Piercing

I like the 70s style to the film and the send off of Hitchcock but not the substance of the plot and the failure to ultimately deliver, especially the ending... although there were things to be admired about this film

A darkly comic, unnerving and occasionally chilling depiction of the sadistic psychopath inside. A man named Reed (Christopher Abbott) is happily married; a wonderful family life with a newborn baby. It's made clear in the opening frames that he has a desire to hurt and to kill. He loves his family too much to exploit them so plans a pretend business trip in which he actually is going to rent a hotel room and book a prostitute to murder. A lady of the night named Jackie (Mia Wasikowska) is hired and upon a dispute the two have, she locks herself in the bathroom. What follows on from there is better left unsaid to provide the best viewing experience as I only knew up until this point going in and it's one hell of a twisted ride. First thing to say the two leads are fantastic! Wasikowska is terrific; she's created such an interesting film career starting with Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland to more adult darker territory with works such as Park Chan-Wook's Stoker and Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak. She portrays sexuality no matter how fetishistic with such dignity and delicacy that is really refreshing to see in modern cinema and she is a real talent; really fleshes out her characters. Abbott is also brilliant and portrays a man on the edge really well; confusion and morbid fascination all wrapped up in a neurotic package. It's a slow burning film and definately gets better on more watches; becoming even funnier once the intense first watch is complete and you know what is to happen. There is a certain drug influenced scene that genuinely made my skin crawl and is really creepy. The soundtrack is great and writer/Director Nicholas Pesce conjures a very taut atmosphere and adapts the material well from Ryu Murakami's novel of the same name. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea and I'm sure the ending will frustrate some; it's pretty abrupt and I wasn't sure about it upon first watch but it makes more sense on a second watch. Overall, it will divide opinion but I think it's pretty damn good and worth a watch for those intrigued by darker material

"Piercing" is one of those movies as you watch you just follow along with the clever game of cat and mouse as it proves it's a crazy world with people as no one never really knows the clever cat and mouse games that some play. Reed(Chris Abbott) goes on a trip to a hotel room with a plan for murder, he's also hired an escort call girl named Jackie(Mia Wasikowska). However upon meeting one another things change and the balance and power of the game changes. Overall well done film of control and power, and arriving at your most brutal nightmare like thoughts. And it's just an okay film even though it's not everyone's cup of tea.

This is a pretty solid little thriller/horror flick. It has enough disturbing imagery and uncomfortable themes to keep even the most hardened of genre-fans entertained and captivated from start to finish. It boasts some solid performances and some inspired direction, and in the end, it provides a creepy enough atmosphere for me to recommend it to people I know are horror fans.

I was very impressed by Nicolas Pesce's debut "The Eyes of My Mother", to me it was an inspirational movie, for it felt just like the kind of horror I love and respect the most, and wish to make one day. I missed "Piercing" when it came out, but not too long ago saw Pesce's "The Grudge" reboot, which sadly, wasn't too good, but it was real mean and tried to beat some clichés. As I'm on the task to see more movies starring the excellent Mia Wasikowska, I got to finally feel the rest of Pesce's current trinity, and I am reasonably satisfied.

Creed (Christopher Abbott), a family man, a troubled man, kisses his wife and daughter goodbye and seemingly heads away on business, but his true plan is known by nobody else, and that is to check into a hotel, call an escort service, order a prostitute, and killer her. With an ice pick. She arrives, the name is Jackie (Mia Wasikowska), and she turns out no less demented than Creed. Their inner demons will make the whole affair sleazy, violent, off-putting and contradictory.

I knew I'll like "Piercing" during the first minute, where only the titles dance, but they did so with an old-school aesthetic, both visually and audibly. Full disclosure, I have not read Ryu Murakami's novel, so I don't know the reality of the original story, but I absolutely love the sleazy 70's vibe that "Piercing" is clothed in. Nicolas Pesce has created a beautiful, shadowy, sort of pseudo-modern looking little world, in which Creed and Jackie love, hate, and don't know each other. I hear the viewers who call out the pointlessness of it all, and I agree it is, though it doesn't have much weight on my rating. Besides the awesome production design, great and minimalistic-effectively used FX, and absolutely cool-as-hell soundtrack (with borrowings from "Deep Red" and "Tenebrae"), the force that drives "Piercing" are the interactions between two reasonably demented personalities. Personalities who are given just the right ambiguous treatment by Christopher Abbott and Mia Wasikowska. Couple years ago I didn't really know Christopher Abbott, but by now I've seen the man has many good, offbeat indies under his belt. He's good.

Pesce has crafted "Piercing" meticulously, setting out to hypnotize the viewer, so he doesn't know where exactly is he led to. Pacing's not always consistent or up-going, and the movie tends to lose itself someplace in the constant brushes between Jackie and Reed, more so around the middle parts of "Piercing". I both love and dislike how the film ends, pointlessly and unexpectedly, but at the same time it nicely loops it all together, sort of. Ultimately, does "Piercing" lack substance? It does, the psychological terror is always masterfully manifested, but not always we know or understand what were the things that put these characters into the state they are in.

A sleazy throwback erotic thriller mixed with a dark comedy about an unsure man catching a fish too big, thrown in the blender of modern arthouse horror. And a pinch of Cronenberg-esque body horror. Feel like signing up? My rating: 7/10.