The opening music and production logos drip with 70s grindhouse aesthetic
And Maybe an icing of giallo on top.
This looks like film. Honest film. Not digital.
The opening shot is framed wrong. It isn't a dutch angle, nothing that simple. A sofa in the foreground tricks the eye. The focus is too deep. There's too much dead space. I am tingly.
I have to pause to count rectangles. Kurosawa made me do this, but he loved the triangle shapes breaking the frame. This shot has about 20 rectangles mirroring the shape of the screen. This is some deep composition. I am in love with the opening shot of this movie.
The big CRT says 1993 maybe. So I have a guess of when but no clue where.
And we are dropped into vague surreality.
I am thinking of Panos Cosmatos right now. That's a good thing.
This film cares deeply about sound.
Dialogue is more empty space than words.
Nine minutes in and I am unbalanced in a marvelous way. The rythm and something about the lighting recall early Cronenberg. Not so much homage as simply hints at this point.
Oh my glob more rectangles. This hallway is slightly askew and is half lit and nothing has ever been more menacing.
Cut to another hall and we have a frame within a frame and the ghost of Kubrick is scowling in my brain.
The chronology is comfused maybe.
There is a ritual to these drinks that seems comforting even though the drinkers are increasingly on edge. The music here is insistent and the sound design is dense and weird.
Where did the blood come from?
As this scene of pure exposition ramps out of control we get lots of incredibly violent extreme close-ups of faces, eyes, mouths and the music is fast fast fast drumming and wow my scalp itches and my heart is racing like I snorted a rail of coke.
Is light coming out of her mouth?
Is he having a seizure?
It's a Lovecraftian wet dream!
So, did they swap bodies?
This film deserves a proper review. I am ending the notes, and will finish the film, digest it then post an actual review.
-Nathan Tyree
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