Review: The Sweet Hand of the White Rose - 2010

The Sweet Hand of the White Rose

Director: Davide Melini

2010

Short/Horror

I always have some difficulty writing reviews of short films. They don’t work in the same way as proper features and they usually tell the story in a very fast manor. It’s in the nature of them of course. To tell the story in just a few minutes instead of an hour and a half is a totally different thing. You need to be very precise with what you’re telling and there is no time for character development. At least very little time!

I think that writer/director Davide Melini does a fine job here. It’s very clear that the story follows to different individuals and that their paths will cross somewhere. It’s also very clear that the crossing won’t be a pleasant one… The moral of it all is that life is precious and that you should be careful about what you do on the roads. Yes, the story concerns a car accident! I can’t really figure out what the opening sequence has to do with anything though?

But it’s also a horror story! Or at least it has elements of it. The second part of it is very gothic and kind of scary. There’s a lot of inspiration from Asian ghost horror movies even if the themes is nowhere near as confusing as the Asian ghost stories can be. And I must confess that I got kind of fooled by it too. I thought I had it all figured out but I was wrong! I like being wrong! That means that the filmmakers have made a good job with the twists. There’s no point of having twists in a movie if you can smell them a mile away is there?

I liked this and I feel it’s a pretty damn important issue! Don’t drink and drive and don’t text and drive either! It can only end with disaster. This might be an eye opener to some!

7/10

Review: Gut - 2012

Gut

Director: Elias

2012

Drama/Horror/Thriller

Something is missing in Tom's life. Every day he goes through the motions, becoming increasingly detached from those around him. His best friend Dan thinks he has the answer, a mysterious video he's got to see to believe. What Dan shows him leaves Tom unsettled, flooding his mind with disturbing images and desires, and binding the two friends together with its ugly secret. As he tries desperately to forget what he saw, Tom's mounting feelings of guilt and disillusionment quickly give way to paranoia and fear. One video soon follows another and another, blurring the line between reality and voyeuristic fascination, and threatening to dismantle everything around them. 

I did not write the above description of the film but I found it being so informative that there was really no need to rewrite something original for the sole purpose of this review. Maybe I would have included that the film that might solve Tom’s problems and fascinates Dan is some kind of snuff-porn where a woman gets cut open with a scalpel. There’s really no need to leave this information out as the movies title kind of gives that away anyway.

The whole atmosphere in this movie within the movie is sexual but there’s no actual footage of sex or sexual encounters. Nor is there any real evidence of sexual arousal by the viewers of it. There is insinuated fascination but not really arousal. This means that the film is not there just to shock us but also to frighten us, which it does over time. To begin with Dan tells Tom that he ordered it online somewhere but later confesses that someone just sent it to him after he wrote his postbox number in some forum.

When Dan gets another DVD, and then another and another we realize that this is not sexual at all. At least not for the viewers. Tom and especially Dan can’t let go of it and feel themselves forced to watch. The fascination gets more prominent but we realize more and more that something about this is totally wrong. (when someone sends us DVDs of women being cut open we should feel kind of awkward don’t you think?).

What good about it is that there is a presence of the question what is real and what is not? Soon the DVDs start showing women that they know being cut open. Here stops the fascination and terror begins. Why are they receiving these DVDs? Who is sending them, and why? Are they even real?

The friendship of Tom and Dan are soon in jeopardy. They cannot support each other more than to a certain point. They just want the whole thing to end. In the end it’s all about mental instability and the need to protect ourselves. Looking out for number one and your own family is the prime directive. Your friends are really secondary!

I was surprised how well acted this was. Neither of them will get an Oscar nomination for their work but they portray the characters very satisfactory. The same thing goes for the directing and the visual effects are very good also! It was an exciting experience watching this and I feel that the suspense was there almost all along, which is truly uncommon for a low budget movie like this.

7/10

Photos by Will Serber, © Gut Productions, LLC

Review: Sick Girl - 2007

Sick Girl

Director: Eben McGarr

2007

Drama/Horror

Izzy is a young girl with some serious issues. She misses her older brother who joined up with the Marine Corps with whom she wanted to raise their little brother as their child. She’s overprotective about him and she stops at noting to teach bullies a lesson. She also kidnapped a schoolgirl and some dude who was unfortunate enough to pick her up when she was hitchhiking. And oh… She pissed a nun in the face…

I heard a lot about this movie and all of it was good too! This means that I got a little disappointed when I saw it just now. It’s always like that; you build up you expectations in your mind and the film comes out short. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a gruesome film that’s for sure, but the acting is less than good too much of the time. When they – and the girl who plays Izzy especially – act out emotions it’s just fine, but when it comes to deliver trustworthy dialog it’s an entirely different thing. But the dialog is quite bad too so I guess that evens it up a bit.

The weird stuff starts right away with Izzy pissing a nun in the face but after that it kind of slows down a bit. The story is told with several flashback and you need to stay alert to really understand what’s going on. There’s a lot of character building and it’s quite boring to watch if I’m honest. It doesn’t get interesting again until we get to see what Izzy keeps in the barn. And we gets to realize just how fucked up she really is!

Gradually the movie now gets more interesting even if the pace is on the slow side. When it comes to torture I think this movie falls short compared to other more explicit movies, but it’s so deranged that you can help but think what’s going on inside this girls mind! She keeps a straight face throughout the movie and that adds to the frightening feeling that this could be just anybody anywhere. You just can’t know what other people are thinking and what their most inner desires are. And once you realize it, it just might be too late!

6/10