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Left with an extensive list of other films to check after seeing the excellent documentary Women on Both Sides of the Camera (2019-also reviewed) I decided to continue exploring the Cine-Excess line-up,by hearing Willow sing.

Note:Review contains some plot details.

View on the film:

Trying to keep a grip on remaining sober and her psychokinetic abilities, writer/ director Karen Lam & cinematographer Thomas Billingsley stylishly dual wield surrealist Manga- style J-Horror Pop-Art, with a tough, grounded grit from the real locations,as the abandoned warehouse Willow (played with a excellent nervousness by Valerie Tian) lives in is laced in black and white-coloured long panning shots, which along with displaying how difficult Willow's life is, also lays out a canvas for the outbursts of Horror.

Whilst succeeding in criss-crossing the supernatural with personal drama visually, the screenplay by Lam sadly leaves Willow's psychokinetic powers to feel forced in, and out of place with the chillingly realistic abuse and drug problems Willow faces as she sings.

Having just been released from prison, a woman trying to deal with the situation and make ends meet is soon faced with the harsh reality of people in her condition when she's forced to look for outside help to survive which eventually results in the discovery of supernatural help to try to accomplish that.

This was a solid enough if overall problematic effort. In pretty much every technical aspect out there, this one works incredibly well with the sterling camera quality, impressive physical attributes when it comes to the overall construction and presentation of what's going on, and the general approach here creates the kind of high-art performance piece loaded with sterling quality throughout here. That continues with the film's approach as a character study of her as we see just about everything takes place from her singular viewpoint including strong social commentary on the struggles of recently-released-from-prison youth, drug addicts, and homelessness that come about through the film. It's incredibly effective and manages and keeps this one moving along nicely with these elements generating a sympathetic lead with a fantastic series of technical qualities. It's when this one tries to be a genre effort that it falls flat, with almost no overt chills, scares, or anything remotely resembling a horror feature for the majority of the running time. There are a few brief bits about these deformed spectral beings following her that signal the move into a supernatural-tinged genre effort but that's pretty much the extent of the content here as the rest of the film has quite obviously very little if any at all. The concept of her being blessed with powers of some kind is only really known through outside sources since it doesn't become apparent at all through the film, and it takes nearly an hour of her going through the other subplots first before there's even a glimpse of anything dark going on which is an eternity for those looking for something more overt and obvious. This can be quite troublesome and overwhelm the positives depending on the viewer.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Mild Violence.