Dir - Michael Pearce
Overall: GOOD
An excellent full-length debut from filmmaker Michael Pearce, Beast offers up challenging ideas involving the deep-seeded need for troubled people to find unconditional acceptance and love amongst those who have similarly succumbed to less than admirable, impassioned outbursts. Led primarily by Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn, both deliver multi-layered performances that showcase a perpetual, internal struggle to come to terms with their own tendencies towards impulsive rage and overall recklessness, finding each other in an environment that puts them at odds with nearly everyone else besides each other. Buckley's character's tendency towards violent fantasy provides the movie with its only psychologically nightmarish moments, but even those are presented in the most realistic of manners. This fits with the general agenda to stay grounded in unflinching, emotional vulnerability and Pearce creates a series of moments where the very dirt and grime of the earth covers the people on screen. As far as setting the appropriate, somber mood, Benjamin Kračun's cinematography and Jim Williams score goes a long way as well.
Dir - Bill Waterson
Overall: MEH
A purposely absurdist, hipster friendly fantasy film, Dave Made a Maze takes a ridiculous premise to mostly inventive places while meandering a bit along the way. The debut from Ohio-born writer/director Bill Waterson, (who co-authored the film with Steven Sears, also a relative newcomer), the story generates some automatic laughs when the preposterous situation is first established. As things prod along and our series of quirky characters react in mostly nonchalant ways to what is happening, the plotting goes in circles that rather appropriately mirror the on screen plight. As the title would suggest, everyone gets lost in a maze that has no business actually existing in the real world, (or in this case, isolated to a single living room of an apartment), and about half of the dialog is people stopping to say "We need to get out of here", and then the inevitable wacky surprise to keep things moving interrupts them until the next time such a series of events is repeated. This monotony is a shame since the movie is full of clever, mildly to adequately amusing ideas and it also has a relatable, not too heavy theme of accomplishing something in lieu of lingering in slacker meaninglessness, though this is hardly explored in much depth. Probably silly enough in an idiosyncratic way to please those looking for something unique to sit through, but it also misses the mark in a handful of ways.
Dir - Jaume Balagueró
Overall: GOOD
A return to by-the-books supernatural horror for filmmaker Jaume Balagueró, Muse, (Musa), is a highly formulaic one that mostly gets by due to the complex and intriguing nature of its source material. José Carlos Somoza's novel The Lady Number Thirteen offers up an interesting variation of occult witchery which for genre fans will likely remind them of Dario Argento's Three Mothers, here expanded to seven immortal women who each go by the moniker "She who...". In addition to this, the use of poetic expression itself holds a sort of open ended power where many legendary works by several authors over the centuries have been guided by their wicked influence and when recited, can raise people from the dead. There is much to unpack with a multitude of rules at play, some of which are only vaguely alluded to instead of properly divulged for the audience. In any event, Balagueró generic, muted-color pallet presentation which uses a persistent musical score unfortunately creates a mildly campy tone that makes some of the plot points seem more contrived and goofy than they deserve. There is plenty of heavy, emotional weight to the proceedings though with characters struggling with their own promises of undying love and deep seeded grief, plus for the most part, the movie keeps these elements in proper check.
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