reign of terror with others for the next 23 years until the tape was found again in 2008. Newscasters called it the "religious massacre" and whenever anyone referred to the "first religious massacre" they understood it was this tape that was being referred. Yes, there have been many other religious massacres in the past but this was merely a phrase created by fictional newscasters and has nothing to do with it actually being the first of all time, it was just the first in this case scenario.

And yes, if we had more time (this was made in 48 hrs) I would have made it a little longer and dived deeper into Ishmael's physique to show how terrifying someone like him can be but I am comfortable with how it established its terror in that sequence with the homosexual couple.

Last Paragraph:
The best critique I like to hear from folks is this: "it was real" and I felt we definitely did that. And yes, most hand-held films don't have a message. I think most Cloverfield-esque films lose sight that they are telling a story, it's still a movie. Sure you want to make it seem like a true account of something that happened but there definitely needs to be a story to push it forward.

Thank man. I'm really proud of we achieved in 48 hrs.

Hey man, I always wanted to ask:

Did you storyboard this at all? I mean for a 48-hour film festival, you must've been well-prepared to the 'n'th degree; I'm thinking of doing one of these kinds of things, and was curious about your workflow.

I also love how you are using "glitches" as edits, the sound design, and how you are using camera movement to build "suspense" and to drain a scene.

I have this camera, or its "successor," the HV30. You got some good exposure, especially for the night scenes which were well-lit!

Btw, not bad acting on your part! Sorry to say, but I kinda laughed when you "sqealed" as you got hit! It was very flamboyant adding to the sound effect, lol!

Great job!

Also, when's "The Devil's Company" coming out?!?!

That squeal was very misleading. That wasn't me, that was the other guy tied up. I may even go back and re-edit that because even if you know it's the other guy squealing and not me it sounds odd.

No we didn't storyboard at all. We did have a preliminary idea of a script before going into the film fest and we were lucky enough to get something that fit with what we had.

Yeah we were able to get an ARRI Kit from a film program that we are apart of so some of that exterior stuff was lit :-D

So glad you enjoyed it! The 48hr Film Fest is coming up again! We hope to make something as good or better again this year!