Director: James Edward Newton
Year: 2023
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After uncovering a strange one-act play, an eager theater student convinces her friends to stage a production of it in the hopes that a failing actor friend of theirs can take on another major role, but the longer the play goes on, the more they succumb to deadly forces brought upon them.
Review:
This was an intriguing if overly problematic genre effort. Among the films’ positive points is the outright bizarre and avant-garde atmosphere present throughout that makes for a generally disorienting viewing experience. The trance-like state this maneuvers through its main plotline of a crew coming together to put on a play, which begins messing with their minds and personalities as they continue to rehearse everything, causing a series of ethereal and bewildering visual tricks to take place to showcase the series of psychedelic imagery at play here. From unnatural birthing practices, outright bizarre behavioral patterns with the way everyone interacts with each other, figures with glazed-over, milky-white eyes, or trying to believe that deformed, mutilated versions of themselves are normal, while blaring, discordant electronic noise blares away in the background, of capturing these ideas in unconventional means, there’s a strong arthouse aesthetic at play that’s quite fascinating.
However, beyond all that, the film is way too arthouse for the genre-traditionalists who will undoubtedly be lost in what’s going on. The whole thing makes little sense from a standard storyline structure, and the fact that so much of what’s going on takes place through a slew of unconventional visual choices doesn’t make it any less interesting to know what’s going on, as it’s almost impossible to care what’s going on. The idea in general about a play cursing those who perform and the lives of those around them is a fine one in practice, but when it’s this much of a challenge to even understand who’s who, what their purpose is for putting on the play, or just trying to figure out the chronological order of events since it’s all so hard to put together what’s happening through this unnatural presentation. It may look impressive from a technical standpoint since it never belies its budget, but the sheer difficulty in understanding what’s going on makes this an outright struggle to get into.
Overview: */5
An intriguing if somewhat misguided avant-garde genre effort, this one is fine at what it does, but just comes off incredibly frustrating and unconventional as a watch for those looking for something easy-going. Viewers who prefer that approach or who are curious about it will have the most to like here, as most others out there should outright avoid it.
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