★ 3 / 10
The revelation of the joker.
DoorsofDylan
Taking a look at the line-up for the online part of the Abertoir Film Festival,I discovered that an online Q&A was soon to take place for one of the titles…
Taking a look at the line-up for the online part of the Abertoir Film Festival,I discovered that an online Q&A was soon to take place for one of the titles, leading to me rushing towards witnessing the revelation.
View on the film:
Detailed in the Q&A that he had to direct over Zoom for parts of production, and that the cast and crew kept their spirits up, by joking around on Zoom calls, director Chris W. Mitchell & I, Adonis (2021-also reviewed) cinematographer Joris Bulstra house Jacob and his mum in measured mid-shots displaying the comfy, warm surroundings paired with the loving, trusting bond shared between Jacob and his mother.
Seeping fractures into the relationship as Jacob (played by a very good Victor Low, who delivers the dialogue in a welcoming manner, which builds a false sense of calm) dives deep into the dark web, Mitchell washes away the icy grounded atmosphere, for ill-judged religious Horror chills of candle-wax red neon lights dripping across the screen as jagged hand-held tracking shots run with Jacob into a hell fire.
Moving Jacob in with his mum just before Lockdown begins, the screenplay by Mitchell initially locks on a slow-burn, grounded approach, via Jacob increasingly becoming obsessed with protecting his mum from covid, to the point where he lies/ covers up when other family members raise concerns.
Introducing an unexplained voice coming from the computer as Jacob starts researching long covid, Mitchell shoves in a terrible move into religious Horror, which wipes all rationality from Jacob within an instant, as he wraps himself around the belief that Hell on Earth is about to take place, which Mitchell enacts, by openly lifting the ending of Joker (2019-also reviewed), as Jacob is cheered as a hero by those rioting across the city, and he looks up to Heaven.
Final view on the film:
A failed joke of a revelation.
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★ 3 / 10
Likely To Confuse The North American Audience.
meddlecore
When the cornavirus hits, a computer repairman becomes ultra-paranoid, and returns home to take care of his mother, by shutting her in the house, and…
When the cornavirus hits, a computer repairman becomes ultra-paranoid, and returns home to take care of his mother, by shutting her in the house, and preventing her from making contact with the outside world.
He spends most of his time "doing his own research" and ends up down the rabbit hole of apocalyptic bible conspiracy...which acts to drive him further into isolation...eventually resulting in a series of paranoid delusions, which manifest themselves in the form of audible and visual hallucinations.
A dark entity from the internet convinces him that he has been chosen by God, to read the signs necessary to save the world from apocalyptic devastation.
You can tell the whole thing is euro-centric, as he never buys into the whole qanon, covid-19 is a hoax, narrative...rather, quite the opposite...as he thinks even healthy people have something called "long covid".
While all this is going on, he is also being investigated for stealing something from his job, which he quit in order to "take care" (read: imprison) his mother.
So with the real world closing in on his isolated reality...his two worlds are about to collide.
Everything goes downhill when his sister comes to visit, and tells him she has had covid.
From this, his mother ends up getting sick...which acts to reinforce his beliefs...and push him deeper into his delusions.
Inevitably driving things to take a dark- and weird- turn, you'd never suspect.
Even if it is all just in his head.
The whole thing is much more of a psychological thriller, than it is a horror film, in my opinion.
And I think it is likely to confuse most North American audiences.
But it's easy enough to see what they were going for with the film.
However, it's just not very good.
Especially considering certain aspects of the subplot never come to fruition, and seem to be abandoned in the end...which comes off as incredibly rushed and abrupt.
3 out of 10.
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5.4/10
152
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this prolly a bit too real for some of the alt-right bigots that infest the comments section on this site...