Dir - Michael Venus
Overall: MEH
As the title would so aptly imply, Sleep, (Schlaf), examines the nebulous world of nightmares, fusing them together with waking reality in an increasingly diluted fashion where the two become indistinguishable at the cost of a coherent narrative. Visually impressive with enough topsy-turvy set pieces to please any fan of surreal arthouse movies, director/co-writer Michael Venus seems to have zero concern for his audience being able to follow many of the events that transpire. Depending on one's tastes then, this can be either a refreshing or frustrating presentation, though it can also be argued that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The biggest issue is that a would-be conventional mystery is established early on where Gro Swantje Kohlhof decides to investigate a hotel that her mentally ill/recently invalid mother has frequently dreamed about; a hotel where all three of its owners had committed suicide in. Instead of providing clues the lead to some kind of a pay-off, (be it a still murky one), Venus allows for all of the following details to only compound on top of each other in a fashion that goes off of the rails long before the closing credits hit. There may not be any emotional investment to be had, but the trek is still disturbing and quirky.
Dir - Patrick Picard
Overall: GOOD
For his full-length debut, writer/director Patrick Picard chose to take inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" without directly adapting it, instead concocting a strange mood piece set in modern times. Not to be confused with Peter Stylianou's crime drama of the same name which was also released in 2020, The Bloodhound is set in a single location and almost exclusively features two characters; Liam Aiken and Joe Adler playing childhood friends who go about their days in a low-key haze after being reunited. Adler portrays the reclusive and eccentric Roderick Usher stand-in and Aiken his companion who has come to stay at the former's mysterious house, a house which he shares with his even more cloistered sister that only emerges from her room in cryptic, possible dream sequences. While there are some deliberate horror elements in the form of the humanoid sort-of-creature of the title that has no face and crawls around the house on occasion and/or lives in nightmares, the film is absent of action and instead just sits in a stifling aura of melancholic dread. Whatever idiosyncratic depression haunts Adler's bequeathed homeowner is never explained, yet the dialog points to a type of intense longing for simpler times where the loneliness of isolation had yet to consume him.
Dir - Powell Robinson/Patrick Robert Young
Overall: MEH
The second movie to be co-directed by Powell Robinson and Patrick Robert Young, Threshold is impressive from a DIY production point even if it botches its ending and takes until literally the last five minutes to deliver any chills. Shot over the course of twelve days with a minimal crew and two iPhones, actors Joey Millin and Madison West allegedly improvised their dialog which remains convincing throughout and is matched by a more cinematic presentation than most cellphone indies have produced. Themes of lamenting and coming to terms with one's not-so-great life choices is what bonds Millin and West's estranged brother/sister duo. Their trek to uncover some diabolical, supernatural tomfoolery is rooted in palpable tension, yet it regularly detours into a reconciliation road movie that is more about their shared grievances and regrets than it is about a clandestine cult that conducts sinister rituals against its unwilling inductees. Compelling up until a point, the bottom falls out in a clumsy conclusion which is either intentionally or unintentionally funny, as well as completely lackluster after such a mysterious build-up.
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