Dir - Lorcan Finnegan
Overall: GOOD
A highly effective if not all together unambiguous delving into the seldom tapped realm of soccer mom horror, Vivarium paints a puzzling and disturbed picture of domesticated suburbia. An international production directed by Lorcan Finnegan and authored by screenwriter Garrett Shanley, (both Irish and both of whom also worked together on their collective debut Without Name), it explores themes of parenthood and complacency and skews things to Twilight Zone level extremes. In the process, people's humanity is brought to the brink of collapse by such surface level idealness becoming an increasingly, unavoidable nightmare. Besides three enormously creepy performances from actors both literally and probably playing the same character, Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg are essentially left to carry the entire film and their descent into despair is effectively harrowing. Visually, the movie makes its picturesque and sterile setting full of identical, perfectly maintained homes and a never changing, sunny skyline quite unwholesome. Rather appropriately then, the ending is tightly wrapped up only on a surface level as the deep, dark secrets lie underneath it all and are as impenetrable as when the film began.
Dir - Brandon Christensen
Overall: MEH
Generally, the imaginary friend horror trope is one of many utilized in haunted house stories again and again, so singling it out as the basis for an entire premise does not set things up in a very unique fashion. Sadly, it does not get any more singular from there in director Brandon Christensen's Z. Everything from spontaneous and ill-advised baths, to a kid behaving like a brat and the father finding nothing wrong with it, to no one believing the hysterical woman, to supernatural forces arbitrarily fucking around and wasting time, it all provides the film with the most lazy methods to create a would-be creepy mood and bring things from point A to point B. While it is surprisingly low on jump scares, it makes up for it by punctuating nearly every single scene with loud ambient swells to the point of annoyance. In any event, the movie is far too formulaic in both cinematic presentation and from a narrative standpoint to spark much interest outside of providing just a small handful of boilerplate, predictable jolts.
Dir - Travis Stevens
Overall: GOOD
The full-length debut from filmmaker Travis Stevens, Girl on the Third Floor initially sets itself up as a typical "family from the city moves into a creepy old house" movie, yet it consistently ventures into unexpected terrain. Mostly well scripted and featuring an often funny, toxic masculinity-parodying lead performance from CM Punk, it technically takes a slow boil approach while avoiding all of the commonplace, supernatural pratfalls that such films often abuse. Though it ends up taking a full hour until things start to go especially cuckoo, once it does, the results are a fun combination of gross-out spectacle, WTF aesthetics, and disturbing creepiness. With so much on its plate, things easily could have become messy or poorly focused. Stevens controls it all rather effectively though, due to the increasingly surreal nature that lends itself well to when things get laugh-out-loud absurd. The ending is a bit rushed and awkward though again, it is not particularly disappointing due to the strange nature of the entire presentation. Imperfect perhaps, but easily refreshing and odd enough to single out.
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