Horsehead

EDIT-HAD TO DELETE Jacobs Ladder in my title, apparently when writing a review you can't enter another movie in the title. I wanted to to catch the attention of all lovers of psychological, intelligent and symbolic thrillers or you may miss this gem altogether. This is a rarity, and I call all intelligent psychological slow burns a rarity. Eschewing unnecessary gore, they play with your mind and you just can't shake it even days later. Aside from Jacobs Ladder, I also love Stay, Breaking Dawn, Leave, The Sixth Sense The Others, The Machinist, Existenz, these are all 5 stars to me. Now I have this one to add. A young woman Jessica who for years suffers reoccurring nightmares comes back home to France (I believe from Britain) to her mothers house to attend her grandmother's funeral. The grandmother lived with her mother. The deceased grandmother is in the room next to Jessica's room. Jessicas nightmares are horrifying and full of symbolism. Some background information-Because of these nightmares she has been taking a course in college; the subject of the course is lucid dreaming (where the dreamer knows she is dreaming and can take control of those dreams). Apparently she is good friends with the professor and I believe dating him. Back to present day in France her nightmares get clearer and more frightful as the time of her grandma's wake approaches. She contacts her teacher/boyfriend to find out what do these nightmares mean and why are the same symbols in all of them? She wants to find out for herself and through her teacher's/boyfriend's instructions forces her way (by drugs) to an REM state. The atmosphere is thrilling, actors are top notch and the visions are frightening and gorgeous at the same time. You need to pay attention to this movie as there are many subtleties you will not want to miss. This can be considered a psychological thriller, suspense thriller, mind bending, whatever, but it is an intelligent movie that will grab you and you will be left thinking about it for days. The atmosphere and visuals are outstanding. The acting is superb. You will not be disappointed, and hey, its on instant streaming now so watch!

Please note that this review discusses details of the plot. The original (French) title of the film is "Fievre", fever in English. This is the first feature film of French director Romain Basset, who is a young disciple of directors Jean Rollin, Dario Argento and Mario Bava. For as long as she can remember, Jessica has been troubled by terrifying nightmares. She is threatened by a patriarchal, horse-headed monstrosity, who is wielding a key-shaped lance. Compelled to study the psychoanalysis of dreams, Jessica experiments in a controlled dreaming technique. She has long been estranged from Catelyn, her mother, and Rose, her grandmother. When Rose commits suicide, Jessica has to return to her childhood home. Catelyn is reticent about Rose's death, and the past of the family. In Rose's bizarre sketchbooks, Jessica discovers images corresponding to her own nightmares. She is suddenly taken ill with a high fever, but she persists in her controlled dreaming endeavor. In her dreaming, she encounters young Rose, who advises her to flee the horse-headed "Cardinal", follow the "Wolf", and find the "Key". Step by agonizing step, Jessica unlocks the terrible secrets of their past: Jessica's grandfather was a sadistic and tyrannical clergyman. When Catelyn conceived out of wedlock, the clergyman forced her to give birth in secret, inside the local chapel. Jessica's twin sister died at childbirth. The clergyman banished Catelyn and the infant from his house. In the culmination of the film, delirious Jessica dreams that her tortured, guilt-ridden mother stabs her, and she returns in kind. She is now in possession of the "Key". Inside the chapel, she turns the "Key" into a lance, and mortally wounds the "Cardinal". She then witnesses a rebirth of her dead, twin sister. They recognize each other, and embrace in a final, spiritual merging. The film works effectively on a symbolic level: The male, virility principle of the horse-headed "Cardinal", the primal, liberating energies of the "Wolf", the hidden sexual intercourse of the "Key", the vagina-like doorway which hides the birth, and so on. Christian concepts and imagery are directly associated with sexual oppression, fear and pain. Be warned that the film places in a very disturbing, violent and nihilistic context the "Immaculate Conception", the "Crucifixion", the "Holy Communion", etc. Shot in a picturesque town of central France, the film's dream sequences are a stunning visual experience. The sound track is appropriately hypnotic. The blu-ray extras include an Inside Horsehead-Behind the Scenes featurette, four short films by director Romain Basset: Bloody Current Exchange, Light Drowning, Remy, Faces & Landscapes of Beaujolais, and three film trailers: "House with 100 Eyes" (2013), "Der Samurai" (2014) and "De Behandeling" (The Treatment) (2014).

