Nightsiren

The dark mysterious atmosphere with a touch of folk horror, the cinematography and audiovisual direction are truly captivating. The acting performances are good and especially the main female duo is great, they carry the entire film.

However, Nightsiren also has several flaws. The writing is messy at times, character behaviour is weird sometimes and the biggest problem is that almost everything is one-dimensional, there's no nuance. For example, the villagers are portrayed as mean, superstitious, prejudicial assholes. And although I understand and support that the film attempts to point out/criticise many relevant problems, I must also acknowledge that the way in which it is done is itself problematic

In terms of (Czecho)Slovakian cinema, the Nightsiren is a bold, unique and high-quality work, so despite its flaws I give it a high rating.

This film is truly a disaster The plot is really trivial in Meta Fil you understand everything even before, the film at certain times certainly offers us something good at then ruins everything with really trivial and stupid choices as the choice from a photo model perfectly clean and depilated, this character beyond everything serves only a thing that too is at the most crammed and banal, that is, to have sex this character is a puppet without any characterization only because the film can be a scene without a scene. Gender, we must always follow the flock of sheep, that is, a screenwriter must always do what everything do, without the Pecoraro model photo would have been a good movie with the photo model Pecoraro is just a movie like many others! Model photo which is then literally forgotten by the script !!

Returning to her childhood home village, a woman visiting a friend still living there finds the area overrunning with paranoia and superstition about her connection to a possible witch that's terrorized the area for years and eventually sees the situation become deadly through their beliefs.

This was a pretty solid and enjoyable genre effort. One of the better features here is the way this one plays with rural folklore and supernatural incidents running people's livelihoods. Shown to be a village that's still heavily reliant on the old ways of doing things with their mindset and values adapted from that kind of mentality due to the way they treat her returning, it creates a perfect storm of connection with the rural folk-horror stylings its' clearly aiming for. That it manages to feature such action as it depicts here that flat-out touch on the misogynistic with the way the men behave with women around here is soon introduced to the main two here which creates such a hostile environment that the belief in witchcraft feels appropriate instead of antiquated and creates a fantastic atmosphere for the later proceedings. That is what perfectly sets up the second half here as things become far more mystical and supernatural. As the incidents that take place between her and her friend around the village begin to sway them over to the belief that something isn't right with either of them and that they're indeed practicing witchcraft, the proper motivation and background are in place for the ensuing scenarios to unfold. Taking place in the middle of the forest dripping with fog and neon-lit bodies writhing naked amidst a roaring fire, the scene as a whole is a great setup that generates the potential cause for what's going on in the finale where they get to confront the villagers which is a fantastic finale that has quite a lot of generally chilling action with some fantastic revelations at play. Overall, these are what hold this one up. There are some factors with this one that does bring it down. One of the biggest problems here is the complete lack of connection to what's happening as this one unravels. Due to the fact that this one is mostly build-up rather than doing anything that constitutes action for a large part of the film, there's a real problem here getting into the finale where despite this being the main part that has action for once hardly any of it manages to generate a satisfactory conclusion with the way the film ends. This takes a rather bizarre turn and seems to just finish because it's reached an appropriate running time. That really ends this on a sour note where it's quite a weak note considering the build-up that was leading this to a decidedly different concept which would've been a far better way to go than how this ends, being pretty much the main issues against this one.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Full Nudity, and sex scenes.

As with many foreign films, Nightsiren hadn't garnered much in the way of publicity throughout the international market. It did however make a major splash at the 2022 Sitges and Locarno Film Festivals, which is where I first heard of the movie. Gladly it received a physical release here in Germany last month.

The story unravels through chapters and remains interesting and engaging throughout, in fact, the (almost) two-hour runtime surprisingly just flies by. Natalia Germani (Sarlota) does a magnificent job in the lead role and the shared scenes with Eva Mores (Mira) are captivating. The cinematography is impressive with a handful of standout scenes and striking images.

As the story progresses, there is an underlying, uneasy feeling that gradually builds. Superstition, patriarchy, and misogyny all play a central role in the narrative and the finale is tense and well constructed. Not to say that there aren't minor quibbles, however, the movie is strong enough for the positives to carry over.

Overall, very impressive and I can give this one a strong recommendation to genre fans.

Okay, here we go. This was unfortunately not a very good movie. The acting was pretty bad all over the board (one scene in particular, including a drunk woman, was especially jarring), but my biggest issue with it was by far the screenplay. The overarching story didn't work at all for me.

The basic premise of the movie is that a woman returns to her native mountain village where she grew up because of unclear reasons. From there the plot development is pretty much nonexistent, the main character mostly walks around in the village and surrounding forest with her newly found friend. Things happen a bit randomly. There are hints of sorcery and witchcraft going on that is tied into the narrative, but isn't explored in any meaningful way throughout the film.

The villagers, that initially are suspicious of the newly arrived woman, are laughably one-note. They are depicted as extremely horrible people with no other traits (or even a personality). There are several disturbing scenes in the movie, including nudity, sex and rape, that makes no sense whatsoever plot-wise. I'm not sure why those were included at all, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. The ending is equally disconnected from the rest of the film. What was even the point of all this?

The only strength this movie has is that it actually looks pretty good. The foggy moonlit forest creates an unnerving atmosphere, and the Slovak mountain ranges are a great backdrop for the story. It is a shame then that the rest of the movie is such a mess.

(Seen at the 2022 Stockholm International Film Festival)