10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

Wasn't really expecting much at all and was nicely surprised. Mary Elizabeth Winstead's Michelle is up there with Ellen Ripley.

Letterboxd Review

The Ego Death - Rough Cut 4 (2016)

A short film by Ludvig Gür that, in this rough cut, lasts 11:42.

The film opens with a man (Jonas) staring intensely into the camera/mirror, which is then followed by the text "7 Days Till The World Ends". We then follow Jonas over the next several days while he is groomed by and cult and waiting for his world to end.

Superficially, it seems that The Ego Death is about how cults and religions can control a person by preying on their weaknesses - in this case Jonas' mental state after his girlfriend leaves him. Looking a little deeper and, as the title describes, it's about the ego and what happens to us if that much needed layer that controls our behaviour is removed? What if the id is all that is left - our base instincts and primitive urges? Does the cult even exist or is this Jonas' method of dealing with his mental collapse?

The B&W photography is stark and the shots are very nicely framed with a good feel for space. There is minimal dialogue, which is good as Gordon Woodward's (Jonas) delivery is a little stilted and this is highlighted by the strong performance given by Robert Prowse as Evan, the cult leader. The soundtrack provides a continual feeling of tension and reminded me a little of Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening Band with their long, circular drones.

Overall, a well-shot and interesting film. If there is a problem it would be that it's a little "on-the-nose", a little too obvious. A simple solution would be to retitle the film - this way you're not leading the viewer from the outset.

Letterboxd Review

The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974)

I watched the Raro Video DVD in Italian with English subs, and oh joy, the DVD is one of those "I'm going to vibrate your DVD player until you go fucking crazy" discs!

So, are we ready to head down the rabbit hole? There may be a few small spoilers on the way.

Influenced by the first two films in Polanski's Apartment Trilogy (Repulsion [1966], Rosemary's Baby [1968]), the occult films of the late 1960s (Night of the Eagle sprigs to mind), a touch of Gaslight [1940/1944] and the psychology hidden behind Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Perfume of the Lady in Black is a gialli that plays with the standard elements of the genre to give us a hallucinatory psychodrama instead of a slasher flick. Yes it has certain well-known giallo motifs: light/shadow, architecture, mental collapse, hallucinations, the macabre, sex/violence, mirrors and glass, spiral staircases, and of course J&B Whiskey; but don't go expecting a black gloved killer and an ending that wraps everything up in a nice neat package.

Mimsy Farmer plays Silvia, a chemist who begins to see visions of her dead mother and flashbacks to her life as a child, her mother's suicide, abandonment by her father and abuse by her mother's lover. Slowly her world starts to crumble but is it her memories or a bizarre conspiracy that causes her breakdown.

Yes, The Perfume of the Lady in Black does borrows liberally from Rosemary's Baby but this is very much it's own film and to suggest otherwise does it a great disservice. The theme of witchcraft and the paranormal is introduced subtly and from various sources: the wind rustling through the trees whilst Silvia looks at her mother's grave, the black cat, small incidental conversations witchcraft, the clairvoyant, a thunderstorm. We get the idea that something supernatural is involved but it's never actually stated as such. The same goes for the conspiracy; friends and family act a little oddly, strangers glance knowingly, coincidences abound, but nothing is too obvious. In fact we start to feel as paranoid as Silvia.

Throughout the film we have the idea of dreams as reality. A cat seen in a vision later appears in real life, likewise with a vase and this is where my earlier reference to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland comes in. At one point in the film Sylvia, in effect, grows smaller as she conjures a vision of herself as a child who then accompanies her throughout the last third of the film. Even the Mad Hatter's tea party makes a horrific appearance. Just like Alice, Sylvia builds her own world from the crumbling bricks of her psyche and in this world everything is a little skewed and off centre.

Childhood is another major theme throughout and Farmer portrays Sylvia as innocent and childlike, from her waif-like appearance (Rosemary's Baby again) to the toys (small doll, model theatre, Mickey Mouse clock, the Alice in Wonderland book) she still keeps from her childhood. During a game of tennis, she pricks her hand on a nail (a fairytale needle or thorn if ever there was one) and her boyfriend's business partner "kisses it better". There is even the proverbial "monster under the bed" in the shape of her mother's lover. This all leads slowly towards the inevitable corruption of childhood and her final break from reality. We know her mental collapse is complete when, in a taxidermist's, she writes her childhood address down in a hesitant child's handwriting. Unfortunately all this leads to the greatest crime and the destroyer of innocence - paedophilia. Firstly implied in a vision and then later it becomes reality when, as an adult, she is raped by the same man from her vision; her dress, mental state and the way she cowers makes her a child again.

Oddly, at the end of the film she sprays herself with perfume and dresses like her mother. She replaces her mother and is the parent to her hallucination of the child Sylvia. She becomes her own mother.

Anyway, I'll leave it there before I give too much away.

The creepiness of the supporting characters is perfectly handled. They're not spooky in that John Carradine "You're all doomed" way, it's more subtle with little gestures, glances and demeanour that makes you shiver.

Beautifully shot by cinematographer Mario Masini with bright, hyper-real colours (I've no idea what they shot on but it's got that lovely Eastman or Technicolor feel). I wouldn't be surprised if Argento watched this film before making Suspiria as it's a real kaleidoscope of colours.

The score is suitably menacing with discordant violins and some well judged silences. There is some nice use of diegetic sound during a scene in a shop.

There is no black gloved killer in The Perfume of the Lady in Black, but it is definitely gialli of the highest order and I loved every minute of it.

"Life, what is it but a dream?"

Letterboxd Review

The Babadook (2014)

WARNING: spoilers of a sort ahead...

The Babadook is superficially a paranormal horror flick but delve just beneath the surface and we find a story about a woman with severe, untreated, post-natal depression caused by the guilt of her husbands death whilst driving her to the maternity ward. The death of the husband/fat
her creates issues for both the mother (sleep deprivation, hallucinations and paranoia) and with the son, who is fiercely protective of his mother and has a distinct lack of boundaries.

The performances of the two leads are terrific, especially Essie Davis's transformation from a caring, if sometimes over-protective mother, to a woman desperately in need of help, and finally into a monster intent on destroying, what she perceives to be, the cause of her husband's death. The main set of an old house complete with creaky floorboards, black and grey walls, flickering lights and antique furniture brings to mind haunted house / psychological horror films such as The Innocents, The Haunting and Gaslight. Added to this is sound design that further accentuates the Mothers descent into depression and paranoia.

A classy, tension filled horror film and a nail in the coffin of the shitty jump-scare movies of recent years.

Original letterboxd review

Oculus (2013)

A haunted house horror film with a difference.

There are some really interesting ideas about mental illness, childhood trauma, body image, collective hysteria, and also how we build narratives around our beliefs using flimsy and circumstantial evidence to re-enforce and justify them. Almost from the start out preconceptions are toyed with as the film does rather a nice switch-around with Gillan's maniacal character acting like someone with extreme bipolar psychosis and her, allegedly, mentally unstable brother being the voice of reason.

Unfortunately the second half ignores the ideas put forward in the first and retreats into familiar possessed object and haunted house territory with phenomena that are ever increasingly harder to blame on the main character's mental state.

There are nice touches of horror and a slowly building sense of dread. The continual flashbacks can be discombobulating but are needed to support the idea of how malleable and unreliable memory can be, especially when influenced by fear, paranoia and psychosis. If Oculus was a little more The Shining rather than The Amityville Horror then this would have been an outstanding psychological drama rather than just a very good paranormal horror film.

Original letterboxd review