Celluloid Scream is Sheffield’s only annual horror film festival. This year featuring reviews of Evil Eye – a gruesome Mexican fantasy horror and Watcher, a gripping horror starring a familiar face from the genre.
Watcher:
A gripping and gorgeous-looking slow burn starring the fabulous horror icon of It Follows and The Guest, Maika Monroe. Julia moves into a Bucharest apartment with her husband for his thriving career whilst she takes a break from hers. Immediately, Julia feels isolated due to the language barrier, exacerbated by the fact her husband and his friends speak in their native tongues persistently in her presence. With little to do during the day, Julia begins to suspect she is being watched by an ominous figure in the opposite building.
The cinematography in Watcher is what really elevates the film above that of your conventional stalker thriller. Reminiscent at times of Fellini and especially Kubrick’s The Shining, given how many symmetrically framed shots there are throughout, particularly with the interiors. Director Chloe Okuno understands the inherent menace in wide spartan spaces, with Monroe being framed centrally down tall corridors, against wide beige curtains and alone at a seemingly deserted metro station. Visual signifiers are used to great effect to enhance the sense of growing emotional and physical isolation Julia undergoes; several early scenes feature her in bright red dresses against bland, pale-coloured buildings and hallways.
Another standout performance is that of Burn Gorman, whose chiselled features and subdued physical mannerisms create an ambiguous aura of menace. This is not just style over substance, however, and all the characters, even the minor ones, react and engage as real people would in such a scenario. For most of its running time, it is unclear whether Julia is merely succumbing to the mental strain of her situation.
Whilst breaking no new ground, Watcher executes simplicity with real excellence, subtlety and style.
4/5
Evil Eye:
A gruesome and mostly engaging Mexican fantasy horror, Evil Eye owes a great deal to the work of Guillermo del Toro and Mario Bava.
A mother and father move their children, Nala and the sickly Luna, out to a remote mansion in rural Mexico to stay with their grandmother whilst the parents leave to seek alternative medical treatment for Luna. Things quickly turn sinister, with the grandmother slowly becoming more and more abusive towards Nala. After a creepy and rather long-winded fairy tale relayed to them by the maid, Nala begins to suspect her grandmother is a blood-sucking witch!
Director Isaac Ezban keeps the thing rattling along at a solid pace, despite getting slowed down now and again by several hefty exposition dumps. The overreliance on dream scares, sometimes several in a row, eventually numbs the audience’s susceptibility to further scares. At times, the exposition becomes so convoluted with too many participants that one could easily be forgiven for tuning out. When the threads just about come together at the end, it is effectively surprising and horrifying.
The practical special effects are to be commended, never over-relied upon and always used at the appropriate times. It’s a perfectly decent if slightly uneven creature feature, which may not challenge horror aficionados but will certainly satisfy.
3/5
A big thank you to Robert Nevitt for organising the screenings at the Celluloid Screams (@celluloidscreams) for Exposed.
