yellowbrickroad – 9/10
Stunningly good in the way it builds and immerses the audience in the creeping weirdness and horror experienced by the characters. It’s not perfect, but it does what it does very, very well.
Like Uzumaki, it tells its story excellently. It picks when it will hold back, and when to go for broke. And even then it makes clever directorial choices – the first scene of overt violence is ridiculously over the top, but it’s shot silently except for a character’s horrified reaction – which helps to sell it magnificently.
And other choices – those of the kinds of characters and the ways in which they are affected, the break down of their psyches, the ways in which they act out or draw in to themselves. They may not always be the best choices, or most surprising, but they are interesting ones.
And I may be misremembering, but I don’t think it used any incidental music. All music heard is also heard by the characters. Not a new thing, but again, it suits the film’s immersive quality.
Probably the only issue I have is with the ending. It’s not a bad ending, but it’s a divisive one. Most will either love or hate it, I’m somewhere in the middle.
Over all, this is the best of the films to date in terms of solid film-making, leaving me unnerved, and also fitting the whole “cosmic horror” angle I’ve been watching for.
Dalekboy 