Dir - Hannah Barlow/Kane Senes
Overall: MEH
The second collaboration Sissy from the writer/director team of Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes rides the typical line for black comedies with emotionally distraught performances and ridiculous set pieces creating a persistent tonal clash. Here, the emphasis is on a type of amplified social acceptance addiction as suffered by influencers. Aisha Dee's central character runs a successful YouTube page full of sponsored ad reads and simple-minded therapeutic tactics that champion personal space, meditation, and self-worth. This is portrayed both convincingly and silly, yet it becomes clear that Dee's well-intended bubbliness is directly connected to a childhood trauma that re-ignites itself when she runs into the old friends and not-friends who were involved. What follows is a "worst day ever" scenario that goes from bad to worse and the humor stems from the violent details as well as the increasingly unhinged manner that Dee's desperately fabricated persona breaks down. This causes a conundrum though since we feel bad for what our protagonist/antagonist is enduring even as her behavior goes into full-on wackadoo mode and the somewhat-to-full-on assholes around her hardly deserve the fate that they are given. Then again, there lies the macabre fun.
Dir - Jacques Molitor
Overall: MEH
While filmmaker Jacques Molitor's Wolfkin, (Kommunioun), boasts a unique deviation from the typical werewolf story, it is not the most pleasant of viewing experiences by design and suffers from an uneven screenplay and presentation. A co-production between the director's native Luxembourg and France, (both languages of which are spoken throughout), is has the common jumping-off point of a youngster who goes through his bestial change as a metaphor for puberty, but the addition of him having an aristocratic family lineage and the struggles that both he and his fully-human mother most undergo in order to adapt present an interesting angle. Throughout, Louise Manteau is running on pure desperation once it becomes undeniable that her son is anything but normal, yet her baby daddy's lineage is deeply rooted in its own traditions that keep the lycanthropian urges at bay through dubious means that any mother would be hesitant to fall in line with. Unfortunately, the story suffers curious tonal issues and cannot sustain its premise as we the viewer increasingly questions the extents that Manteau goes along with in her predicament, all while we grow aggravated with the alarming behavior of everyone else involved. It leads to a clumsy and rushed finale that seems to spring up out of nowhere and play out as if someone hit the fast-forward button in the editing room, but there are at least some interesting ideas here.
Dir - Hisashi Kimura
Overall: GOOD
Thirteen films in across two different countries and the Ringu franchise finally decided to get intentionally silly with Sadako DX, a meta take on a tired formula that was long overdo. Television director Hisashi Kimura and anime writer Yuya Takahashi are both new to the series and their goofy take on the material exaggerates the consistently convoluted and evolving lore within the "girl in the well" mythos. Rightly assuming that they can do anything they want within such a framework at this point since taking this stuff seriously had long proven to be a fool's errand, the rules are turned on their head as the Sadako curse has gone viral in both meanings of the word. Breaking down the details will induce headaches, (which is part of the fun), but it essentially boils down to the fact that you now have to watch the cursed video tape every twenty-four hours to NOT get killed by it, meanwhile the vengeance ghost will turn into your loved ones while slowly encroaching up in your business. The cast of characters are all likeable, even the quirky and annoying ones as it is laugh-out-loud hilarious each and every time that someone calls Kazuma Kawamura a pussy, per example. There are some tonal issues where it is still gingerly dipping its toes into straight-faced J-horror at times, but for the most part this is a breath of fresh air for a beloved property that may as well get the piss taken out of it from here on out.
No comments:
Post a Comment