Megalomaníaco

I read a review which compared this film to the Canadian version of Martyrs and so I took a shot at it.

I gave Martyrs a 9/10 and it is my #1 horror movie of all time. Megalomaniac does not come close. I was bored throughout the silliness of the story and the lack of clarity with flashbacks that made no sense to this viewer.

Felix and his sister Martha are the offspring of a notorious serial killer and the siblings carry on in the family tradition. Felix abducts women and murders them and then leaves them at the side of the road. His sister lives with him in their gothic house and works at a factory where she is harassed by her co-workers.

A social worker pays monthly visits to the home for unexplained reasons while a young woman is chained to a wall in a nearby room.

The ending is a bloody mess and I do not recommend this film.

Man, I did not expect this movie to be so BRUTAL! A lot more art-house and slow when compared to movies of its ilk, but I have been clamoring for another film along the same lines as Martyrs or Frontier(s), and this film really delivers. I haven't seen a movie go for this style in so long, I was worried that directors had given up on the sub-genre for good. I'm happy to say that this movie would be at home with the likes of the more disturbing ones.

Everything works so well in this film, from the directorial style to the acting to the gorgeous cinematography, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this film is SLOW and extremely deliberate. While the few scenes of actual violence are beyond disturbing (with one scene so shocking I didn't even know how it got past the ratings board), but the rest of the film was a dreary, depressing familial drama(?), although that wouldn't be the appropriate label for a film about a pair of siblings who are taking after their father, a vicious serial killer. There was just so many scenes of this brooding woman, allowing life to beat her down, and when her brother finally got to work, it happens quickly, and then we are back to scenes of her moping around, looking crestfallen and despondent. I understand why this was done in the context of this style of film, but it's a real drag when you get that rush of brutality to only come back down to so many scenes of mediocrity.

If you're a fan of movies like Martyrs, Inside, High Tension, ect. This movie will be right up your alley. It's extremely and deliberately slow, but stick with it. The pay off may be worth it, depending on how patient you are.

Beautiful surreal imagery, gruesome violence and dark atmosphere dominate the first and last ~5 minutes of the film.

I will not go into detail as to what happens inbetween but it would make your skin crawl in a different movie. Here, it is neither staged in gruesome detail nor cleverly implied, nor is the protagonist's emotional reaction to her mistreatment of particular interest to the film maker. The normalcy of it all and her overall numbness could in themselves be horrifying, but a thin plot about human pets, off-screen mass-murder and familial conflict keeps us from really getting to know Martha.

For the most part this was a disappointment and yet my interest in the work of Karim Ouelhaj is piqued. Those few minutes of genius bookending the film speak to a strong personal sense of style, the mark of a horror auteur.

On an overwhelmingly positive note: the noisy industrial soundtrack, especially the piece that plays during the end credits, is excellent. I do hope Karim embraces his more poetic tendencies and collaborates with Gary Moonboots on another film.

Kenny's Movie Review

"Megalomaniac" (2023)

Premieres in select theaters 9/8 and On Demand everywhere 9/26

I'd like to thank the Great people at Dark Star Pictures for allowing me to screen this for my readers

Martha and Félix are the children of the Butcher of Mons, a notorious Belgian serial killer from the 1990s. Unstable and riddled with insecurities, Martha lives vicariously through social media. Her brother, crushed by the family legacy, takes over their father's killings. Harassed and violently assaulted at work, the docile Martha falls into madness and goes through the looking glass into the strange and terrifying world inhabited by her brother.

Okay, first off this movie is not for everyone but darn this is a EXCELLENT film. "Martha" played wonderfully by Eline Schumacher lives with her brother "Felix" who also is terrific Benjamin Ramon, are brother and sister living in the HUGE Victorian style house literally in the middle of nowhere, "Martha" has a job working Graveyard shift at a factory and is picked on by the other workers and they do really mean things to her including a rape scene which is not graphic but you really have a idea what's happening.

Meanwhile her brother is carrying on the father's tradition of being a serial killer and he said to "Martha" you have the whole house do not go into these 2 rooms, well "Martha" being on medication who has a social worker come over every month (is thst scene crazy) and evaluates her.

Well one day "Martha" goes into one of the rooms and sees one of her brothers victims chained up and starts calling her "kitty" these scenes are absolutely creepy and really disturbing.

I'd go into more but man I really want you to see this film. Martha played by Eline Schumacher is the star of this film, you feel terrible for her but she's as ruthless as her brother. This is a French film and has subtitles but the acting and action on the screen really gives you all the things you need to follow the film. The director Karim Ouelhaj sets a really dismal and disturbing tone for the film and might I add it's bloody.

This is the best film I've seen all year, I will add this to my collection when available for purchase.

5 Whoppers out of 5 Whoppers 🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔.

Seriously check this out.

Once again thanks to the great people at Dark Star Pictures for allowing me to share my thoughts.

Trying to adjust to everyday life, a woman and her brother who are the children of an infamous serial killer manage to find themselves forced into exploring the same barbarian means of their father when society causes them to revert to his old methods of torture and depravity to deal with their problems.

This was a generally fine if somewhat one-note piece. What works out for this one is purely the film's excess that comes off far more than simply gore, bloodshed, and depravity for the sake of it. Wallowing openly in the brutal antics dealt to the victims of the rampage including being bashed with hammers, sliced with knives or much worse, the rape of several victims, or even going through her psychological breakdown employed here serves to generate an oppressive feeling of brutality and madness that is all the better due to the squeamish effects-work during these scenes. That has a lot to do with the effectiveness of the story here as well due to the two-pronged setup that's employed. The first feature, about the lives of the two children living together under the shadow of their father who's an infamous, uncaught serial killer in the community, gives this a distinct relationship that's explored rather well. Her living under his domineering touch while trying to adjust to normality in the company of others is a nice bent that manages to provide a great insight into her meek and fragile exterior that contrasts loudly with his brutish and maniacal serial killing ways. Moreover, that mindset gets brought into play with the gradual extent of her descent into madness that echoes the same trajectory of their father. Realizing that he's attempting to replicate the same type of vicious killing spree against her desire for normality, the snap and eventual recognition that she's become something similar through the antics of those around her due to the sexual assaults and torment she receives makes it feel all the more earned which helps to sell it even more. Aided along by the nightmarish visions of past victims running around the house that take on a supernatural bent, this has a lot to like overall. There's not much to hold it down as it's mainly hurt by the aforementioned one-note setup. That is how the film spends the middle part of its running time engaging in the same type of stereotypical treatment of most serial killer films by not doing much differently with the idea of the emotional build-up to the killing. Rather than doing something new, going back to the familiar well sexual abuse and fractured family relationships are at the heart of everything and it's not that impressive so it leaves long stretches of time where very little is interesting. It's not a huge negative but this does bring it down somewhat.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Nudity, and Rape.