it's just so night and fucking day from what I set out for
Yes, it's two horror movie reviews! Not very extensive ones, I'm afraid, but still!
Don't you just hate those movies where dumb Americans go off to some far-off foreign locale and end up getting sacrificed by some deceitful Paganistic locals to some dark and primitive nether-god? So do I! And so does The Shrine. I thought The Shrine was going to be one of those movies until about the 2/3 point, and I kept watching anyway because the acting is decent for a shallow little horror movie and I was curious, despite my distaste for the set-up, about the eventual reveal. But surprise! Things are not what you would expect them to be.
Now none of this is going to change your life. It's not Candyman or Japanese or anything. It would be a great entry in the After Dark Horror Fest or a great episode of Masters of Horror or Fear Itself, if those shows were still alive. A neat little short story. A worthy contribution to horror as fun schlock.
Absentia is a strange beast, completely lacking in horror movie context and almost directionless. The characters and setting are great, and refreshing for horror - two young adult sisters (one a former drug addict and one pregnant) just muddling through life in working class California. Nothing glamorous. The pregnant one has a husband who's been missing for seven years, and is declaring him dead in absentia. She's also having horrible "lucid dreams" about him. The former drug addict has now found Jesus. You think it's setting up to be a demonic possession type thing. It's not. Really, really not.
This one feels much less put together than The Shrine. It is flawed. And considering what it turns out to be about - the tone is bizarre, subdued and unsettling and sad, something more befitting a ghost story perhaps. But I feel like Absentia is both going for and accomplishes more, emotionally/intellectually, than The Shrine. Probably because I am a sucker for horror movies that try to be artsy and sensitive. But there really is something here, particularly about the rationalizations we tell ourselves about people that go missing.
Both on Netflix Watch Instantly.
Don't you just hate those movies where dumb Americans go off to some far-off foreign locale and end up getting sacrificed by some deceitful Paganistic locals to some dark and primitive nether-god? So do I! And so does The Shrine. I thought The Shrine was going to be one of those movies until about the 2/3 point, and I kept watching anyway because the acting is decent for a shallow little horror movie and I was curious, despite my distaste for the set-up, about the eventual reveal. But surprise! Things are not what you would expect them to be.
Now none of this is going to change your life. It's not Candyman or Japanese or anything. It would be a great entry in the After Dark Horror Fest or a great episode of Masters of Horror or Fear Itself, if those shows were still alive. A neat little short story. A worthy contribution to horror as fun schlock.
Absentia is a strange beast, completely lacking in horror movie context and almost directionless. The characters and setting are great, and refreshing for horror - two young adult sisters (one a former drug addict and one pregnant) just muddling through life in working class California. Nothing glamorous. The pregnant one has a husband who's been missing for seven years, and is declaring him dead in absentia. She's also having horrible "lucid dreams" about him. The former drug addict has now found Jesus. You think it's setting up to be a demonic possession type thing. It's not. Really, really not.
This one feels much less put together than The Shrine. It is flawed. And considering what it turns out to be about - the tone is bizarre, subdued and unsettling and sad, something more befitting a ghost story perhaps. But I feel like Absentia is both going for and accomplishes more, emotionally/intellectually, than The Shrine. Probably because I am a sucker for horror movies that try to be artsy and sensitive. But there really is something here, particularly about the rationalizations we tell ourselves about people that go missing.
Both on Netflix Watch Instantly.