Sonata diabólica

My girlfriend and I rented this film hoping to experience a bit of a psychological chiller/horror. Unfortunately the only horrifying thing about this film is that it was ever given the green light.

I'm 25 years old and have watched a lot of movies, undoubtedly this is one of the worst films I have EVER seen. It can't even be appreciated in an ironic way, it's just real chore to watch. Everything about it is disastrously misjudged; The storyline, dialogue, editing, cinematography, all of it. It's a lesson in how NOT to make a movie.

Let's go into detail:

The storyline is bafflingly chaotic, veering from tired cliché to tired cliché with no thematic continuity. I found the scenes involving apparent sexual abuse to be incredibly uncomfortable - not because I felt anything for the characters - but because they seemed shoe-horned in to provide titillation. Unfortunately they serve to suggest that this film was written/shot/produced by a bunch of aging perverts.

The dialogue is hilariously wooden and so blindingly misjudged I wouldn't be surprised to hear it was written by an autistic 8-year old.

I don't think this movie ever saw an edit suite. There are numerous scenes in which the shot lingers long after the dialogue/action is over, and for no apparent reason. This makes the film look incredibly amateur and feel even more disjointed and haphazard.

The cinematography is truly abysmal. At times characters heads are cut out of shot. There doesn't seem to have been any attention paid to framing, lighting - anything. I could honestly have produced a better looking film using my 4 year old cell phone and Windows Movie Maker.

In summary, this film is an absolute shambles. If it wasn't so painfully tedious I would recommend film students watch it to learn what not to do. But given its unwieldy length, chaotic storyline, nonsensical plot and awkwardly basic dialogue I would recommend everyone avoid it.

This movie has the look of a used $3 dollar crumpled note filmed for cheapness no doubt on early video technology so the images are distinctly mushy. Poor as much of this straight to video fodder is, it has I must say an odd creepy texture to it. The story has a disturbing quality, like some sort of Roald Dahl children's tale darkened for adults. Not exactly a horror film it's hard to categorise exactly what it is, a tale of the unexpected perhaps but it did hold my attention to see how it played out and the ending did surprise me.

This is basically a two-character play involving an overbearing, crazy mother (not a 'crazzzy mutha') who keeps her daughter cooped up in the house, home schools her, tells her thinly veiled threatening stories, and basically has her captive. However, puberty is on it's way and is manifesting itself in the form of a disappearing stranger whom only the daughter can see. If that's the case, however, who's sending strange love letters to the girl?

Sonata isn't easy to sit through - It's gonna be a bore for fans of gory horror, or for fans of people who like films to have any kind of pace to them. On the other hand, if you fancy something different, you might enjoy this one. It's weirdly played out, and deliberately slow, but there's a sense of dread and mystery about it that makes it watchable. There is even the odd fright thrown in, which is perhaps why it's marketed as a horror. The girl has obviously been driven a bit mad by her mother's smothering, and the mother herself is also pretty insane, trying to protect her daughter from the world and failing miserably. I found it worth a watch to see how things played out, and enjoyed it, but be warned, it's not the most action packed film ever.

Good for a change of pace, and well made for a low budget film.

The teenager Megan (Nicole DuPort) is a young woman raised completely isolated and dominated by her deranged and possessive mother, the writer Samantha Fergus (AnnieScott Rogers). Megan lives her life as if it were a fairy tale and without sense of reality, having her education through home schooling with private teachers. When her hormones change her behavior, inclusive with sexuality arisen, she does not have any support from her mother, and she creates an imaginary friend to satisfy her repressed desires and leading mother and daughter to a tragedy.

"Sonata" is a disturbing, dark and cruel psychological drama, showing the sick relationship of mother and her daughter. The movie is not bad, but the viewer is misguided by the distributor that sells this heavy drama as if it were a horror movie, with a typical cover inducing to a horror movie and certainly disappointing the fans of this genre. Therefore, the target audience is absolutely deceived. Nicole DuPort is perfect in the role of a repressed young woman finding sexuality without any orientation or support. AnnieScott Rogers in some moments exaggerates, but also has a good performance. The introduction of this film, with Ludwig van Beethoven's Sonata no. 14 ("Moonlight"), gives a touch of class to this good movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Gritos de Horror" ("Screams of Horror")

This film has some great moments in it. Recall that it is a first film from writer/director Boris Undorf. It has style and is not nearly the bore that one reviewer claimed. In fact, it's far more worthy of attention than most of the garbage that I've seen in theaters or on DVD lately.

I refer to it as horror/thriller only because I don't know how else it could be categorized. It has a great use of color and has unnerving scenes that make you squirm - most notably the mother's insistence that her daughter strip for her and another scene in which the mother's lover "makes a pass" at the young girl. I felt increasingly uncomfortable as I watched the main character, wondering how she could stay sane at all in her nightmare-fairytale world.

It's a shame that more people can't give this movie a try. These days, "horror" cinema seems to be made up of films about topless airheads who are tortured to death or psycho killers who go from one cliché to the next until it seems that the only things that have been changed are the names in the same tired old story.

If you are looking for horror clichés like "the sheriff who just can't help because there's no proof" or "let's go check out that weird noise but first we should have sex" then you aren't going to like this film. But if you are looking for an actual story with a set-up and a fresh character piece then this is worth a look.