Disturbed by ghostly movements in her apartment, a failed film maker teams up with a stranger to investigate the nocturnal screams coming from outside.
Extreme snazzyness in the film making techniques, with the interrupted reaction a signature of the director, and even some brief stop motion thrown in. The editing is snappy, so snappy that sometimes it prevents the horror from lingering and seeping in - although they did take more time as the story progressed.
This feels like a tour de force by a top-of-the-class student who sees the horror genre as a convenient debut feature. So the first 20 mins is a sequence of neat tricks, but then the story gains some substance by the introduction of an interesting character with some comedy in her clipped delivery. But still the story is a self-conscious mimicking of video gameplay, without bass notes or suspense or sustained fear. The director has fun with mock fight sequences, but goes too far in one scene where a cuddly toy comes into play, stripping the horror out of comedy-horror. Also, fun with real effects gore, but still like an exercise.
Music and sound design are good, and the atmosphere of a strange, enclosed world is well done. Performances are mannered, but that's the kind of movie it is.
There is an interesting departure with the flashback to those who have travelled this path before, and we enter a heavier, surreal phase of the story, with a blackly funny montage of ghastly suicides - the burned out eyeballs was my pick. After that I think there was a tribute to the two gals in the blue niteclub in Mulholland Drive. A bit cheeky, because that classic scene is the gateway to harrowing emotion and true horror, whereas here we've just got a reflection on the agony of creativity.
I found it intriguing but a bit light, and in the end confusing, as the film makers tricksied about too much to earn the weird climax.
