ACHOURA

Please excuse the lack of posts in the last couple of weeks. I was attending the 2019 Sitges Film Festival where I watched many films. For those of you who don’t know, Sitges is one of my favourite festivals. It specialises in Fantasy, Horror and Sci-Fi and it basically has the best audience ever. Everyone cheers when the Sitges logo come out at the start of every film. We all cheer when the film title comes up on the screen… it’s basically a party for film lovers.

 

So I spent my last couple of weekends there and decided to write a few notes on the movies I watched in Sitges Film Festival this year. I was thinking about doing a ranking but it was getting pretty hard to do so, so please note that these films are in no particular order. However, if you need to know, my favourite films were: “The Lighthouse” (Robert Eggers, 2019), “Breve Historia del Planeta Verde” (Santiago Loza, 2019) and “Little Monsters” (Abe Forsythe, 2019).

 

So without further ado, here’s…

 

When a corporate team building excursion goes wrong and the whole team gets stuck in a cave, all hell breaks loose. Starring Demi Moore, Ed Helms and Isiah Whitlock Jr. (any “The Wire” fans out there?). This is a fun and wild film, the kind of film that seems made for the Sitges audience. I enjoyed it, but definitely not one of my favorites. Still, I would recommend if you are looking for a dark comedy to watch!

 

IT’S LUPITA NYONG’O SINGING TAYLOR SWIFT. NEED I SAY MORE? Oh, I do? Ok. So this was such a sweet, fun and wild ride. The cast is great, both the kids and the adults. I really enjoyed this one. Great script, well developed characters and very satisfying overall. Another made for Sitges little gem. PS: It’s also Josh Gad (Frozen’s Olaf) being a huge douchebag and swearing like a sailor.

 

Keith Thomas’ feature film debut shows the director’s potential, but the film itself left me feeling wanting more. This film has an incredible set up and build up but then… I guess the “issue” I have with this film is that when it started I felt like I was about to watch a horror film I had never seen before. However, when the scares started I realized: “well, I have seen this before”. Also (side note), I’m sorry “The Vigil” and “It Chapter 2” (Andy Muschietti, 2019), I do not find old ladies scary. Like I said, I LOVED the film’s premise and the psychological aspect of it, but it felt like the film could have used that set up for so much more. Still though, I will follow Keith Thomas’ future work. I am interested in seeing what he’ll be tackling next.

 

This title is another feature film debut, this time, by Spanish director José Luis Montesinos. While watching this I couldn’t help but think about films like “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane” (Robert Aldrich, 1962), “Wait Until Dark” (Terence Young, 1967) or “Misery” (Rob Reiner, 1990). The story, which Montesinos co-writes with Yako Blesa, really manages to convey the stress and difficulties Elena must endure when she is left alone in a house while in a wheelchair being chased by a rabid dog and ferret. Yes, ferret.

The film clearly demonstrates the director’s capacity of managing suspense and, although I did feel it went on for a bit too long (the film is not long at all), it is a well rounded film debut that shows Montesinos definitely will have an important future in the industry.

 

The film’s plot actually reminds me of Stephen King’s “It”. Four childhood friends are forced to confront an evil creature which had tormented them in their childhood. However, I did not really enjoy this title that much. I believe this is partly because the plot is messy. It took me a while to realise that what I believed were only two timelines were actually three. In general, it felt like the film had too many characters and too little time to develop them. That’s why the character dynamics also felt off most of the time. Interesting premise, not so great execution.

 

This is the cute and fun story of Rose Dooley, a medium who feels guilty for her father’s death. Like “Corporate Animals” or “Little Monsters”, it’s a film I knew the Sitges audience would love. However, I expected more of it. I have to admit, I think it was just me though. Everyone else around me was really enjoying it, literally laughing out loud. I guess that’s why the film won Audience Award Best Motion Picture at the Panorama Fantastic Section. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t dislike the film. It was cute. It just felt too silly for me at times. I loved the ending though! The ending was one of the funniest things I have seen in a very long time.

