neunomad

Making movies for today's horror audience is a tricky proposition, but Relic impressed me with it's commitment to telling an emotional story that resonates with issues which you may recognise from our lives outside of the "fantasy-horror" tropes. The movie is a slow burn which devotes the majority of its time to establishing the central 3 characters (impressive performances), who make up 3 generations of women from an old family in an old house in rural Victoria. If you enjoy thoughtful film-making with a "less is more" approach, you'll be rewarded by a masterfully disturbing and shocking third act climax with an emotional kick that will give you closure but leave you thinking. It should be noted though, just the like characters in Relic, you'll have to give attention to the people in front of you to reap the rewards.

Last night I went to the Japanese Film Festival and saw this one on the big screen. The movie is every bit as quirky and oddball as the blurb makes it sound - a university graduate, Kazuhiko, lives with his parents and is suffering from a bad case of ennui. He finds part-time employment in the local bathhouse, which he soon discovers is used by Yakuza for executions. He becomes entangled in disposing of the bodies, whilst at the same time finding an opportunity for love with a former classmate (who happens to be equally as oddball as Kazuhiko).

It sounds like it should be overly dark, but it's actually quite light and somewhat whimsical in a Japanesey way. The movie turns out to be a strange mix of coming of age tale and crime thriller. There is violence, but it is not the main attraction here, and is not overdone or gory. What the film is concerned with is why we are driven to do what we do in life. Why is Kazuhiko so fascinated with gangland executions? Why is he so eager to be useful in this new line of work? Why has he done nothing with this life since graduating from Tokyo University (which means a lot in Japan)? Why is this or that person being killed by the yakuza?

If you're interested in that kind of inner-dialogue, AND you don't mind something out of the ordinary, give this movie a chance. In my screening there was definitely a handful of people that were not 'getting it' and were confused by the movie. I think they had expectations that were not fulfilled, and this movie does the opposite, it gives you what you don't expect. A bit like life.

I've been looking forward to seeing The Stone Tape ever since I happened across it in an IMDb list that enthusiastically promoted the telemovie as a high point in British Television horror. I had only good expectations when I realised Nigel Kneale wrote it... I very much liked the various Quatermass miniseries/films.

I don't dispute that this is a very good British television horror/sci- fi production. It's really quite good, but it hasn't aged very well. There are lots of little things that work against The Stone Tape and the atmosphere the movie is pushing. The sets are at times too obviously constructed on a sound-stage, and evoke Doctor Who rather than victorian haunted house. There is also an unsettling theme of misogyny and sexism that runs through the narrative but is never seriously dealt with or reprimanded - it's something that also makes the whole setup incredible, since it's hard to believe that this group of men who carry on like they're on a boy's school outing are seriously professional audio and electrical engineers who are trying to challenge "the Japs'" and their technology companies. Overall it's hard to find anybody to like or care about in the story. Jill is somewhat like-able, but she is all too incredibly frustrating the way she is written as a woman who seems to be overly dependent on men...

Unfortunately for those looking for a scare, the mix of science fiction and ghost mystery works to the detriment of anything really scary... The way the sci-fi is worked into the ghost story is interesting, but at the cost of it completely eliminating the possibility of truly scaring the audience.

If you're not still stuck in the 70s this will be underwhelming... but it is still appreciable as a product of its time.