Slapface

This horror allegory has a unique premise that unfolds in a fresh, realistic way, but the execution is very poor.

The premise is that the boy protagonist has a monster who helps him to deal with his struggles--an animalistic, witchlike ogre who behaves something like a trained attack dog, willing to play along with her companion but always ready to viciously attack. The boy faces numerous struggles--grief, puberty, poverty, bullying--and the impulsive violence manifested by his monster represents the only method he knows for confronting those problems. This is a horror of stunted emotional development. The screenplay, acting, and on-location filming present this premise in a way that is refreshingly free from cliches. There seems to be an autobiographical core breathing life into this film.

Nevertheless, I found it extremely tedious. For a movie that's less than 90 minutes, it seems like quite a slog. Something about the editing and pacing of the film is disorienting in an unintentional way: one scene ends, the next begins, the tone and setting abruptly shifts, and it isn't quite clear how much time has passed in between. Cause and effect become ambiguous, the flow is extremely choppy, and none of that clunkiness seems to contribute anything to the film. The end result is that my husband and I were consistently confused about how the movie's themes were progressing and how the events of the scenes related to each other.

The filmmakers have potential and this film certainly has something meaningful to say, yet I wouldn't recommend trying to sit through it.

The idea for the plot is good but the execution is shockingly amateurish. It fails on most levels. The actor who plays the older brother is really bad and most of the other actors just phone it in. The film becomes preachy and predictable and it even ends with a preachy text telling us how to interpret it and why this film is noble. I kid you not!

I lay most of the blame on the director/writer. There is no consistency in anything here and the plot set ups are lazy and too obvious to blend naturally into the story.

The young brother was however quite good and I liked the hands of the monster.

The plot was going good until the police station catastrophe. It is easy to see that there was no way that boy could have done that kind of damage. The director/writer should have at least revealed the "why or who" .Like the movie "Hitcher". Where the main character portrays separately.

I was leaning towards a 6 originally because I thought it was slightly above average, but unfortunately the ending was quite unfulfilling. Nevertheless I found this film generally entertaining with a few iffy choices.

The acting all around was fine. Everyone did their job and no one was negatively distracting. The only person who positively stood out was the little boy. I thought he did a great job.

Story was fine I suppose, nothing wildly original. Maybe I'm stupid, but the connection between the slap face and the monster made no sense to me, it was barley explained to begin with and is also generally just a bad title lol.

Also I found the relationship written between the older brother and the girl wildly poorly written. They had just met, then she basically lives there and then they fight like a seasoned couple. It was very confusing and weird and took me out of the story. There were a few intricacies and inconsistencies like that, that gave this an amateurish feel.

Another thing that took me out of the story was the monster. It literally looked like someone bought a mask of the witch from Snow White from party city and threw some dirt on it. It looked silly and was hard to take seriously, which was unfortunate.

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did because it did have some cool creep factor, however it was not boring or a waste of time. I would recommend... but not vehemently.

Ambiguous, it lacks something but, overall, a positive experience.

I like the atmosphere created, I like thar it tries to encapuslate so many necessary themes - grief, isolation, sadness, memories, bullying, relationships, family - and I like that is a very dark film unafraid to shock and do the most unexpected things.

Even if I like some grey areas, I think Slapface exaggerates a bit on that, being a bit frustrating at times. This - and the fact that the horror moments aren't really terrifying- doesn't let the film be much more than it is, but it's a strong and meaningful piece of art.