Alena

Caught this film on TV recently, and to my surprise it was quite a fine film. It didn't match the demographics for what it was catching, but I think most will find this intriguing.

The main lead, Alena, is a brooding new student at a boarding school she clearly doesn't fit into. So surprise surprise, she is targeted by the school sport's team bullies, one who makes her life hell. The catch? Alena has a very dark secret from her past and it will obviously catch up with everyone who interferes.

We have here a mostly derivative storyline, which has been well trod beforehand, being a combination of Mean Girls, Carrie, Heathers and Death Note (Japanese manga).

However, it's more than the story. Our leads are excellent in this brooding tale and the camera work is excellent providing quite a dark frightening outlook on the first viewing.

I liked it. It was predictable, but that shouldn't take away from anything. For teenagers, they'll enjoy this slice of darkness. The rest should respect it at least.

I really enjoy thrillers and horror movies, but this was just not it. I liked the actors (they did really good job) and story was ok, but it was too confusing. Many things just didn't make sense at all, and I felt like everything stayed unexplaned from the start.

They didn't explane any of them characters that well. Every character had some kind of background but even the main characters backstory remain secret. It felt like the director was not completely qualified to execute this movie.

But I had to give 2 stars because cinematography was great, really beautiful way to execute this kind of movie. Nice shots and settings.

After watching Alena I couldn't help having the feeling that I watched that kinda movie a dozen of times before. If it was exceptional then it wouldn't matter but unfortunately it isn't. It's been done before and way better. The story starts interesting but the more the story advances the more boring it gets. Watching high school bully girls for the entire movie is just boring after awhile. And the poor little girl they pick on and that is supposed to unleash her evil power is just not creepy enough to make it an interesting horror movie. Actually I don't think it has anything to do with a horror movie. Just one of those movies you watch with one eye open. Amalia Holm should taint her eyebrows dark as well if she wants to be darkhaired. That's just an information to her, as a bonus.

Well, this is a troubled tale. It is based on a graphic novel, of the same name, by Kim W Andersson. The draw for me was Amalia Holm and, as expected, she brings a layered performance with both vulnerability and peril. All the performances are quite good. There is violence in this storytelling and mental distress but I'm going to take a risk and not call it horror. It seems to me the trauma is the product of untenable circumstances in a young woman's life exasperated by bullying. I give this film a 7 (good) out of 10. {Drama} Swedish with subtitles.

This is a teen story. It's about queerness, it's about girls, it's about self-hatred. Taking place at a girl school, and following a girl at a new school. It contains insecurity and bullying. I don't wanna do any spoilers, but it's not what you think it is.

This movie is very much about teenage girls. Both their best and worst qualities. It's a movie that will sit with you. Somehow it captures so well what it is to be a teenage girl.

This needs to reach is audience. I think any queer person will enjoy this story. It's isn't very horror like, I think maybe if you don't like horror you can enjoy this if you enjoyed teenage stories and queer stories. It's happy and sad at the same time, and it feels very real somehow.