I’m being serious here watching the film there will come a point where the film will simply overwhelm you and leave you by the wayside unable to keep up. This film is a case of too much of a good thing being way too much, and you’ll feel like you’ve just eaten the entire Godiva chocolate factory and you’re moving on to Hershey’s with Dove following right after that.
Half way into the film I was broken and done. I wanted to throw up my hands and ask for the film to be paused so that I could pick it up later. There was simply too much going on, too much to take in and process and my brain exploded.
I say all of that in the best possible way.
The plot of the film has a man returning home from a business trip to find his door locked and chained and his wife missing. After calling the police and finding that they won’t help him, he begins to search the building for her, and thus running into the various residents some of whom have strange stories to tell.
Taking all of the tropes of the 1970’s giallo films, even to the point of lifting bits of the scores from several of them, the film takes the notions of amped up visuals, manipulated soundtracks, and dream like logic to the nth degree to play out a film that is disorienting, overwhelming and amazing in equal parts. There are psychological impressions, digressions, split screen, a killer who isn’t seen except for his or her hands, and a lots of equating sex with death.
Most of it doesn’t make a lick of sense except in the moment- but so long as you’re in that moment with the film it’s a glorious magical moment.
I feel I should mention something that I ran across after I saw the film and that is a kind of negative feeling toward the film in some quarters. People don’t like the fact that the film is very much form over substance. There is a feeling that the story doesn’t make enough sense and people feel disappointed at the end. To be honest I completely understand the feeling, but at the same time that’s what many films in the genre are, they are form over substance- just less so than this homage.
I really did love this film. It’s a funny scary thriller that just pulls you along. I also freely admit that I was largely done by the half-way point. As I said its too much of a good thing. I found I started to close my eyes simply to end the sense of drowning.
If you like giallo films. If you like films that do wondrous things that only film can do and if you don’t mind things being more about the form, I highly recommend this film.
Put it on my lists of finds of the year
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