MBunge As a film school project, Soft For Digging would probably merit an A-. As a work of professional cinema, it hovers somewhere between C- and D+, depending on how tough you are a grader. It's nowhere near as insultingly awful as other movies of dubious commercial origins, but there's still no reason it needed to be released for public consumption.Virgil Manoven (Edmond Mercier) is an old man who lives in a cabin in the woods. He looks like the love child of former New York City mayor Ed Koch and Col. Klink from Hogan's Heroes. His standard outfit is long johns and an uncinched bath robe. One day, Virgil's cat scampers off into the woods and he follows. He doesn't find the cat but does see a man kill a young girl. The authorities can find no trace of the girl or any murder, so Virgil mopes around his cabin, sucking on reindeer candy canes and having visions of the dead girl. Coincidence eventually leads Virgil to the truth behind the dead girl, leading to a scene of spectral revenge that dances on the line between laughable and unnerving. Virgil then returns home and finds his missing cat waiting for him.Evaluated as the work of a student filmmaker, there's a lot to admire about Soft For Digging. Yeah, it's a little rough when it comes to technique, slightly derivative when it comes to style and at least twice as long as it needs to be, but writer/director J.T. Petty shows a good eye for visuals and a firm hand at storytelling. There's barely more than 3 words of dialog in the film, until a handful of poorly lip synched sentences at the very end, yet Petty's direction never stumbles and he effectively conveys a number of different plot and emotional developments. Whether you like this movie or not, you can't watch it and deny that Petty knows what he's doing behind a camera.Unfortunately, knowing what you're doing doesn't always result in doing something good. As a 20 minute film festival entry, Soft For Digging might have been passable. Stretched out to over an hour, it becomes the sort of movie that people just can't sit through. I would bet $50 that the majority of folks who've tried to watch this, in a theater or at home, gave up on it well before it was halfway done. It's too rudimentary a tale to be extended like this. Since I'm reviewing it, I had to watch the whole thing and it was an unrewarding slog.If J.T. Petty goes on to greatness in the movie business, scenes out of Soft For Digging are what would be played during his interviews on late night talks shows so the host could make fun of his extremely humble beginnings. You're better off waiting to see this film in that format, rather than waste you time and money on the real thing.

christopher-underwood Billed as a horror film and in the end proves to be so but for most of its running time this is a rather disconcerting film about an elderly gentleman who lives alone in the woods. He sees something disturbing whilst searching for his cat and then has his dreams disturbed by the imagery and tries to solve the mystery. The woods are bleak and shot with hand held camera giving creepy and atmospheric tone to proceedings. Proceedings are, however, a little slow and the pacing is not helped by chapter headings, every now and again. In a film without dialogue, of course, there is little option but to use headings, if only to give the audience some notion of where we are going. Not that anyone will guess though!

plan9-10 The plot is straightforward an old man living off a main road in woodland one day witnesses a man murdering a child in the woods. Soft For Digging follows the old man's attempts to try and convince the police that what he saw was not a figment of his imagination. However, there is a problem each time the old man guides the police to where the murder happen no corpse can be found. Soft For Digging has a diminutive dialogue which reflects the majority of the scenes of the film, an old man living by himself in a house. During the film I found that I was scared twice namely when the murdered child abruptly appears before the old man. The rest of the film I have to admit did not engage me; I found the tempo of the film a little too slow. The limited dialogue was not a problem. However, the development of the story and its conclusions, after watching the film, took too long. I feel more could have been made of the relationship, ghostly encounters, with the child and the old man. Alone in the woods at night unsure of your own mind can lead to some eerie situations, children are always scary as ghosts, see Dark Water.

ty4000 This movie will appeal to elderly women who may have seen the Exorcist in a daring moment of their middle age and were absolutely terrified into a near heart attack by THAT movie and are now trying to get that little jolt from watching something not billed as 'graphic horror.'This movie is NOT a horror movie. Well, it would probably scare someone who was shocked by 'Blair Witch,' but that movie is not worth expounding on here. But, elderly women would love this. It has an elderly man running around in his long-johns a lot. It has a a little girl with 'dead' make-up on being shown in quick, flashy shots, and we know that that kind of film making is scary itself! Did I see it? Was that blood? Is that the killer's eyes running through the woods? William Malone used that technique way too much in his recent horror flicks.I laughed at the inane lack of exposition of this film. It had potential and should have had dialogue. Yes, yes, it is sooooo artistic to have a movie with three lines spoken. Yes, but it is also highly pretentious. *spoiler* The 'horror' is an old man witnessing a supposed child being strangled. Granted, it's not SUCH a surprise since the director puts in these little 'silent movie' screens of text explaining the 'chapter' we are about to see, so I knew the kid was gonna get it, along with everything else that happened.I'm not knocking J.T. Petty's attempt at making a film. In fact it had many aspects that I found rather pleasing. The choice of music was excellent in that it was so melancholic and dreary that it added to the dream-like quality of the filming. The lingering on objects, or watching the action going on behind an object, that is creativity and I enjoyed that. The use of locations was quite nice and atmospheric. I see that this film was made in 2001 and he has another one from 2003, 'Mimic:Sentinel,' that I will certainly check out. I also liked the clandestine sense of humor displayed; the farting, the whole cat thing, the priests method of delivering his lines.However, for future, new, budding filmmakers, please note that you can get people who can REALLY act (and for free) if you try harder to get them. Perhaps a University, a local playhouse, high school drama teachers, etc. You can also have a 'silent' film if there is enough in the story to challenge the viewer to think (this films intention I'm sure) and have visuals equal the story, but to have it be all so.....vague, is a bit trying too hard to be innovative. Especially if you have characters walk up to other characters and not say anything but gesture instead. How often does that happen? Especially at a crime scene?A 3 out of 10 for sure attempt and probably a good future for J.T. Petty, but he may try comedy instead.