Pop Skull

If you suffer from seizures or classic migraines, stay away from this movie. There is a ton of flashing in it.

It is too artsy for its own good. A pill head is haunted. Are there actual ghosts, or is he hallucinating? Don't know, and by the end of this, you really won't care.

I get that we are seeing things from the perspective of the main character, who is an unreliable narrator. We are seeing his depression over a breakup. His fear of being alone. His growing hatred for, well, what seems like everyone.

We see his growing paranoia. So are the pills causing him to have a psychotic break? Maybe?

I don't tend to need the story line fed to me. But not being able to watch any of the flashing scenes and having to hit the 10 seconds forward key over and over did take something away from this for me. Like, did I miss something that advanced the story?

It is slow, and I felt because of that I couldn't pay enough attention to it.

The movie "Pop Skull" written by E.L Katz, Lane Hughes, and directed by Adam Wingard is in my opinion the example of an ideal horror. The story is about Daniel and his heartache which has been caused by his girlfriend. When they broke up, Daniel got depressed. He couldn't differentiate between dream and reality. The atmosphere of that movie is dark and creppy like the Edgar Allan Poe's prose. Wingard captured that sense of fear and put it on the screen, in every movie shot. "Pop Skull" has great music, noble photos and excellent acting.The main character Daniel played by Lane Hughes is so stunning and authentic. The movie language of Pop Skull is hard, obscure and dramatic. The Hounted motif was used very genuine and subtly. When you watch Pop skull it's impossible not to be scared.

Great job Adam.

I was surprised by this film. It reminded me of some Japanese ghost stories I've seen, which are always unsettling especially after the film when you think it over, and those creepy images start to spill into your every day life. At the same time, Pop Skull featured some innovative depictions of hallucinatory states of mind which I thought were sometimes a little obscure, but other times a useful device for conveying complex emotional states in a character who is verbally rather simple. For some reasons, many of these images -- which are often juxtapositions, stops and starts, changes of speed, transformations, flickering and strobing--seem 'accurate'; in other words, though obscure, they convey a meaningful insight into the mind of a character, yet they leave a lot to the imagination, and make you wonder about the mysterious things lurking around in the psyche. Some may argue that they are just artsy, pretensions -- perhaps even a bit emoish and laughable. Perhaps. The last time I saw anything quite like it was in Gaspar Noe's 'Enter the Void', but the imagery in Pop Skull is more obscure and personal leaving a lot of mystery about exactly what the protagonist in the story is going through internally over a painful event in his life. The storyline itself is not that complicated, but the alternate realities that go along with the story add an intriguing element to the film. I think mood is the key strength of this film. There's a mood of confusion, depression, fear, and encroaching madness, that you expect from a good horror movie. I have to admit too, that I wasn't really expecting the film to go in the direction that it did. So it has some surprises, some mystery, and a good sense of pacing which builds up the suspense fairly well. To call this movie a horror story is fitting, but it is atypical for American horror films. I'll bet that David Lynch could appreciate this film for its power to suggest things to you rather than explicitly feed it to you. I would actually watch it again as I did with 'Enter the Void' just out of curiosity over the various levels of meaning the hallucinatory episodes suggest -- especially in how they tie into the plot, and relate to a characters thought process (however disjointed it may be). I'm looking forward to seeing some of Adam Wingard's other films now.

I don't quite know what was supposed to happen with this movie. I don't understand what was supposed to be scary. I don't understand how the strange lights, flashing, camera tricks, etc. are supposed to be scary or creepy. As I was yawning, I stopped the movie unable to finish the last 30 minutes or care that I didn't finish it.

A pill addict (Lane Hughes) confronts ghosts in this artsy, independent film directed by Adam Wingard. Not unlike other Halo Eight releases (such as "Devil's Muse"), this will cater to the more cultured horror fan, not necessarily the splatter-gore fan. Those who need constant, fast-paced stimulation will be bored and likely quickly become distracted. This is not just entertainment, but art put to celluloid.

Instead of giving a review -- really, what sums up this film is its beautiful vision and presentation, rather than a focus on the plot -- I wanted to clarify another review I read that says "Pop Skull" is for the viewer who "can remember your first heartache". Despite all the great things one can say about "Pop Skull", this review went over the top and needs a sense of grounding.

Hughes is compared to Jack Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces" and Marlon Brando in "Last Tango in Paris". That's some heavy praise. I would hold off on judging Mr. Hughes until his next role, though I concur that he was the man for the job here. The film itself is compared to "Easy Rider", another Nicholson film. Again, this may be a stretch. "Easy Rider" is today a classic... "Pop Skull" is unlikely to achieve this level, and I'd be interested in hearing the reviewer's opinion after a second viewing in a few years.

The reviewer asks, rightly, "since when does conventional film-making imply superiority to something attempting to try something else?" This is a crucial question, both for this film and film in general. The formulaic structure of most movies and their film quality is accepted as the standard, but independent films need love, too, and often times the new concepts trump the tested methods. The reviewer craps on such so-called independent films as "Garden State" ("vapid") and "Saw" ("stupid"), which is unfair, in my opinion. These are both fine films, I think, just simply different from "Pop Skull". To dump on bigger budget indie films is just as discriminating as dumping on low budget indie films.

That is all I have to say. If you like the artsy films and have come to like what you see from Halo Eight, get this one. Buy it. Support indie film.