This was an absolutely beautiful and mind-bending film, and as an avid student of lucid dreaming techniques myself, I can say there are some very accurate portrayals of details of the dream realm. You definitely need to be watching this in a dedicated manner; don't watch while playing on your phone or doing anything distracting. Some parts are written in a way that you won't be sure if it's a dream or reality, and that's okay, I believe it is as intended. The viewer is supposed to descend into the same uncertainty and strangeness as Jessica, and if you watch the film as if you are dreaming yourself, it can take you on an intense journey. There are copious amounts of gore, violent imagery, and nudity, but they do not distract from the story and in fact add to the visceral, exposed feeling we often experience in dreams. I wish there had been a little more closure at the end, but it still works, and leaves you with that feeling of wanting more after a particularly enthralling dream. It can be quite difficult to portray dreams in film or any other medium, and this is easily now one of my favorite movies, because a subject matter that is quite intimate and personal to me is depicted so well.

The poster art made me think I would be getting something else... less gory, more thoughtful with a younger, more innocent protagonist, but I put my disappointment aside. The only good things about the movie are: 1. Some magnificent visuals which are unfortunately completely ruined by terrible choppy editing. 2. The mother's performance which was incredible. She plays a much younger, pregnant woman throughout most of the film (cuz, you know, dreams) which should have been ridiculous, but she was so good it really worked. At another time she makes out with her young daughter (dreams) and she was chilling, sexy and creepy all at once in that scene. 3. The theme of mother/daughter hate is fascinating and almost never explored in film, unfortunately this film stinks. The worst parts are: 1. Ms. Lilly-Fleur's performance. She ruined the movie, just vacuous, emotionless, awful. Clearly hired for her looks. 2. The plot is stupid and boring and leaves us with questions probably because the answers are unintelligible or they didn't bother to come up with any. What could have happened in the church that the priest (whatever he's called) would be so ashamed of? What was with the very odd grandfather and his very odd religion? If the grandfather was so dominating and evil how did his daughter so easily get away from him, raise her child alone, and still inherit from him? Who was the protagonist's real father? Could she really have grandparents that old-- looked like the picture of them was taken in the Edwardian era? We find out later that the protagonist is pregnant but... so what? That fact its promptly ignored. 3. The script. If there wasn't so much repetitive junk to the script the movie would have been 30-40 mins long at most and would have been better. 4. The editing, of course.

I really love movies that challenge me and make want to analyze, wtf! Just happened. The sad thing here, is that like I don't feel compelled to watch this movie again. Visually it works. It sets the mood and tells a story. In terms of acting MacColl does a great job and Pointeaux? She has her moments where she shines and then she has moments where she's just ok. The plot is interesting, but gets muddled as the movie progresses. It's starts like it's gonna be this type of movie, no wait it's this type of movie, backtrack on that it's going to be this, that it made me feel that the movie drags. 3/4 into it I was, is it close to be done? I think the issue here is the script. Acting is good, visual are great, but I just could care less for the Jessica character and any other characters for that matter, except for MacColl's character. This is why it felt hit and miss all along the movie. You have this great visual and then it drags. A great display by MacColl and then it drags. A new plot element is introduced, then it gets forgotten, then it makes it's return, after other things appeared and by that time, you're just like, oh yeah, ok. And it's sad, because it's brought on with great visuals. So, if you have some time and fan of visuals, then this will work for you. Other than that, it's just ok. Concept is great, but the way it gets presented, it just didn't manage to captivate one.

I'm afraid I couldn't finish this movie. I gave up after about a half hour. While there's a few interesting visuals in the dream sequences, the family drama at the center of the story is dull and slow. Maybe it gets better in the second half, but I just couldn't get invested enough in trite family angst to get there. The lead isn't much more than a pretty face. I feel like it either needed a little more sincerity and heart in the family relationships, or commit fully to the bizarre atmosphere of the dream world.

