Zachar_Laskewicz Reviews

Under the Dome (2013–2015)

UNDER THE DOME for television?

[8/10 · 29 May 2014]

I like Stephen King's writing style; if infuriating in that his rather one-sided super evil and sometimes extremely nasty and violent characters are set against a set of far nicer individuals who may have to overcome enormous difficulties while the plot of the novel unravels towards its extremely exciting conclusion. In the book Big jim Denny is a power hungry psychopath from the very beginning; 'Barbie' is already attempting to escape the town when the Dome suddenly thunders into existence. But his reasons for escape are far more innocuous than in the television version which portrays him straight off as a possible killer with secrets he wants to kept hidden. The television version, in other words, is simpler, doesn't involve anywhere near the complexity of the power relationships that built up with the military attempting to communicate outside the dome. The Angie of the novel is a poor girl whose only mistake was reacting in the wrong way to Big Jim's sociopath son Junior who promptly murders her, and then all her friends as they come looking for her, enjoying their cold dead unresponsive and unyielding bodies. He soon becomes a deputy and enjoys his role as cold-blooded killer; his hatred for Barbie is unrelenting and frightening. In the TV series there far less torture, rape, violence, pollution issues but especially the whole issue of the drugs crusade which is an incredibly important part of the novel. Sets of characters (such as the medical staff or perhaps the Father Coggins who also plays the funeral director, were amalmagated into single characters to make it less complex for a TV viewer (and undoubtedly more suitable for younger viewers). In my opinion, however, I think it works the other way around; what you see it easier to differentiate than what you read. The series does have many of the interesting aspects of the book and does things with them I wouldn't have expected, making it all the more interesting for me to wacht it. Still, in the end I thought I was watching a version of an extremely toned-down version of what the book was offering both in entertainment and significant thematic issues that should concern us all, corruption, drug production in the guise of someone else's interests, obsession with power; it was a metaphoric battle for power of the small village Chester's Mill of 'Lord of the Flies' proportion but with modern day plot developments such as Grenell's overcoming of her drug addiction, the crack lab finally exploding fly high revealing the true nature of the constant transmission of pre-recorded religious music that formed the guise for the lab which a city's leaders had used to amass a fortune. I also enjoyed the female preacher who no longer believes in god but helps in the scheming to fight Big Jim, get Barbie out of jail and find the communicative device that will lead to the ultimate solution of the mystery. The television version is completely different; it's fun to watch, but it's like a toned down version, either for the actors who can't do over the top psychopathy or a general desire to tone down the dramatics for a younger audience. Some of the themes of the book are quite significant and are largely ignored in the television version. Although the violent rapes by Junior and his increasingly growing groups of thug deputies are shocking, the make a point about sex, violence and the desire some women choose to love women. In the TV series this is dealt with in a non-violent but appropriate way and I'm glad King and co. are beginning to do that. Still UNDER THE DOME had a lot more to say and the metaphor within the metaphor; the 'aliens' looking through the looking glass through the humans who have once burned ants with a similar looking glass or kept them in ant farms, has far more to offer than an episode of the Twilight Zone. The TV version is certainly worth watching; I'd advise you watch the TV version first; the feel good happy version - and then read what really could happen in a polluted, radioactive enclosed pod inhabited by people who increasingly lose any connection to the reality they had. Sorry, but the book is far more fun and tell the themes with the violent imagery it deserves; the TV version is interesting and cute, and although all its characters are more ambiguous in whether or not they are truly good or bad, if you compare the two, the TV version comes across rather blandly. Still, it's so different to the book you can't help enjoying it.

John Dies at the End (2012)

Dave's WONG (so John's WITE?) - on the book and the film

[8/10 · 10 September 2013]

