Hagazussa

The VVitch generation finally has their Tess of the d'ubervilles. What an abrasively miserable film.

With about 10 lines of dialogue, Hagazussa kind of stares down The Witch and says "hold my beer." There is booming bass, atmosphere, a great lead performance, peeing on a rat, more atmosphere, and a shocking finale. I dug it.

Great tone and setting. The third act goes off the rails, and will make or break how you feel about this

Albrun and The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Series of Days™

A very understated, slow and somewhat bleak little film. It leaves a lot up to the viewer, and might not fully reward your patience. I don't think it hit the mood or atmosphere that it might have been aiming for, although a few moments do elicit some dread or similar sensations. The quiet, expressive performance from Cwen is worth seeing, though, and taken as a whole the film was compelling and unsettling. I found its closest contemporaries The Witch and Novemeber more effective, though.

Making your movie really slow does not make it art, and having low strings droning in the background does not make it spooky. People will say this is a pretty movie because it's shot in super clean digital in the Alps, but it really struggles to compose anything other than the landscapes and is otherwise pretty bland looking. Shamelessly inspired by The Witch but doesn't really understand what made The Witch good. Also why do all the wannabe art horror movies involve psychedelics these days?

Gorgeous landscape cinematography that never reaches nor justifies the depravity that the last act tries to find meaning in. The film marinates in various interpretations but, importantly for a folk horror, doesn’t see itself as a redemptive text, unless the eventual self-immolation is a restorative act. I doubt it. It’s like it knows the vocabulary but not the syntax of the folk horror genre.

Molasses pace to give you a taste of life in the dark ages. The narrative itself is rather compact, but its drawn out in long moody shots--often, empty, lifeless and generally unpleasant. There is a sense of meandering, though Feigelfeld does occasionally stumble onto truly memorable scenes. Unfortunately, the final act reveals the Feigelfeld doesn't really have an overarching plan as the film descends into arthouse abstractions. In many ways, it feels akin to Valhalla Rising.

okay movie

Do you want to go down a very deep, dark pit? A pit so dark that when you thought you just reached the very bottom of it, it just goes on and on with no end in sight? It could be a story of witchcraft just as much as it could be just a story of hallucinations. The movie creeps on slowly and shows you some of the most beautiful scenes along with things that are as disgusting as they are disturbing.

A virtually unheard-of movie to many whose setting I like best, its story lacks some umph. It has already the ingredients of a great plot, but somehow the director couldn't capture and express it artfully in film. MY SCORING: 99-96=Great; 95-90=Very good; 89-85=Good; 84-80=So-so; 79-70=Boring; Below 70=Forget it

All the elements are there for a great horror movie, but the decision to make it so frustratingly slow results in a movie that is hard to sit through.

17. !f İstanbul - City's.

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