Setting the stage with a wonderfully creepy set pieces, building to boundary testing violence that borders on torture porn but saves itself from monotony through intriguing psychological twists. It's familiar ammunition to any horror fan, but since it's firing on all cylinders, it's impossible ignore.
The slow opening provides a little misdirection on what's to come. Some of the acting and dialogue are suspect, and you get the impression this thing couldn't hold it's own as a drama. But then it goes from zero to sixty at breakneck speed and locks you in. It takes several unexpected turns, so you're never quite sure which direction it's going until it becomes clear things are only getting darker and darker. As should be expected from the dude that brought you Martyrs, once it digs in to the punishing scenes, it doesn't loosen it's grip for what feels like an uncomfortable amount of time. It's undeniably impactful, and kept running through my head long after the credits rolled, possibly even giving me a nightmare, which is something I can't say happens all too often from movies these days.
I do recognize there's a lot tied to this that could be deemed problematic, and feel a bit torn about it. The film is unrelenting in it's abuse towards women, frames a mentally challenged man and a man in drag as perpetrators and rests huge plot points on what I would imagine to be gross exaggerations of mental health conditions. However, it unabashedly cherry picks these tropes from the pantheon of horror cinema, and I'm not sure to what point it should be held accountable, or if horror as a whole needs reckoning. Do we need to single out any art that doesn't go out of it's way to shift the tides? There are also rumblings online that Pascal Laugier is less than favourable to work with and the real life on-set injury certainly leaves a sour taste in your mouth. I may be guilty of willfully turning a blind eye in choosing to judge the film on it's merits alone, and hope that doesn't put me on the wrong side of history.
The slow opening provides a little misdirection on what's to come. Some of the acting and dialogue are suspect, and you get the impression this thing couldn't hold it's own as a drama. But then it goes from zero to sixty at breakneck speed and locks you in. It takes several unexpected turns, so you're never quite sure which direction it's going until it becomes clear things are only getting darker and darker. As should be expected from the dude that brought you Martyrs, once it digs in to the punishing scenes, it doesn't loosen it's grip for what feels like an uncomfortable amount of time. It's undeniably impactful, and kept running through my head long after the credits rolled, possibly even giving me a nightmare, which is something I can't say happens all too often from movies these days.
I do recognize there's a lot tied to this that could be deemed problematic, and feel a bit torn about it. The film is unrelenting in it's abuse towards women, frames a mentally challenged man and a man in drag as perpetrators and rests huge plot points on what I would imagine to be gross exaggerations of mental health conditions. However, it unabashedly cherry picks these tropes from the pantheon of horror cinema, and I'm not sure to what point it should be held accountable, or if horror as a whole needs reckoning. Do we need to single out any art that doesn't go out of it's way to shift the tides? There are also rumblings online that Pascal Laugier is less than favourable to work with and the real life on-set injury certainly leaves a sour taste in your mouth. I may be guilty of willfully turning a blind eye in choosing to judge the film on it's merits alone, and hope that doesn't put me on the wrong side of history.