Con’s Score:2 Witches hats
A horror film with a strong female cast is an alluring prospect when you consider how well the original film was received.
Writer-Director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name) has cast Tilda Swindon (Sister Blanc), Dakota Johnson (Fiddy Shades of Grey) and has Thom York of Radiohead write the score.
The film opens with a lot of discordant scenes. A dying mother; a girl, Patricia, is desperate to see her doctor. Protests line the streets of Berlin over a hijacking which gives this a chaotic backdrop, while a girl, Susie (Dakota Johnson) looks for the famous Markos Dance school where Madame Blanc teaches. There’s a vacancy, as Patricia has gone missing and so does Olga, who storms off accusing them of being witches. There’s a lot more here than meets the eye. In fact, seeif you can recognise the psychologist.
Director Luca Guadagnino directs this like a low budget 70s movie, which suits when the story setting and the quality: outdated. There are lots of pointless shots, cutaways and strange edits. Some are red herrings and others are just dead ones. This descends into a self indulgent mess.
He takes responsibility for the screenplay so I’ll have to credit him with being rubbish at that too. The scenes between his leads are banal and there are many pointless scenes and characters. After a dance sequence, Sister Blanc asks Susie how she felt: “It felt like what it must feel like to fuck.” “Do you mean fuck a man?” “No. I was thinking of an animal…“
Some may find this visceral; I found it vacuous.
Every scene in the dance school has random characters lurking in the background. Every character seems to have gone to ‘looking pensively in the distance’ training. Tilda Swindon likes taking gambles, but this is one that didn’t pay off.
The horror comes through some gore and it tries to be psychological, but it telegraphs all its punches, and what was scary in the 70s, is pretty passé now. A film maker should only tell stories they need to tell, not make films to show off how clever they think they are. Self indulgence is never a good reason for any endeavour.
Con Nats, Theatre Now
