seiteom

Malik and Aaron move with their daughter to a rural town. Malik soon gets bad vibes from the neighbors, but is it small-town hesitancy about same-sex couples, Malik's anxieties about homophobia, or dark cult activities?

Some reviewers think this movie goes in too many directions. I don't quite agree. It is a common trope in horror movies to keep the audience guessing by making the protagonist an unreliable witness and investigator. I think Malik in this case simply explores the reasonable options to why he has a sense of foreboding, while keeping the audience unsure about his sanity. The options he uncovers venture off in very different directions, but are kept together by the movie's premise.

It would be sad if some movie-watchers expect the film to adhere to a clear-cut politically correct narrative just because the main protagonists are a gay couple. I think it does a fairly okay job playing with those expectations and ultimately settling for what is a horrifying, not politically satisfying message (it is a horror movie after all).

The movie could however have done without ghosts. To avoid spoilers I will not be more specific than that, but it is a rather mediocre ploy. Also... Sikhs? What's that all about?

It's not a fantastic movie by any stretch, but it is enjoyable and ties together fairly nicely at the end.

It amazes me how someone can make a horror movie so boring. I'm definitely no stranger to slow burners. But those require some sort of depth, suspense or at least atmosphere. This movie doesn't have any of that steam to take the audience across the slow scenes. In addition, there are numerous cliché "spooky" scenes featuring ghosts without any consequence besides making the protagonist gape and breath loudly. "Oh no, a dead person shows up for the millionth time in my life, and although I'm psychic let's act surprised, scared and run!" It borders on the silly.

I would have loved for this to be a good film, the premise is great and the actors good. Social services should be a theme in more horror movies. Ultimately, I think the failure of this movie comes down to really bad directing and cutting.

Anya starts to explore her Slavic ancestry after moving into her inherited grandmother's house and finds a book left by her grandmother with mysterious rituals. She decides these rituals make better content than the usual yoga instructions she has tried to build an online following with.

Good ideas, the film keeps your attention throughout.

But the acting is so-so and the different themes don't quite fit together. Online yoga and the shallowness of the influencer culture is one important layer, which could have been explored a lot more. The Russian yoga traditions, with such luminaries as the Roerich couple, is hinted at, but largely absent.

So, I have a theory about how the ideas behind this film came together. The writers discussed how creepy yoga can actually be (strange body stretching, weird postures and falsely smiling faces). They googled yoga and found Agni Yoga, the Russian variety, as well as the discussions about cultural appropriation and inauthenticity. Without doing more research than that, they put this film together. That would be the explanation to why the film lacks a satisfying whole and is rather a mishmash of stuff related to the word Yoga.

Again though, a quick and attention-grabbing flick.