Horsehead is a trippy movie. The style in which it is filmed can't be put into words. The way they filmed the Scottish Canal was nicely done, what they did with the Roman Catholic church was creepy and nicely done. The outside of it makes you want to go to Scotland to see it. The rest of the effects are wild and I would go into detail but it will spoil it, this is a movie you have to view for yourself because trippy and may mean different things to different people. Without any spoilers here's a rough plot outline: Jessica lives, on her own. Then she gets a phone call about her grandmother's death. She goes home for the funeral and things become wild. And you don't know what's real and what's not. 10/10 stars. Everyone needs to see this thriller. If you want to see a movie about a Horsehead God that makes no sense you should see this movie.

With this film, the French have regained their reputation for using cameras, film stock and Gallic wryness to produce true cinematic WTF. I almost had the feeling the thick, often misleading symbolism (horse is the mother, wolf is the father -- follow the wolf) and bizarre emotional outbursts were there to persuade me to review and re-review this muddled masterpiece, upon which I would surely mine out a few details that would have brought the whole thing together for me. But alas, this is not that kind of movie. Lilly-Fleur Pointeaux seems to put out hints of Teri Garr, even non-comedy Lindsay Lohan, but at times it appears it's the movie, not the nightmare behind her eyes, that she is trying to escape. Very arty film, if you like that sort of thing. Blu-Ray is definitely the right medium for such an image-intensive production. (There's a pretty grueling abortion scene near the end -- perfect for flipping on when you want neighborhood proselytizers to leave their mags and have a nice day.) I also have issues (SPOILER ALERT) with the heroine's death or prolonged out-of-body experience near the end. Did she have to die in order to defeat Horsehead, and take away his (or her) power? Picture Lynch meets Cocteau, at seventy miles per hour head-on.

Vorab Lieferung, Versand und Verpackung wie immer top. Zum Film selbst: Wie schon in der Überschrift erwähnt, hat mich der Film sehr stark an "Der Tod weint rote Tränen" (welch furchtbarer Titel) erinnert. Da ich genau diesen Film schon sehr genial fand, liegt es natürlich nahe dass auch Horsehead zu einem meiner Favoriten zählt. Horsehead ist kein Film für den Mainstream. Es ist ein typischer Fall von Love-it or Hate-it. Wer nach einem Standard-Horrorfilm sucht bei dem er lediglich die Augen aufhalten muss ist hier definitiv falsch. Horsehead ist ein Film mit Story; zum mitdenken; nur Bilder anschauen funktioniert hier einfach nicht. Ja, der Film ist zeitweise anstrengend, aber genau das macht (zumindest für mich) einen wirklich guten Film aus. Wenn ich nur dumm in den Fernseher schauen möchte ohne mein Hirn zu benutzen schau ich nachmittags RTL ;) Horsehead enthält (im Gegensatz zu den Filmen die ich sonst schaue) wenig Gewalt und blutige Szenen. Die wenigen die enthalten sind waren für mich eher Nebensache, da der Film eindeutig mit der Story punktet. Die vielen, schnell wechselnden Bilder haben durchaus eine verstörende Wirkung. Horsehead ist ein Film auf den man sich voll einlassen muss. Und man sollte eine Vorliebe für genau solche Filme haben.

ein gut gemachter Film

Enter into the dreams of a young girl and discover a dark world... this horror film transpires originality and visual awe. A gem that world cinema distributors still have to discover...

Jessica und ihre Alpträume bilden die Rahmenhandlung, die mit einer fiktiv-konstruierten Familiengeschichte in Verbindung gebracht wird. Das Ganze ist weder schlüssig, noch überzeugend, verschiedenste Klischees werden bedient: ein abstruses Pferd mit Krallen, ein Wolf, hier und da ein wenig Blut, etwas "Gruselstimmung" mit "Gruselmusik" verfeinert, minimale Andeutungen und Metaphern, die eine z.T. erotische Stimmung suggerieren soll. Anklänge aus den verschiedensten Schubladen entnommen, wurden zusammengefügt, bzw. aneinander gestückelt. Aus keiner der Schubladen hat man jedoch alles herausgenommen, lediglich überall etwas an der Oberfläche gekratzt. Das war's und mehr auch nicht. Man wollte offenbar einem Trend folgen und auch einmal einen Film zum Thema machen, es mangelte allerdings an Tatkraft, Wagnis und Einfallsreichtum. Schade!