Dec 2022
I watched this, this past weekend. I wasn't sure what to expect, because it only has a 3.3 average rating on IMDB, but apparently it won the Best Picture award at the L.A. Film Festivel this past summer.
Soooo, I guess I have mixed feelings about it. As a proud member of this board, I was hoping that the 3.3 rating came from senseless, gratuitous violence, nudity, general mayhem and carnage, yadda yadda yadda. Sadly, I don't think those are the reasons for its low rating.
I think they tried to make a serious art film. I kept being reminded of the Ingmar Bergman movie Persona (1966), which I was forced at gunpoint to watch at some point in my life... it must have been in school. It just had a lot of close ups of people's faces, deep in thought, saying cryptically artisitc things. Well, not exactly, but it definitely had that same feeling as Persona. I was also reminded of the 1990 William Friedkin movie The Guardian, just because it is mostly set in an architecturally cool, kind of modern-ish house, and it does similar things with camera angles, etc. Barbarian is another film that leapt to mind, for very obvious reasons.
It is about an affluent couple in their thirties. The man is an architect, the woman is a doctor. It kind of bugged me that they seemed so well off, but that isn't really the plot. The man is kind of an asshole, fooling around with his secretary or business partner (I'm not sure which) while his wife is off saving people's lives at the hospital. They rent a cool house for a weekend, so the husband can experience its architecture. He is a big fan of the architect who had designed the place, back in the 50s.
They gradually learn (of course) that the house has a mysterious, shadowy history. The architect that designed the place also lived there, and he was into a weird cult that had bizarre occult aims. The house has both bad ghosts and good ones... I'll leave it to you to figure that out for yourself.
It's not a bad movie, but I'm surprised that it won any awards. I guess the critics must have felt obliged to give it some kind of award because it just looks and feels very artistic, even though it isn't that great of a horror movie. A few of the actresses are cute, soooo it gets points for that. But, it gets pretty confusing by the end. Several of the characters are possessing each other, at various points toward the end, sometimes overlapping. You really have to pay attention to keep track of what is going on.
Now that I look more carefully at its ratings on IMDB, I see that most people just gave it a 1 or 2 out of 10, while a few people gave it an 8 or a 10. Those few people are probably family and friends of the director, or of the actors. I don't think I can really recommend this one.... I guess, if you liked The Guardian, especially, then you MIGHT want to give this a shot... maybe just start watching it, while being prepared to bail at any moment.
OK, that's my two cents... you're on your own.
Soooo, I guess I have mixed feelings about it. As a proud member of this board, I was hoping that the 3.3 rating came from senseless, gratuitous violence, nudity, general mayhem and carnage, yadda yadda yadda. Sadly, I don't think those are the reasons for its low rating.
I think they tried to make a serious art film. I kept being reminded of the Ingmar Bergman movie Persona (1966), which I was forced at gunpoint to watch at some point in my life... it must have been in school. It just had a lot of close ups of people's faces, deep in thought, saying cryptically artisitc things. Well, not exactly, but it definitely had that same feeling as Persona. I was also reminded of the 1990 William Friedkin movie The Guardian, just because it is mostly set in an architecturally cool, kind of modern-ish house, and it does similar things with camera angles, etc. Barbarian is another film that leapt to mind, for very obvious reasons.
It is about an affluent couple in their thirties. The man is an architect, the woman is a doctor. It kind of bugged me that they seemed so well off, but that isn't really the plot. The man is kind of an asshole, fooling around with his secretary or business partner (I'm not sure which) while his wife is off saving people's lives at the hospital. They rent a cool house for a weekend, so the husband can experience its architecture. He is a big fan of the architect who had designed the place, back in the 50s.
They gradually learn (of course) that the house has a mysterious, shadowy history. The architect that designed the place also lived there, and he was into a weird cult that had bizarre occult aims. The house has both bad ghosts and good ones... I'll leave it to you to figure that out for yourself.
It's not a bad movie, but I'm surprised that it won any awards. I guess the critics must have felt obliged to give it some kind of award because it just looks and feels very artistic, even though it isn't that great of a horror movie. A few of the actresses are cute, soooo it gets points for that. But, it gets pretty confusing by the end. Several of the characters are possessing each other, at various points toward the end, sometimes overlapping. You really have to pay attention to keep track of what is going on.
Now that I look more carefully at its ratings on IMDB, I see that most people just gave it a 1 or 2 out of 10, while a few people gave it an 8 or a 10. Those few people are probably family and friends of the director, or of the actors. I don't think I can really recommend this one.... I guess, if you liked The Guardian, especially, then you MIGHT want to give this a shot... maybe just start watching it, while being prepared to bail at any moment.
OK, that's my two cents... you're on your own.
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