John Dies at the End (2012) David's Wong (…so is John Wite?) It's unusual to have seen a book and then the movie and to feel that it would've been better had you seen the film first. My impression was that I would have enjoyed the book even more if I'd seen the film first – the non-expositional straight into it approach of the film doesn't let down the contents of the book, which I tried to absorb far too fast and which was at times unnerving but as many irritating. In that respect the film becomes a fairly successful vehicle for communicating the author's ideas. Don't get me wong (ha ha); I liked the book a lot which can be described as Lovecraft through the eyes of modern youth who filter reality with the tools provided them, horror films and video games. And if there ever was a reason to explain why the book was written like it was; how it came into existence in reaction to positive creative feedback to an audience which grew from a small group very gradually. Being a creative artist myself and understanding how much of an encouragement feedback can be, and reading the author's afterword with individual thanks and gratitude to those who encouraged and supported him (just by reading his story) gives you an insight into how the story bloomed so marvelously into what must have been hell for Wong and Coscarelli to flesh out into what is essentially a pretty tight little piece of horror cinema. But in this case I imagine the partnership Wong and Coscarelli, already well known in the horror world for the Phantasm film series; that Wong would encourage rather than resist changes to his work. There are a few things in the film which could've been done better. Dr 'Monsieur' Marconi and his 2 Italian secretaries didn't come across well for me; not only was it sexist, but it was overplayed and didn't make much sense. Not that it made much more sense to me in the book; but to a book you can return. Wong is, like the delusion-forming, world-changing 'soy sauce' the main protagonists binge on to step out of time, a fairly intense experience. The special effects in the film, as well, could have been much better, and if it's makers had spent more time and money on them the experience of the film could have been truly terrifying. As is, they didn't do badly and thankfully the special effects are effectively organic and not digital. Things like Korrock (or one of his minions) speaking through the pieces of frozen meat which are so clearly pieces of plastic at the beginning makes it look a bit silly. Perhaps they were intentionally trying to set it up as if it looked like a flimsy puppet; but if the results are going to be so bad, show the puppeteers warts and all. The sudden transformation to cartoon of the resistance fighters and villagers being wiped out by monster spiders is far more successful and horrifying than a macho Marconi obliterating the manifestation of Korrock with a word. Moments like that made the film look more like Scary Movie 99 than a scary movie, so John Dies at the End is certainly more Evil Dead II than the original. Not that the book isn't funny; not by a long shot – there are moments of comic genius in the book, but they are offset by the horrific possibilities. I think that the scariest moment in the film for me was when you see the strangely masked characters who exist only to serve Korrock. A smiling pig-mask and group of manically-fascinated elderly members of the 'twin' human race was the one point I felt sufficiently grossed-out – thanks not, in fact, to anything graphic – but what they don't show. In the book, to add to what has undoubtedly turned already into a large online discussion, the moment when the communities finally meet, my wind was indeed spinning and a feeling of horror would be insufficient to describe the intense feeling of emptiness and insecurity about all the things I do or don't believe in. But I wonder how many others have found that the film and the book complement each other?

The Haunting of Julia (1977)

Straub's 'Julia' is Fully Circled . . .

[9/10 · 26 August 2013]

Peter Straub is one of my favourite writers of horror and Full Circle (aka The Haunting of Julia) (1977) is the best adaptation into film I've seen of his work. It has all the elements of a ghost story, so many in fact that on a superficial review of the exposition you could be fooled into thinking it is a clone of films involved with hauntings. Like The Changeling (1980) – a highly competent haunted house film - it involves a spectre attached to a location into which a recently bereaved character moves, just as the realisation of both plots have the main protagonists uncovering the dark secrets held by the house. It's also interesting to note that the terrible Disney adaptation of Straub called Ghost Story (based flimsily on the complex novel of the same name) tries and so dismally fails to make the extremely complex and frightening horror narrative weaved by Straub interesting precisely because they tried to turn it into the 'ghost story' it most certainly wasn't. This film, however, doesn't shy away from the horrible secrets haunting the past or any of the taboo subjects that are touched on in the book; the idea of evil children is hardly new, but suggesting a pre-pubescent child could have physical and sexual charisma to attract other children to help her perform evil deeds and sexual acts wouldn't be so easily touched upon today, in a world so horrified by the fact that children can have access to the internet and pornography, let alone commit sexual acts. This film is multi-facetted and interesting but hasn't received the attention it deserved. Watching Julia Lofting, played perfectly by Mia Farrow, being subsumed by her obsession with the evil child she is ultimately responsible for evoking, is one of growing dread. Tales of haunting like The Changeling involve resolution and restitution; this film, is filled with a dense atmosphere and a growing sense of dread. There's nothing nice, logical or justified about the resolution longed for and attained by the nasty little spectre in this film. More comparable to the Japanese Ju-On which similarly involves a malevolent spirit, almost everyone involved falls victim. The title of the film also intrigued me. I thought initially it must have had something to do with the author's intentions because I read a book with the same name. On re-watching the film, however, I noticed straightaway that the film was actually a screenplay based on an adaptation of Straub's Julia. After a little research I discovered that the book was republished with the film's title, so I imagine the two parties involved in adapting the book for the screen, attempted to redirect the attention of the audience towards the narrative, one which involves a cycle revolving around an evil child and the revenge it takes upon those who had let her down in life; I'm also reminded of the haunting shot that ends the film: the camera circles around the main character, panning to reveal the bloody and circular wound cutting Julia's throat leaving her very dead. The alternative title, The Haunting of Julia, although more descriptively accurate of the film's contents and the author's original title, is far less intriguing.

