Fantastic Fest Day IV:
My wife bounced back for the last day of the festival and we managed to see another three movies:
Starfish: is a post-apocalyptic story about a young woman dealing with the recent death of her friend. Locked in her recently deceased friend’s apartment, she discovers that her friend was involved with a group who were piecing together some of puzzle of the events that eventually led to the Lovecraftian creatures coming into our world.
More a meditative look at love and loss than a horror film, Starfish does have a couple of tense moments. The cinematography is beautiful and the lead actress, Virginia Gardner, does a great job. I did find myself a little disconnected from the character’s grief at times due to lack of context; merely telling me that they were close friends was not enough to invest me in their relationship and wished that there had been more to anchor the emotions.
Overall, while the film didn’t set my world on fire, I enjoyed it enough to see what the director has up next. Grade: C+
Feral: I have a deep affinity for faux documentaries. When done properly, I think there is an interesting dynamic established with the audience about what is real and what isn’t. One of my favorites is Lake Mungo, a faux documentary about the drowning death of a teenage girl, the repercussions of her death amongst her family and possible supernatural incidents beginning to occur afterwards. It’s creepy and hits its emotional beats well. I now have a second favorite with Feral, though it supplants the supernatural thrills with religious obsession.
Set in the hills of Oaxaca, the film follows the attempts of a former priest to rehabilitate first one, then three wild children found in the forest. It is the ex-priest’s belief that the children can be taught how to be civilized, to fit in with society. And for a while it seems that he might be right, but then things begin to go awry.
Presented through interviews and coupled with footage that the priest had taken to the show the progress of the rehabilitation of the wild children, the movie slowly builds to its crescendo though never fully giving away all of its secrets. Not horrific in the traditional sense of the word, the movie is unsettling not in just its subdued thrills but also in the questions it asks about faith, society and human nature. Grade: B+
Hold The Dark: Director Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room is one of my all-time favorites and when I heard that his new film would be playing at the festival prior to its release on Netflix, I knew I had to attend. While this indeed now playing on Netflix, the cinematography was amazing to see on the big screen.
The plot revolves around a wolf expert, Russell Core, going to Alaska to help locate a missing child that the mother believes has been taken by wolves. When the child’s father returns home from the Iraq war (an amazing Alexander Skarsgard), events begin to spiral towards a violent and bloody end.
That above description is a very simplified synopsis of a film filled with complicated characters. Saulnier and screenwriter Macon Blair are not interested in holding the audiences’ hand when it comes to characters’ motivations. This is movie that demands your attention and pays it off in bloody fashion.
The cast is uniformly great, but I do have to give special kudos to Mr. James Badge Dale for his performance and pulling out a trifecta of great movie moments at the festival. I almost didn’t recognize him from the previous two films and his performance as a local cop who has recruited Russell Core to help him stop the spreading violence is fantastic, a performance that is understated and likeable in a film where the characters can be as cold and ruthless as the scenery that surrounds them.
Though not quite on par with Green Room, I thought this was another great film by Mr. Saulnier and look forward to what he has up his sleeve next. Grade: A-
My wife bounced back for the last day of the festival and we managed to see another three movies:
Starfish: is a post-apocalyptic story about a young woman dealing with the recent death of her friend. Locked in her recently deceased friend’s apartment, she discovers that her friend was involved with a group who were piecing together some of puzzle of the events that eventually led to the Lovecraftian creatures coming into our world.
More a meditative look at love and loss than a horror film, Starfish does have a couple of tense moments. The cinematography is beautiful and the lead actress, Virginia Gardner, does a great job. I did find myself a little disconnected from the character’s grief at times due to lack of context; merely telling me that they were close friends was not enough to invest me in their relationship and wished that there had been more to anchor the emotions.
Overall, while the film didn’t set my world on fire, I enjoyed it enough to see what the director has up next. Grade: C+
Feral: I have a deep affinity for faux documentaries. When done properly, I think there is an interesting dynamic established with the audience about what is real and what isn’t. One of my favorites is Lake Mungo, a faux documentary about the drowning death of a teenage girl, the repercussions of her death amongst her family and possible supernatural incidents beginning to occur afterwards. It’s creepy and hits its emotional beats well. I now have a second favorite with Feral, though it supplants the supernatural thrills with religious obsession.
Set in the hills of Oaxaca, the film follows the attempts of a former priest to rehabilitate first one, then three wild children found in the forest. It is the ex-priest’s belief that the children can be taught how to be civilized, to fit in with society. And for a while it seems that he might be right, but then things begin to go awry.
Presented through interviews and coupled with footage that the priest had taken to the show the progress of the rehabilitation of the wild children, the movie slowly builds to its crescendo though never fully giving away all of its secrets. Not horrific in the traditional sense of the word, the movie is unsettling not in just its subdued thrills but also in the questions it asks about faith, society and human nature. Grade: B+
Hold The Dark: Director Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room is one of my all-time favorites and when I heard that his new film would be playing at the festival prior to its release on Netflix, I knew I had to attend. While this indeed now playing on Netflix, the cinematography was amazing to see on the big screen.
The plot revolves around a wolf expert, Russell Core, going to Alaska to help locate a missing child that the mother believes has been taken by wolves. When the child’s father returns home from the Iraq war (an amazing Alexander Skarsgard), events begin to spiral towards a violent and bloody end.
That above description is a very simplified synopsis of a film filled with complicated characters. Saulnier and screenwriter Macon Blair are not interested in holding the audiences’ hand when it comes to characters’ motivations. This is movie that demands your attention and pays it off in bloody fashion.
The cast is uniformly great, but I do have to give special kudos to Mr. James Badge Dale for his performance and pulling out a trifecta of great movie moments at the festival. I almost didn’t recognize him from the previous two films and his performance as a local cop who has recruited Russell Core to help him stop the spreading violence is fantastic, a performance that is understated and likeable in a film where the characters can be as cold and ruthless as the scenery that surrounds them.
Though not quite on par with Green Room, I thought this was another great film by Mr. Saulnier and look forward to what he has up his sleeve next. Grade: A-
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