POMO

Screenwriting futility, directorial blackouts. The sole purpose of this film is to continuously serve us extreme gore that we won’t see anywhere else. And with a straight face. In the first half, the directing kind of attempts to use the social ills of contemporary society to make a point, but the second half is just drawn-out nothingness pulled out of the filmmaker’s ass. But the film’s splatter brutality and punk degeneracy are truly unique. For example, the sexual assault of the eye socket of a woman whose eye has been poked out with an umbrella, in a wheelchair, while she’s hooked up to a drip. And so on…

An overweight girl suffers ridicule at the hands of the people in her small town. The only person in whom she finds support is a rampaging killer, whose identity and whereabouts are known only to her. Piggy has an interesting subject and starts off very promisingly, but the screenplay starts to stray from what’s interesting and becomes annoying due to unnecessary dialogue with the girl's mother and the police trying to figure out why the protagonist is concealing the events that she has witnessed, as if the viewer doesn’t already know. The bloody climax mitigates the viewer’s disappointment, but the impression of wasted potential remains.

Clive Barker’s Hellraiser is a difficult subject for adaptations. It requires more than just traditional “horror talent” to film it so that it makes sense in the motivations of all of the characters and the intertwining of reality with the hellish dimension, to be gripping in terms of the plot and pleasing with more than just fantasy scenes of suffering and gore. David Bruckner and the screenwriters have done a decent job of developing the revelation of the world of the Cenobites, while adding new, almost mythological dimensions to the famous puzzle box. However, they got a bit lost in the climax with respect to the meaningfulness of the twists and the conclusion of the characters’ stories. One of the surviving characters summed it up nicely: “What just happened there?”

The whole acting ensemble has strong potential. Ben Foster is perfect as Jan Žižka; each of his looks and statements has spirit and balls. The emotions and the simple yet sufficiently dramatic and action-packed story also work well. The film’s harshness and high level of testosterone are surprising, and the high-quality instrumental soundtrack is pleasing. However, the film is dragged down to the level of mediocrity by its directing, which in some scenes is reminiscent of cheap TV trash. For example, in the scene involving the kidnapping of the fiancée, utter cluelessness is on display in terms editing and clarity of what is happening and how. And there are several similar moments in the film. I applaud Petr Jákl for having the balls and ambition to fulfil his boyish dreams, but even he must see that sticking with producing and entrusting the directing to, say, Ron Howard would have had a different result.

In screenwriting terms, Smile is a lesser variation on It Follows, but only where innovativeness is concerned. Psychologically, it is carefully constructed, almost in the manner of a procedural, without a single weakness. It is also excellently filmed and very intense in its suspense and scares, with brilliant sound design. And the newcomer Sosie Bacon is great in the lead role. Director Parker Finn surprises us again.

A dreamy 98 minutes that are not in any way logically connected to one another, despite the fact that the same characters appear in the same or related places, mainly the castle and its rooms, catacombs, cellars and interiors with a nice mountain backdrop (Black Magic Rites was filmed at Castello Piccolomini in Italy). The burning of women, lesbian sex, a lot of zooming in on both the main and supporting characters’ eyes widened for no apparent reason. This is atmospheric, colorful nonsense in which everyone experiences an awful lot without the viewer having any idea why. Watching it all the way to the end deserves respect. And a stiff drink.

A pastel femme matrix. It’s fine that the poster entices viewers to a sweet romance with Harry Styles. Surprised female viewers will get a more sophisticated thriller metaphor for endless inner discontent and the utopian illusion of the “perfect life”. For a second directorial feature of Olivia Wilde, Don’t Worry Darling is a highly ambitious work relying on excellent artists in the filmmaking crew (cinematographer, editor, composer). Florence Pugh heads up the acting, Styles carries the romance, and it’s very nice to watch. Only the point that it makes isn’t in any way original; it’s actually not even appropriate. And in the final build-up, it all somehow falls apart both in the connections and in the emotional experience.

A TV tear-jerker. Blonde is a mosaic of the “experiences” of a tormented girl searching for her own identity and place in the world. It is engaging with its atmosphere, but needlessly long given how little information it provides. The constant illogical alternation of picture formats and switching between color and black-and-white scenes correspond to the protagonist’s confused mental state. It’s a simple yet original technique that works quite well. Ana de Armas is excellent, giving a committed and heartfelt performance. It’s a shame that her efforts are wasted on a film that can’t be appreciated by a broader audience. Andrew Dominik has something going for him as an artist, but he is NOT Terrence Malick.

The suspense sets in early and effectively and the survival-drama potential is solid until the end. Good work with the setting and digital animals, with a likable acknowledgement of Jurassic Park’s inspiration (endangered characters trapped in a jeep). And Idris Elba fits in perfectly. The “broken family comes together in an extreme situation” ultra-cliché doesn’t matter; after all, this is a genre flick that solidly entertains with suspense in an exotic setting. But there are some occasional bits of nonsense. There aren’t many of them, but this high-powered and technically high-quality adventure would be better off without them.

The idea is fine and the visuals are decent, but the screenplay and editing are amateurish. Relationship clichés, terrible physical silliness and, in the tensest scenes, skipping over key moments in movement while overcoming obstacles. That was the thing in the film that bothered me even more than the fact that those engineers searching for a signal didn’t think to mount a mobile telephone on a drone. So stupid. But the vertigo factor is satisfying, though it won’t work for a lot of viewers. On a home cinema with a large screen, Fall is a sweat-inducing physical experience similar to Free Solo.