Dir - Can Evrenol
Overall: GOOD
Frustratingly imprecise yet an interesting conglomerate of its influences, Girl with No Mouth follows up Turkish director/co-writer Can Evrenol's two absurdist, ultra-violent nightmares Baskin and Housewife with an entirely different agenda. A coming-of-age, modern day fairy tale of sorts, it is equal parts Peter Pan, The Devil's Backbone, City of Lost Children, and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, fusing childlike whimsy with unflinching, post-apocalyptic violence. Not the most unique genre mash-up on paper, but the young band of "pirate" protagonists are easy to root for due to the cast who turn in compelling performances even with physical deficiencies in tow, (the mouth-less girl of the title, a boy with no eyes, one with no nose, and one with no ears). Likewise, Mehmet Yilmaz Ak makes for an odious villain who rightfully proclaims himself as being heartless in a dilapidated world where his militant obedience has cost him his soul. Sadly, the specifics of what exactly is going on within the dystopian backdrop are left vague, which would not be a problem if they were not persistently teased at. We are lead to believe that there is some deeper significance to what everyone is going through, but perhaps deliberately, the exuberance and survival instincts of the children always wins out as they propel forward to some unforeseen and unexplained destiny.
Dir - Brett Pierce/Drew T. Pierce
Overall: MEH
The second full-length from the sibling writer/director team of Brett and Drew T. Pierce, The Wretched only delivers the creepy during a small handful of subtle moments and is otherwise formulaic and bogged down by a logically flimsy script. Obnoxiously loud, screechy, crunchy monster noises, characters introspectively staring at photographs, pagan twig altars, an internet montage of paranormal investigation, a douchebag bully that serves no necessary purpose whatsoever, oodles of jump scares, and boatloads of alarming behavior that is never reported to parents or law enforcement, it has much to roll one's eyes at. There are small blessings in the fact that the brothers Pierce use some restraint early on, (hiding freaky images in the background without any off-putting punctuation on the soundtrack), but this is unfortunately abandoned by the third act when it steamrolls into its a grimy, deafening horror-by-numbers finale. Wisely, any origins attached to the movie's otherworldly, woodland villain are kept minimal and it has all of the markings of traditional folklore, yet it is also nondescript enough to be chilling on paper since it plays off of visceral fears such as child abduction and manipulation. With no surprises and such a stock presentation though, it is easily forgettable.
Dir - Hideo Nakata
Overall: GOOD
Based on the 2010 novel of the same name by Kei Ohishi, Satsujinki o kau onna, (The Woman Who Keeps a Murderer), is a modern day pinku thriller with a hackneyed plot device of a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder. Two graphic lesbian sex scenes emerge before we even get the opening title card at twenty-six minutes in and director Hideo Nakatal keeps up the naked, squishy, and aggressive exploits throughout, all of which are depicted in as much of a crestfallen manner as an erotic one. The laws of physics are routinely ignored for the sake of depicting five different women who take over the physique of our tragic protagonist; a protagonist who was sexually abused as a child and is now living out a traumatic existence in the type of melodramatic fashion that only works in fiction. Besides Kei Ohishi whose cartoonish portrayal of such an awful character presents some tonal issues within Nakata's otherwise melancholic treatment of the material, the performances are universally strong, especially Rin Asuka in the lead and Kenji Mizuhashi as her eager love interest who represents the stereotype of the nice guy who has come to rescue the broken women from tragedy. Sort of a J-horror Last Tango in Paris, its purposely cruel and nihilistic feminist agenda towards male encroachment may not pack many surprises beyond its willingness to tantalize, but its haunting style is well-executed.
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