Dir - Graham Hughes
Overall: MEH
A crackerjack premise that proves horrendously suited for the found footage/mockumentary format, Hostile Dimensions is the second full-length done in such a mold from Scottish filmmaker Graham Hughes. Utilizing much of the cast from 2019's Death of a Vlogger, (his first foray into the sub-genre), Hughes kicks things off with a creepy hook, presenting a literal door into other dimensions that are home to any combination of the horrifying, the absurd, and the hilarious. Whenever any characters venture through such a door, the results are usually memorable, plus they give Hughes an excuse to arbitrarily indulge in his imagination. It is everywhere else that the film suffers. The documentary within a horror movie is comedically edited, broken up into chapters, and has oodles of scary music added to it, and of course there is a prologue where the otherworldly footage has already been shown to the masses, shattering any and all semblance of plausibility. On that note, why these underwritten characters are filming the things that they are filming in the first place is barely given a thought, and the whole thing has a goofy and reckless tone that can only lead to a sloppy conclusion. It also sets up a sequel, so time will tell how much more off the rails this potential franchise will get.
Dir - Takashi Shimizu
Overall: MEH
J-horror mainstay Takashi Shimizu collaborates with the J-pop group Generations in the textbook "young female ghost up to shenanigans" romp Sana, (Minna no Uta). "Romp" is a misleading word actually as the film feels its hour and forty-two minute length, meandering more than frightening. The premise once again utilizes the J-horror staple of a nasty specter being able to influence and/or murder people through antiquated technology, (an audio cassette tape in this case), but the pretty boy Generations gang playing themselves plus a small handful of older actors sleepwalk through their scenes, as if they are bored by the stale nature of the material the same way that many viewers may be. As derivative as it is compared to a style that Shimizu himself was instrumental in popularizing, the writer/director can still effortlessly deliver some freaky moments. A flashback plays out in front of more than one character, (mundane at first yet increasingly eerie with each loop), the mother in said flashback lunges towards the camera wide-eyed while making a goofy noise, and the title ghost slowly floats down a staircase while strangled by an impossibly long extension chord looking like a grotesque abomination in a haunted house display. It also has a laughably underwhelming ending, basically just stopping once the mystery is solved, the ghost apparently satisfied enough to just return everyone back to normal and leave them alone.
Dir - Guerrilla Metropolitana
Overall: WOOF
Remember Jay Sherman's student film L'artiste est Morte, which was presented as a pretentious embarrassment that was up its own ass? OK, now imagine an hour long version of that, in color sometimes, and done by a mentally compromised twelve year-old with raging hormones who wants to watch his mom and grandma have sex with each other. Oh, and also imagine a painfully loud dripping noise that is looped ad nauseam every minute and forty-five seconds, give or take. Shit, also also imagine two pieces of music that are played in between the aforementioned "please kill me this is so annoying" dripping noise and various other squishy, horny sound effects. This will give you at least a starting point to the trying-way-to-hard-to-be-profound, (Maybe?), trainwreck that is Dariuss from Italian filmmaker Guerrilla Metropolitana, (his real name, presumably). Every once in awhile a "movie" like this comes down the pike, something that is done with no finances and no talent, yet with a seemingly sincere intent to challenge the form and at the very least, not be like anything else. While there are other examples of this floating around like E. Elias Merhige's unwatchable Begotten and Kyle Edward Ball's also unwatchable Skinamarink, Metropolitana's work here could be argued to be even more poor and unintentionally hilarious.
No comments:
Post a Comment