GRIMMFEST digital: 'The Guest Room', 'Hotel Poseidon', 'Forgiveness', 'Two Witches', 'The Righteous'

The Guest Room

La Stanza

Director - Stefano Lodovichi

2021, Italy

Screenwriters - Stefano Lodovichi, Francesco Agostini, Filippo Gili

 

At once both modern and Gothic, the home invasion premise here spirals into something far odder, more metaphysical. Nicely played chamber piece in a looming guest house that always keeps undermining what's expected. Even when the meaning becomes evident, there's a lot of mystery still let intact, making this a fascinating existential horror.

 

 

Go here for my original notes on Hotel Poseidon. Further reflections make me think that this is a stream-of-consciousness narrative, certainly as the director Stefan Lernous says he is still trying to figure it out its meaning, that it has elements of autobiography. When asked about accusations of “style over story”, his reply is that aesthetics have meaning, that he likes mystery and cut-up narratives, suggesting that “eye-candy” itself is meaningful. I would agree to this for the most part; didn’t Christopher Lee say the real hero of Hammer was the set designer Bernard Robinson? Isn’t that why Lynch’s ‘Dune’ is still fascinating? Perhaps I would now think of 'Hotel Poseidon' as a William Burroughs cut-up filthy version of Peter Greenaway’s theatrical cinema.

 

 

Forgiveness

Writer & Director - Alex Kahuam

2021, Mexico-USA

Stars - Tasha CarreraHoracio CasteloLaura de Ita

 

A dance troupe is seemingly let loose in an empty building and we get a dialogue-free narrative of women stumbling around, being humiliated, beaten and subjected to broad mime. Anyway, purgatory? Superpowers? A room where apparently they are trying to film a micro-budget ‘Cats’? And next door, maybe a no-budget 'Animal Farm'? Very much the kind of thing that works best as a short rather than a feature, perhaps. The conceit and ambition are commedable, and it's not quite ‘The Seasoning House’, but it’s not ‘Martyrs’ either, despite the religious symbolism. And there are only so many scenes of characters performatively grappling with one another you can take before it becomes repetitive.

 

 

Two Witches

Director - Pierre Tsigaridis

2021, USA

Writers - Kristina Klebe, Maxime Rancon, Pierre Tsigaridis

 

Some shonky drama, some very “witchy” acting, but some well executed creepiness (even if the dialogue is set half the volume of non-diegetic). We start with a moody pregnant woman and her mansplaining boyfriend given the evil eye by a random witch who’s… hungry? But the film is perhaps at its best in chapter two where the witch taps into the fear of the jealous psychotic roommate. Rebekeh Kennedy goes to town as Masha, as this is not a film for subtlety. It’s at the Heavy Rock end of the genre, so simultaneously down-to-earth and ham-fisted. It loses focus in the epilogue and a post-credits scene (why put an ostensibly key scene later the comedown of the credits? But the filmmakers seem to have a hopeful eye for a franchise), but there are several good creepy montages and gore (and any film that doesn’t lose me with “witchy” acting is succeeding at something).

 

Based on the Q&A, the writers seemingly want us to root for the “bad ass” women, the witches, just because they can kick ass, but that doesn’t land. It’s best moment of turning the tables is when Masha treats a man as a sex object in the way typically relegated to women, using her powers to violently rip off his clothes. But the scary stuff is surely generated by these women picking on you and destroying your life on a whim. Chapter one ends arguably with its onus on the fears of the boyfriend of his girlfriend and of saving her; chapter two has the crazy roommate destroying your life. It’s this that resonates although it is uneven elsewhere.

 

Tarumama

(Llanto Maldito)

Director - Andres Beltran

Writers - Andres Beltran, Anton Goenechea

2021, Columbia

Stars - Jerónimo Barón, Mario Bolaños ,Paula Castaño

 

A couple retreat to a cabin in the woods to resolve their fraught relationship after the loss of a child… now, you see, there’s your problem. There’s a nice sombre tone and desaturated colour palate, and the performances are the same. Pretty soon, there are creeping disturbances at night. Nobody believes the young son that there’s a woman prowling the house, although mother has experiences of her own and is thinking that the place is haunted too. And her husband, a decent sort, can’t quite help mansplaining, which is typical in these scenarios, and dismissing his son’s outpourings as childish imagination. Of course, it’s all runs concomitant to her own grief and increasing unstable mind as well as her family’s fears that she’s becoming unrecognisable, uncaring and violent. She doesn’t want to be depressed anymore, she says in a moment of possession that speaks from her old self.

 

But it loses it’s grip midway (in a moment of hysteria, she stays in the forest for hours until it’s pitch black and the storm is in full swing? He doesn't look earlier? And isn’t there a cut foot that gets forgotten? When too many of these questions intrude, something is lost). But it’s solemn tone and restraint stops it from going full bombast and, although there’s ultimately nothing new, it’s a fair haunting with a proper eeriness.

 

The Righteous

Writer & Director – Mark O'Brien

2021, Canada

Cast - Henry Czerny, Mark O'Brien, Mimi Kuzyk

 

An impressive chamber piece for writer-director-producer-key actor Mark O’Brien. The influence of old masters like Bergman, Dreyer and Tarkovsky are evident, not least in the crisp black-and-white photography (cinematography by Scott McClean), the small cast and the big questions about faith, guilt, past sins and repercussions, and of course – facing your own demons. But where Bergman was canny, tricksy and ambiguous with his use of horror and investigations of Faith, O’Brien’s film goes a more traditional home invasion genre route, with a few supernatural touches. And, you know, that guy has a blaring warning flag on him from the start. And of course there's the narcissism of the religious to think it's all about them. But the excellent performances and smart script make this solid and riveting, with an apocalyptic ending more prone to, say, something Paul Schrader or the Coens might go for.