Piercing

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 watched this at home on DVD in spite of its low IMDb rating. After watching it I think it is rated a bit too high.

We get no real idea where all this takes place, but as Christopher Abbott as "Reed" begins preparing for a trip, ice pick in hand, we see the lips of his baby daughter move and some deep voice comes out. At other times different things happen that leads us to believe he is schizophrenic.

Be that as it may when he gets to a hotel he arranges for a prostitute. In some brief flashbacks we sense that his mother had been a prostitute and maybe that messed up his mind. Regardless he gets Mia Wasikowska (almost 30) as "Jackie".

It is clear that he intends to kill her with an ice pick, he even rehearses it in his room. It has a sense of absurdity about it more than terror. And as we might guess Jackie has some tricks up her sleeve also.

Fortunately the movie is short, just over an hour. To me it really is a mess, it just makes little sense and at the end I found myself wondering "Why was this movie even made?"

Enjoyed it... just the right length ... this type of film always brings out negative commentors because it really isn't for everyone. If you like quirky, and you are not super conservative or squeaminsh then give it as shot.

6.4

Set in what appears to be a New York City that looks like Singapore, a new father and husband on an out of town trip orders up a hooker to come to his hotel room in order to kill her with an ice pick. It doesn't work as planned. This movie has strange and unexplained elements like why is he planning to do this? Why is there a little tiny monster in the bathroom. Why does he react to sleeping pills strangely. Why does the hooker live in a veritable tiny palace. It's still a delightful horror.

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