october movies: the last will and testament of rosalind leigh
Hi, internet!
It's October, so I think I'm going to try and review a couple horror movies every weekend. A mixture of new and old stuff, stuff I've seen a lot, mediocre stuff on Netflix, things that are still in theatres...whatever I end up watching.
So, whatever, let's do this thing.
The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, 2012 - w. Rodrigo Gudiño; d. Rodrigo Gudiño
Streaming on Netflix
It's 60 degrees and rainy here today, so I wanted to watch a horror movie while eating my lunch before I built a bookcase. I had a rec, but the movie in question wasn't available as a rental on Amazon, nor streaming for free on Netflix or Hulu, so I ended up flipping through the "similar to this title" and opening a few things that looked interesting. I already had this one in my queue and the reviews on Amazon weren't terrible, so I decided to go for it.
General Plot: Leon returns to his mother's house after her death. He broke contact with her some years before after a childhood that got rough after his father killed himself, possibly in connection to some strange religious cult that his parents were affiliated with. Rosalind narrates the film in the form of a her will, a direct message to Leon that laments his distance and dances around the strange things in his childhood.
The house is full of strange artifacts, both statues and paintings of a religious nature and the antiques that Leon sells for a living, his mother being the mysterious buyer who kept snatching up his finds as soon as they went on the market via a third party. As he wanders through them, he continually gets pulled into distant memories and strange encounters that may be hallucinations or may be something else reaching out for him.
I warmed to this movie more as it went on. At the start, I thought the narration was too heavy handed and the plot was moving too slowly. As the movie went on, I started to enjoy it more. I put a lot of that on the setting--the house full of antiques is strange during the day, but absolutely terrifying at night. The director uses the darkness well--whenever you can't tell exactly what's going on during a scene in the dark, it's deliberate and not the result of poor lighting/direction/set design. The placement of some of the objects leads to absolutely perfect shadows in the dim light, and the strange textures and shapes of doors and windows works so well to create atmosphere.
The creepiness of the story builds over time--the more time Leon spends in the house, the more elements come to light that leave you on the edge of your seat. Between the placement of objects, the hints of Leon and Rosalind's backstory, a mysterious visit from a neighbor, and something stalking around outside of the house, the tension ratchets up slowly. There are only a few jump scares; much of the horror factor relies on the setting and atmosphere.
That all being said, while the movie was decidedly creepy, it was ultimately disappointing. It asks a lot of questions and hints at a lot of strange things, almost none of which are addressed. The strange things that Leon sees are never explained. The strange things in his past are never explained. This weird candle thing that's a recurring memory/reference is never explained. The movie remains creepy to the end, but a sort of aimless creepy that's based entirely on what you see and not the actual plot of the film, which just meanders away at the end.
In conclusion: Not a bad way to spend a rainy, overcast afternoon, but not necessarily satisfying, either. Points to the actor (Leon is the only on-screen character), director, set designer, and lighting designer, but the script needed serious work.
It's October, so I think I'm going to try and review a couple horror movies every weekend. A mixture of new and old stuff, stuff I've seen a lot, mediocre stuff on Netflix, things that are still in theatres...whatever I end up watching.
So, whatever, let's do this thing.
The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, 2012 - w. Rodrigo Gudiño; d. Rodrigo Gudiño
Streaming on Netflix
It's 60 degrees and rainy here today, so I wanted to watch a horror movie while eating my lunch before I built a bookcase. I had a rec, but the movie in question wasn't available as a rental on Amazon, nor streaming for free on Netflix or Hulu, so I ended up flipping through the "similar to this title" and opening a few things that looked interesting. I already had this one in my queue and the reviews on Amazon weren't terrible, so I decided to go for it.
General Plot: Leon returns to his mother's house after her death. He broke contact with her some years before after a childhood that got rough after his father killed himself, possibly in connection to some strange religious cult that his parents were affiliated with. Rosalind narrates the film in the form of a her will, a direct message to Leon that laments his distance and dances around the strange things in his childhood.
The house is full of strange artifacts, both statues and paintings of a religious nature and the antiques that Leon sells for a living, his mother being the mysterious buyer who kept snatching up his finds as soon as they went on the market via a third party. As he wanders through them, he continually gets pulled into distant memories and strange encounters that may be hallucinations or may be something else reaching out for him.
I warmed to this movie more as it went on. At the start, I thought the narration was too heavy handed and the plot was moving too slowly. As the movie went on, I started to enjoy it more. I put a lot of that on the setting--the house full of antiques is strange during the day, but absolutely terrifying at night. The director uses the darkness well--whenever you can't tell exactly what's going on during a scene in the dark, it's deliberate and not the result of poor lighting/direction/set design. The placement of some of the objects leads to absolutely perfect shadows in the dim light, and the strange textures and shapes of doors and windows works so well to create atmosphere.
The creepiness of the story builds over time--the more time Leon spends in the house, the more elements come to light that leave you on the edge of your seat. Between the placement of objects, the hints of Leon and Rosalind's backstory, a mysterious visit from a neighbor, and something stalking around outside of the house, the tension ratchets up slowly. There are only a few jump scares; much of the horror factor relies on the setting and atmosphere.
That all being said, while the movie was decidedly creepy, it was ultimately disappointing. It asks a lot of questions and hints at a lot of strange things, almost none of which are addressed. The strange things that Leon sees are never explained. The strange things in his past are never explained. This weird candle thing that's a recurring memory/reference is never explained. The movie remains creepy to the end, but a sort of aimless creepy that's based entirely on what you see and not the actual plot of the film, which just meanders away at the end.
In conclusion: Not a bad way to spend a rainy, overcast afternoon, but not necessarily satisfying, either. Points to the actor (Leon is the only on-screen character), director, set designer, and lighting designer, but the script needed serious work.