POMO

After an excellent, psychological and mysterious start with all the cards thoroughly hidden under the table, this film turns out to be a cheap murderous game with poorly distributed sympathies between the characters and the stupid plot development. And the by far most interesting and best played character is the first to exit the game. [Sitges FF]

This wonderful low-budget flick features sincere dialogue, sober acting performances and a great idea of how to play with the genre experience of the audience and their hearts. It’s all about the screenplay!

Is Vivarium a cardboard wannabe-art allegory of the cycle of society’s consumerist functioning? Probably. But most of the time it just thumps awkwardly to a rhythm it doesn’t understand and doesn’t know what to do with. [Sitges FF]

It’s probably all made up; its creators would otherwise (among other “otherwises”) never have chosen a Hungarian cinema (which allegedly burned down) as supposedly the only place where the film was ever screened in 1988. But it’s a good (and not badly executed) idea to turn old trash material into an appealing genre movie with an occult demonic aura. Unless that old trash material wasn’t also filmed the day before yesterday. [Sitges FF]

Blind Spot is a cool idea turned into an unfortunately boring drama that gives up on developing any of its potentially intriguing plots and remains a small-scale, mournful portrait of an outsider in a depersonalized urban environment. [Sitges FF]

It’s not that I wouldn’t like to be called Pupi Pomo, but these 98 minutes of talking, talking and yet more talking, all in the name of solving a mystery that doesn’t really affect the main characters, were just too much. The horror scenes are done and over with in about three minutes and there’s zero gore. I did enjoy the retro stylization and atmosphere, though. [Sitges FF]

Judy & Punch is an example of a badly written and directed film, whether due to the failed mix of different genres, the inability to fill the second half with something interesting or the unsatisfactory conclusion of the story. Two stars for the relatively interesting black-and-white start, but in the context of the remaining part, its bizarreness seems rather to be proof of the creators’ lack of skill rather than an intended feature. [Sitges FF]

A family in the Colombian countryside. In the woods they find a cassette recorder with eternal batteries and a recording of Mozart, in the goat’s pen they find a silent, detachedly staring Aryan boy... and a Terrence Malick-style meditation on the connection with nature and God and the Devil begins. Luz is packed with scenes and thoughts about everything and nothing that may or may not mean something and may or may not be related. In the theater, I was sat in the row right behind the film’s creators and seeing how thoughtfully and with utmost seriousness they watched their work while other viewers were rising from their seats and leaving was even more bizarre than the film itself. Further proof of the Bible’s importance to humanity. One star for those nice image compositions. [Sitges FF]

Widescreen opulent locations, Beethoven’s "Moonlight Sonata" and a storyline worthy of a naïve short film. Or a horror film for children, but without Guillermo. Even the point offered in the epilogue, which is supposed to add something to the story, is hopelessly contrived. [Sitges FF]

A thousand things could have been done a little differently in The Room, and it wouldn’t have worked as well as it did. This is a perfect game with the audience that starts out (deliberately?) with the most overused “haunted house” plot, continues as a case of transparent moralizing along the lines of “be careful what you wish for”, and eventually develops into ... (Shhh! I’m not going to spoil it for you!). It is sophisticated bordering on overly contrived, but in terms of logic, it is a beautifully functional and multi-dimensional film, moreover with a strong social message and some light existential undertones (the loss of a child, aging, the inability to change one’s fate). This would have been admirable even if it had been a book. And Volckman told it flawlessly through filmmaking! [Sitges FF]