This film has been compared to Roeg's Don't Look Now (1973), and although the plot shares a few aspects, the mourning of a dead child and obsessed parents searching for a ghostly apparition, but the comparisons between the two stop there; Roeg's lingering obsession with shots of the film's location (Venice) and the physical presence of its two competent leads (Christie and Sutherland), where Don't Look Now lingers Full Circle is active in realizing a very busy plot as a great number of interesting and quirky characters created by Straub are encountered as Julia gradually uncovers her involvement in the ultimate horror of an extremely nasty child she inadvertently resurrected. Full Circle constantly tells a story, whereas Don't Look Now spends a hell of a long time teasing you into thinking you're seeing something that actually has a story worth telling. Although the book is remarkably true to Straub's novel and actually manages to fit in a great deal of the content, it has some moments of its own, like a scene early on in the London residence, where she's seen building a house of cards; as the camera closes in on Julia's face, the card house naturally topples and you see that the playing cards actually contain identical images of her dead daughter's face. Where the film does differ from the book, it does so mostly in ways that allow the complex story to be told without giving you the impression that you're being fed a lot of information. No scene is wasted in revealing Straub's narrative. The casting of Keir Dullea as the overbearing husband Magnus was an unusual choice, but in the few scenes he has he comes across sufficiently abusive. This is one variation on Straub's intended plot that I prefer; the adulterous and criminally abusive drunk whose primary interest in his wife is attaining power of attorney over her money, is the first to fall victim to the house whereas in the novel he undeservedly survives. Another thing that makes the film special is the unusually pervasive score which is both haunting and at times horrific; in any case strange in its overbearing constancy. The themes are interchanged between recorded instruments and electronic ones; when the house is dangerous the theremin-like expression of the theme dominates; it's overbearing like the atmosphere of the house in the book which is always so hot, dank and smelly. What makes this film worthwhile, however, is the fact that in spite of the dense plot the sense of horror develops slowly and aside from Magnus' early death there is little actual violence or even appearances of supernatural entities – it is implied and a sense of dread gradually leads you the horrific closing of the circle suggested by the title.

Dark Circles (2013)

On infantile weariness and uncanny resemblances...

[7/10 · 9 June 2013]

If you are interested in seeing horror films that take a particular aspect of child-rearing, one that is fear-inducing for any parent or to anyone who has any experience in raising children, you may well enjoy this underplayed film. While watching it I became quickly convinced that it was a partner film to 'Grace' (2009). Although very contrasting aspects of child-rearing are turned inside-out as permitted within the possibilities offered by the horror genre, both are relatively underplayed and with small casts; the photography is subtle and although there are sudden jolts designed to shock, they really do resemble those moments when you're so tired you literally fall asleep while you're on your feet. Or at least that is what the victimised parents keep trying to convince themselves as they become more unhinged as every hour passes without rest. Grace, in its ambiguity and horrific content, is certainly a more interesting horror film. But the actresses who play the mothers in both films resemble one another not only in looks but in their obsession with taking care of their child. After checking the background info of both films, I was initially convinced they had the same director; but on closer observation I discovered that the names differ by one letter! Paul Soter directed Grace, whereas this film was directed by Paul Soler. Watching both parents gradually descend into madness as they become deprived of sleep is done hauntingly; you quickly realise where the title comes from; not crop circles or dark spirits but the lines that form under your eyes thanks to long-term weariness. The film makes use of three sets of possibilities, and thankfully doesn't reveal too quickly which one of them is true: are they hallucinating the spectre who seems to be appearing in their house, on cameras and in reflections, is their house haunted or is there a real person threatening them? Although I haven't raised a child or been kept awake by one, I certainly know how scary it can be when you lose track of time through lack of sleep and you're no longer sure which day it is, and this film milks that given for everything it's worth. It turns out that the director of Grace and Dark Circles are entirely unrelated, just as the tidy resolution presented in this film contrasts to the horrific and unexplained horrors of Grace. Still, this film was haunting, original, well-acted and is sufficiently under-played to be worthy of more than a single glance. It doesn't have a great deal to offer, but what it does present it presents in a sufficiently haunting package to give you food for thought, which as far as I'm concerned is the primary function of any truly good horror film.

