Maniac Landscapes (2019) San Francisco International Film Festival

Don't let the simplicity of the image fool you this plant hides a truncheon 

Matthew Wade is again making trippy and disturbing animations with MANIAC LANDSCAPES. His synopsis goes as follows: “As disembodied cried move through the rooms of a house, their emotional intensity provokes a reanimation of the dead, cosmic shifts, and the manipulations of time and place.” I'm not sure if that's wholly right but it is deeply disturbing.

Wade is a wickedly talented filmmaker. He loves to mess with our heads. Things that seem simple suddenly turn dark or unexpected not so much because of what we are seeing but because he marries these seemingly unremarkable images, say some abstract plants growing, with a slowly building soundtrack which changes the feel of everything. By the time MANIAC LANDSCAPES ends you've traveled in space and time with out a ship or drugs and you no longer feel as you did when it started, the hair has stood up on the back of your neck and things feel different.

I have no idea how you will react to the film but I assure you that when the film is done you will know you have seen something that has changed how you felt eight minutes before in a profound way.

Highly recommended

It is premiering at the San Francisco International Film Festival on April 13 and 16. It will behaving its international premier in Scotland at the amazing Alchemy Film & Arts Festival on May 5.