 

A weird community living in a mansion. A teenage boy in a wheelchair falls in love with a teenage servant under the eyes of his overprotective mother. This film had all the ingredients to be a great, gothic film, however, again, I was left disappointed. The film is slow, predictable and the ending twist is cool, but not satisfying at that point. Honestly, I would have preferred the twist to come slightly earlier and give room for a more satisfying resolution.

 

Robert Eggers’ debut feature film “The Witch” was a refreshing take on the horror genre, so I was really interested in what the director had in store for us in his second film. Filmed in a an almost square format (1.19:1) and in black and white, this film is claustrophobic, unsettling, and haunting. The amazing Pattinson and Dafoe are affected by alcohol, paranoia, visions of mermaids and bad bad omens, making their already complicated relationship more difficult as they descend into madness. Both actors are amazing in this, and it was definitely one of my favourite films in the festival. For anyone interested, here is some cool additional information on the film:

 

A couple moving into their new house discovers there is a room that grants them whatever they wish for. There is a catch, though (SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON): everything the house grants them is only available in the house. If it leaves, it disintegrates and turns into dust. It’s too bad the couple did not know of this before wishing for the child they could never have. This psychological drama becomes horrific when the child they wished for starts understanding what is going on in this house and tries to use this gift for himself.

This was an interesting ride and although I wasn’t blown away, I was definitely entertained.

 

I really did not enjoy this film, so I don’t want to get into it too much. Let’s start with the positive: the production design is amazing. The world Waddington created, the costumes, the scenery… everything is BEAUTIFUL. Other than that… the story felt really messy and the characters were one dimensional. These women were all over the place and I was surprised at how easily they made friends, skipping through grassy hills while holding hands. I was even more surprised at how quickly one of the female characters falls in love and gets her heart broken. I guess it wasn’t for me. You can watch and judge for yourself, I guess. That’s what I always recommend.

 

Oooh! I liked this weird little Argentinean gem. It tells the story of Tania, a trans woman who finds out her dead grandmother had been sharing her life with an alien. The alien, though, is now weak and needs to get back home. Tania and her friends, Daniela and Pedro, embark on a journey to take the creature to where it was originally found so that it can go back home. The film is sweet, quirky and beautiful. It’s the story of people who feel like outsiders finding their way home, be it in the people they share their time with or where they actually live. Please watch this short (only 75 minute-long!) little film.

 

“Vivarium” felt like a mix between an episode from “The Twilight Zone” (Rod Serling,1959-1964) and “Inside No. 9” (Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, 2014-?). The movie starts with images of a baby cuckoo bird invading another birds nest, pushing the other chicks out and being fed by their mother. When a kid finds the dead baby chicks in her school yard she tells her teacher. Now I don’t remember the exact wording, but her teacher, Gemma (Imogen Poots), tells her nature is sometimes like this. The little girl says something to the effect of: “well nature sucks”. This is a great metaphor for the rest of the film. Gemma and her boyfriend, Tom (Jesse Eisenberg), are left stranded by their creepy real estate agent in a house (number 9, wink wink) in Yonder. This turquoise, plastic looking suburb turns out to be inescapable. To matters worse, they are left with a baby and they are told they need to raise it if they want to be free.

This Kafkaesque story is well written and directed. Despite Tom’s storyline feeling overstretched, this it is greatly enjoyable and a welcome installment to a great series of suburban horrors.

 

The film has a strong premise (and appropriate title): a group of people enter a large field of tall grass. Little do they know they will never get out because the grass moves things, it seems. Not only in space, but also in time. Pretty cool right? Well, yeah. But then the story doesn’t quite use this coolness. It tries to delve into the mythology of the place and it’s there where I think it looses itself. Instead of trying to have fun with the rules of this place and tell a cool time/space travel story, we get images of the origin of this place and the powerful black rock that rules it all. Kind of like the big black monolith from “2001: Space Odyssey” (Stanley Kubrick, 1968). The storyline becomes repetitive, the characters are kind of annoying and the ending is way too happy for this type of film.