Dementer
Writer & Director - Chad Crawford Kinkle
Stars - Katie Groshong, Brandy Edmiston, Larry Fessenden
USA, 2020
A prime example of how the verisimilitude of low-budget
hand-held aesthetic can enhance the uncanny of the horror genre (so this is
what a horror film would feel like in the real world?). With the documentary
feel of Katie’s starting work at a care home constantly interrupted by the
flashbacks to a horror film and the prevalence of a soundtrack that always
reminds you of a perpetual sinister presence and manipulations. Great
naturalistic performances – Katie Groshong is great – exceptional sound-design,
a plot that you can untangle afterwards makes this haunting and quite bold.
“Director Chad Crawford Kinkle built the film around his sister Stephanie, who has Down Syndrome and stars as one of the film's leads”, says IMDB trivia, and certainly the film thrives with respect for its subjects even as it bubbles and then overflows with genre.
As In Heaven, So On Earth
Come in cielo, così in terra
Writer & Director – Francesco Erba
With: Eva Basteiro-Bertoli, Ania Rizzi Bogdan, Federico
Cesari, Philippe Guastella, Margherita Mannino
Italy, 2020
Combining found footage, animation, interviews, police
procedural, gothic mystery, medieval outrages, religious conspiracies … ghosts?
Hitmen? Director/writer Erba throws everything in and perhaps bites off more
than can be chewed, but it certainly doesn’t lack for ambition and makes for a
fascinating curio. The animated puppet Medieval sequences, which take up nearly
half of the film (the film took 5 years to complete) are sublime, and the found-footage
hand-held perspectives also hit heights. It almost feels like a portmanteau. Although sprawling and verging on the
incomprehensible at times, there are perhaps tonal hiccups and perhaps clear answers come a little later than
the viewer wants, there are enough jigsaw pieces that slot together and enough ambiguity
that remains to fully satisfy. Erbo’s conviction in telling a quite prosaic tale
with myriad styles certainly distinguishes this.
Utrasound
Director - Rob Schroeder
Writer - Conor Stechschulte
Stars - Vincent Kartheiser, Chelsea Lopez, Breeda Wool
USA, 2021
Definitely one of those films that is best going into knowing
nothing,
It starts off like one of those ‘The Gift’ (2015)
or ‘Pacific Heights’ scenarios, that kind of thing. A guy (a brilliantly
brow-beaten Vincent Kartheiser) seeking help when his car blows a tyre is
welcomed by an odd couple… I really had to go to the bathroom at an early point
(at home: this was digital) and when I came back it had turned into a different
film. Unpredictable and always pulling the rug from under the viewer, it has
elements of indie people drama, science-fiction and even conspiracy thriller. It’s
a delight to just go along for the ride when you know you will only work it out
on a second watch, and even then some points are up for grabs. It could easily
lose the threads and become baffling, but Stechschulte’s adaptation of his own
graphic novel and Schroeder’s intelligent direction keep the viewer on their
toes without losing coherence. Tricky, smart, multi-layered.
Night Drive
Directors -Brad Baruh & Meghan Leon
Writer – Meghan Leon
Stars- AJ Bowen, Sophie Dalah
A ride share driver picks up a wild card young woman and
a night of increasing craziness ensues. And for the most part, that’s what you
think you’re getting, agreeably, with brilliant performances and interplay
between Bowen and Dalah. And then, just when you think you have it figured,
things take a left turn and all of a sudden, her obnoxiousness takes on new layers
and events take on new shades. Darkly humorous, slick and playful, but one you
have to stick with.
Hotel Poseidon
Writer & Director - Stefan Lernous
Stars – Tom Vermeir, Ruth Becquart, Anneke Sluiters
Belgium, 2021
This disgusting hotel is full of the deadpan, surrealism
and black humour that typifies Roy Andersson, Aki Kaurismaki, Terry Gilliam,
Jarmusch without the humour, and something like a Quay bros digression brough
to life. Dave plays manager to the dead hotel which is getting a renovation into
some kind of failed Lynchian club. It’s the set design, the details, the
offbeat dialogue which, the increasingly nightmarish characters and aesthetic
that holds the attention rather than a story. This is Dave’s descent into existential
hell: everyone else seems to be having a decent time but him. This is a film of
the horror of decay and disgust. It’s the sets and the phantasmagorial tricks
Lernous pulls to convey Dave’s plotless dilemma that enthrals.
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