Chain Letter (2010)

A truly painful melange of inappropriate clichés, boring characters, senseless plot additions and obvious mistakes

[1/10 · 29 May 2013]

Positive criticism that's informed can help people understand better films that could be inaccessible. In the case of this film, I felt equally compelled to point out how utterly it fails in achieving any of the possible ways the genre can still positively influence our lives. This unfortunate cinematic waste of time and money is basically an extremely embarrassing collection of contemporary horror film clichés. It begins at high tempo with the immediate link to other modern-day doomsday horror-films which combine news reports with live action scenes to provide the action with some ominous credence. You learn quickly that loud and continuous shouting does not necessarily correlate with logic and plot interest. I usually like film inter-referencing but the reflexive pointing in this film is about as awry as the plot. Worse still, this psychopath with unexplained supernatural strength is connected to some sort of 'technology-despising' cult. The bandaged psychopath (who made me think of leatherface) who can still somehow work computers proficiently despite being unable to use his bandaged covered hands despises every danger Brad Dourif warns his class about at the opening of the film (and which you've already heard to excess in the news fragments) – technology provides as much evil as it does good 'somewhere out there' he decries philosophically but without the intelligence to back it up, I can only suppose this signifies some sort of transgression upon the all-sacred set of civil liberties North American culture actually believe it's always had some kind of unique access to (for anyone not living there such accepted truths seem far less obvious); and despite making proficient use of this technology to senselessly rip apart people who are unlikable but don't really deserve it, is apparently part of an 'ancient' cult that perpetuates the Chain Letter curse. The heroine, lo and behold, makes the blindingly obvious chain-mail link connecting the deaths and finds the website with the victims on it . . . and proceeds to pass the information to no one directly. There are serious problems with the logical choices made by the characters in this film and that ultimately result in their untimely demise, but personally, I was so uninterested in the underdeveloped and uninteresting characters I didn't really find it worthwhile to attempt to find out why they'd become victims anyway. Or the ludicrous connection between the 'iron chain links', smitten perhaps in the good old-fashioned way by a black-smith and I suppose some ludicrous connection is intended here to a closer relationship with natural forces. In comparison the 'email chain letters' bring about the death of everyone who disobeys them. If this chain letter curse is ancient, what people did they use to senselessly murder? People who made used of post-boxes or pigeon-post trainers? And what links the chains themselves to the members of the cult has is truly embarrassing. Bar codes, used on selling products in our capitalistic society, one may think, are tattooed on the arms of the members to demonstrate how numbers depersonalize people. Apart from the painfully obvious reference to capitalism, it is also a clear reference to the dehumanization of the Jews who were in a similar way tattooed therefore losing any sense of self. Apart from violent and senseless deaths, the victims in this film don't suffer any of these indignities; in fact it's the members of the cult who wear the tattoos. Anyway, science fiction has been denigrating the human race by assigning numbers for generations so one wonders which genius thought that particularly lame plot addition up. I mentioned when comparing this film to 'The thaw', a montage of news reports and flashy letters and numbers flying by. At least in 'The Thaw', atmosphere was created in a claustrophobic environment and time was taken to develop the characters. Both films, interestingly, made use of faded and unhealthy looking actors of previous well-repute, namely the legendary Brad Dourif or Cuckoo's Nest glory, of Excorcist III renown and unfortunately also for playing the doll demon doll Chucky. In 'The Thaw', a plump and tired looking Val Kilmer actually fulfills a very similar function as both a guest actor and an informative role that proves later to be essential to the plot. What Kilmer did in The Thaw was at least provocative and to some degree unexpected. The dynamic and appealing young cast got you interested in what was taking place around them and if there were prophetic lectures in 'The Thaw' at least they had some relevance to what would follow. The comparative subtlety of this turkey is like comparing eating caviar to plunging yourself willingly into an aquarium of hungry piranhas. As mentioned, I usually enjoy genres that reference others constantly, even if they do so constantly; here it was painful - the intelligence of the girls in the slasher films of the seventies we find amusing today seemed to me a hell of a lot less dumb today as each and every character bar one goes on using the technology which is so obviously killing them off. This film is just loud, ridiculously violent and unpleasantly so. But honestly I cared little for the characters that died (largely because of their inability to communicate well with one another about obvious things and the stupid choices any other idiot wouldn't make). I actually cheered when the lame and uninteresting heroine was ripped in two by who I assumed were her parents as they drove in different directions only to discover that their daughter had been 'chained' between the vehicles. At least the recurrence of this scene at the end definitively puts this piece of cinematic droll to sleep permanently. Apparently the talentless young set of actors in this film took part in similarly dubious horror duds like sequels to Nightmare on Elm Street. If someone sends you a ticket to this film, throw it straight in the dustbin. Please.

