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best movie i've ever seen.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Blistering performances.

The Yellow Sign was a short film that played like an episode of "Twilight Zone," or maybe "Tales From The Darkside." It is about a young woman who works at an art gallery and has dreams about an artist and his work. She seeks him out, hoping to get him to do a show at her gallery, but he behaves very strangely. He agrees to show his work at her gallery if she poses for a portrait, which she does over a period of time. With each visit, they talk more about her dreams, and how they are connected. Finally, the painting is finished and we find out that he is somehow exchanging her for the freedom of his own soul, or something. She escapes by tearing up a contract they had together, and he is pulled back into some dark dimension. It ends with her gaining success, but she appears to be evil now. It did a good job establishing an atmosphere, but I wasn't very interested in the characters or anything that happened to them. I didn't really understand everything that happened, or all the details of the backstory.

Aaron Vanek took up the poison chalice for this film project because "The Yellow Sign" is an adaptation of themes within the collection of loosely connected short stories that make up "The King in Yellow" by Robert W. Chambers. This book is rightly famous and, indeed, revered within the 'Weird tales' genre because it is genuinely disturbing and hints at horrors beyond what is written therein. It is profoundly Lovecraftian in feel and works at the level of dread, suspense and terror that can only be attained where the nature and origin of fear is hidden, covert, implied. The problem with attempting to translate a Lovecraftian tale into film is simple; you can have as many special effects as you like, but show the monster and you lose all the tension and dread built up by the imagination of the reader/viewer. It is not therefore surprising that the vast majority of the Lovecraft tales 'adapted' for films to date have failed miserably to do justice to the original stories. That being said, "the Yellow Sign" is a worthy exception to the general rule. This is a genuinely disturbing and downright creepy film, a very rare commodity indeed. Just like the book, there are elements missing and the lack of coherence leaves your imagination to fill in the gaps. I seriously considered giving this a full 10 out of 10 but for the fact that a 'director's cut' is shortly to be released! Recommended without reservation.

The Yellow Sign, another of Aaron Vanek's creepy shorts, deserves the acclaim it has won from various film festivals. Without using gratuitous nudity or gore, Vanek has crafted a film that remains disturbing long after the final credits have rolled. All of the actors are excellent, especially Dale Snowberger as the charismatic, Mephistophelean artist. Snowberger is both menacing and sexy and delivers his complex dialogue in a sonorous baritone that makes one shiver. David Reynolds, a fine and underrated actor, is truly ominous as the Watchman. The DVD also comes with several other shorter films that are weird and fascinating - well worth the investment!

Aaron Vanek's terrific adaptation of "The King in Yellow" is a bone-chilling story about a woman caught between two worlds and her relationship to a mad artist. This is sure to please any fan of Lovecraft, especially those enamored of Robert Chambers' work. Vanek successfully captures the atmosphere of Chambers' work like never before. He is in no small way assisted by Tynes' clever script, which superbly translates to the screen all the elements of what makes Chambers so great on the page. (Lovecraft fans who might not be familiar with Vaneks' other films might be familiar with the sublime Pagan Publishing, which Tynes founded.) The best performance was by Shawna Waldron as Tess. She was charming, even mesmerizing, although all the performances were terrifyingly good. The film was shot on HD and is of surprisingly high quality -- no small feat and certainly a feather in Vanek's cap for working so deftly in the medium.I can't wait to see what Vanek scares up next!