Another original film by Jamie Grefe that creates something uniquely unsettling out of very little. In this case, that very little encompasses a luxury AirBnB, a walking stick, a rubber machete and two very committed performances.
I love the idea of a villain who dresses like an emo band lead singer circa 2004. There really is something creepy about a lot of those guys!
This is a little too long for my liking but otherwise I really like it.
A relatively straightforward story – a troubled man hallucinates an alternate self to deal with the fact that he killed his wife – that becomes somehow more compelling and more beguiling with each rewatch. The repeated image of the broken yellow lines disappearing under speeding car tyres, darkness rushing in from all sides, is so simple but so mysterious, so intoxicating. Seeing the opening credits on a big screen is worth the price of admission alone.
The grisly crime scene (even…
Offensively stupid on multiple levels, a movie by people who think real rape-revenge films are beneath them while condescendingly co-opting those films' transgressive impact – but they can't even get that right, because any feints towards real violence are effectively neutered by some goody two-shoes bullshit where Carey Mulligan surprises would-be date rapists by giving them a stern talking-to instead of cutting their dicks off. (And let me tell you, as someone who has had their fair share of interactions…
Surprised by the positive attention and generous ratings this is getting because it seems very ill-informed about sex work in general and BDSM in particular, and very conflicted in terms of what it thinks its characters are getting out of it. I think the upbeat ending might have something to do with it – it's lovely and charming and full of goodwill, and it almost made me reconsider my stance on the rest of the film.
Ultimately though I think…
