Effigy

Effigy is a complex, layered film about a descent into madness involving a cursed object. I noticed echoes of early horror films (Renfield from Dracula was one I thought about) but with modern well-crafted visuals. Lighting, shadows, angles and effects are all strong points. My interest was drawn in with the elements of Japanese, English(American) and Swedish, but with a setting of modern Tokyo. I enjoyed my second viewing from noticing details of foreshadowing, and after thinking about the film for a week or so. I think it's a good accompaniment/lead-in to the Halloween season (viewed Sep-Oct 2024).

Creepy imagery fills the screen, as a story within a story unfolds. Set in Japan, with Swedish characters, the plot is mesmerizing, disorienting, dark and fascinating. Something about translating a children's story, but that's just the starting point for an image-driven trip down the rabbit hole. This is an ambiguous character study open to interpretation. I enjoyed the strangeness of it all. It's unconventional and unique, choosing not to explain every action. This is a movie that does not follow a formula; it clearly has its own rhythm and style. The unsettling sound design adds to the mood, while the cool animation supports the sub-textual narrative. If you like independent thrillers, and are open to connecting the dots, check out EFFIGY.

Effigy blends art-house and horror elements well and has a plot that effectively explains things that would normally be hindrances in other independent films and uses them to its full narrative advantage. The film prioritizes atmosphere over sheer shock value, building an eerie, unsettling ambiance that leads to its conclusion. It's a unique approach that distinguishes it from mainstream horror flicks.

The protagonists' psychological state and the immersive settings contribute significantly to this sense of unease, Effigy isn't just about scaring you with immediate threats; it's about drawing you into a world where the very fabric of reality feels uncertain and off-kilter.

This film lives on the power of its unnerving vibe. Not a jump scare movie. This is a patient horror train, taking you on a volatile journey towards true alienation. So I would say this one requires the right mood to fully appreciate. It is a meticulously crafted micro-budget film. It is without compromise: a Lynchian story, deep diving into a troubled translator's unravelling psyche in a surreal Tokyo as her cruelty turns outwards.. This film will challenge viewers to engage on its terms. There's layers to explore here and ambiguous elements to process. It's one of those films where your mind can fill in the shadow corners in a completely different way with subsequent viewing- this could be interpreted as either a strength or a weakness depending upon who you are- or how you feel. The pace of it is slow and hypnotic.. This allows it to inject its anxious energy in a subliminal way. Staying with it however, revealed a highly original and sadistic story. The ending hits with confident panache. A dark puzzle box of a film that is undoubtedly niche and delivers on the nightmares.

I'm not sure who is adding all the negative star ratings and if they have actually seen the movie and genuinely didn't like it or are just trolling, but as with most of the other people who actually wrote reviews, I would definitely recommend watching this film if you like movies that are dark, highly-atmospheric, and artistic slow-burn suspense (almost a sort of mythic-Japanese-metropolitan-noir type feeling. Subtle, dark-fantasy cyberpunk, maybe).

I don't usually watch horror movies, but I found this movie highly enjoyable because it presented an atmospheric, artistic and motif-heavy exploration of the horrors of living in a soulless metropolis full of lost people, without resorting to jump scares and chases scenes. If you want "I'm scared to turn out the lights after watching this" type J-Horror, this ain't it. If you want a thoughtful meditation on the kind of casual cruelty and isolation that can characterize modern life in a mega-city, seen through a rich and immersive horror-type-lens that elevates the mundane and mixes it with the mythic, this is the movie for you.

Effigy is, on the surface, a simple story about a woman's gradual mental/moral spiraling. Much of the runtime is spent on atmospheric thematic development rather than detailed or dramatic plot points. The slow-burn is kept from being boring, however, both through the immersive visuals and sound, and, even more so, through the layering of symbols, analogies, motifs, and myths on top of the base storyline.

Imagine a dark version of "Drive My Car," but instead of 3-hours of pretentious monotone reading of Chekhov lines that are hard to understand out of context, it layers in an easily accessible Hans Christian Andersen-type haunting fairy-tale on top of the main story. This, combined with repeating visual motifs, ties things together and creates a feeling of inevitability-the protagonists mental and moral decay feels tied to the physical and social decay of the world around her. I would compare it a little bit to AMC's "The Killing," or "Bird Box Barcelona," - a focus on the decaying fringes of a cyberpunk-metropolis, mixed with a heavy dose of poetic and mythic imagery and symbols.

This is a movie about, to some extent, the struggle for meaning amidst an uncaring world, and this struggle operates on multiple levels, from mythic fairy tale to gritty undercity drama. The greatest impact of this movie is in its seamless mixing of all of these levels together.

For a relatively low-budget independent film, the quality is extremely high, the writing and acting is enjoyable and believable, the visuals are somehow both immersive and claustrophobic, the sound and music rival any big-budget Hollywood movie in terms of quality, and the concept is unique, creative, and memorable.

There is not a huge amount of plot, the pace is a little slow at times, and the budget constraints shows in some of the CGI sequences, but the expertly crafted use of motifs and layered stories, combined with the immersive atmosphere make it an enjoyable and memorable film if you are up for the sort of immersive suspense that is horrific, but not shocking, artistic, but not pretentious, and low-budget, but not low-quality.