Citadel (I) (2012)

Original Irish Horror with a truly contemporary twist...

[9/10 · 25 May 2013]

Although this film was made thanks to sponsorship from the Irish film board, it is far from a piece of Catholic dogma. The character who plays the priest renounces religion entirely and the film's horror is an original and recent addition to the genre. It's full of good ideas and can be related to relatively recent phenomena; the urban sprawl and the creation of enormous flatblocks outside city centres, prevalent across the United Kingdom. Most frighteningly perhaps it represents the disaffected youth who hide themselves from the enormous collection of security cameras which dictate their life. Spawns of drug selling youth hide their identity behind hoodies; who'd have guessed 20 years ago that being approached by a group of youth wearing tracksuits would be such a menacing phenomenon. In this film creative use is made of this fear. The film is far from perfect, but most important is its originality, fear is created the way it should be, as suspense, and the implication of the horror created by its themes don't require an enormous spilling of blood or disgusting special effects to disquiet and disturb you. I'm glad I saw this film; it proves again that truly good additions to the genre, don't originate from Hollywood and don't require its approval to be made.

Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

Teetering on the edge of sanity the horrors awaiting poor Jessica are worth watching

[25 May 2013]

The lurid title could easily side-track you from what is essentially an extremely frightening exploration of a woman's descent into madness. You can read it, of course, in a material sense as the title suggests; but everything in this film has the potential to signify something else entirely, and its this ambiguity that makes this film so macabre and interesting. Everything, from the killing of the 'mole' to the conclusion where Jessica is trapped in the middle of a lake on a barely floating boat, could be signifying or at least implying something else. Classic metaphors for the human consciousness are bodies of water; being trapped in one or drowning metaphors for madness. The films ambivalent set of monsters, from a strange set of undead elderly villagers to sexually promiscuous vampires, threaten Jessica and her sanity. The fact that there is no ultimate explanation for the strange set of phenomena that take place is also demonstrative of the horrific and inexplicable quality of psychotic behaviour for those suffering from schizophrenia (for those of us that have had the misfortune to experience it) or the side-effects of drugs. This film is really worth seeing

Antiviral (2012)

IS ANTIVIRAL A PROVIRAL FILM? on perfection, mutation, sickness and profit

[9/10 · 5 April 2013]

David Cronenberg once noted that although a virus could lead to the death of its host, this occurrence meant that the virus had achieved its ultimate goal, adding provocatively that he saw himself as syphilis. Brandon Cronenberg, the director of this unique, original and unusual film, is indeed his father's son; so many of the themes that are touched upon in the film he shares with his father. There's also the almost obligatory presence of a foreboding organization. In this film, however, although its impetus is profit, it can ultimately thank its existence to a society that not only requires it, but ultimately demands its presence and the strange products it offers. The fascinating story of a bizarre world in the not too distant future is at times painfully plausible; at the moment enormous sums of money is made out of companies exploiting patenting and retaining the profit rights to drugs to cure people. Now let's imagine that we live in a world that is basically disease free, but that for another reason people actually are willing to pay enormous amounts of money to get infected with the diseases that bring them closer to the illusions of human beings which are created and perpetuated by society as celebrities. The film goes so far to suggest outright that celebrities are only illusions in the sense that they exist in the minds of the people who worship them and the profit-makers who are responsible for the marketing and merchandise This film makes some problematic and frighteningly possible suggestions about what might happen when extremely socioculturally powerful trends like celebrity-mania and scientific developments like stem cell regeneration collide. The two main protagonists appear at the opening of the film together. Syd March, the film's anti-hero, looks down at the gray and depressing city; he appears sick and his skin is pallid. Behind him, an enlarged poster board of an ideal female, known as Hannah Geist, is seen smiling indifferently towards a world the actual character herself sees little of. Here the 'illusion of perfection' is made out of paper and stuck on an enormous advertising board. The character of March may look unhealthy at the beginning and become deathly ill as the film progresses; but the audience is often asked to question whether or not Geist actually exists at all; although there are a few moments when we hear her speak, she generally becomes a tool of others, lies limply and helplessly in bed or is seen in a recording regretting the fact that she can't be present in real life (considering she may well actually be dead). She is helpless to save herself from the world which is exploiting her and which will ultimately profit so enormously from her demise. March spends most of his time running into cardboard cut-outs of her and every scene is dominated by her face. Our anti-hero March seems to adore Geist; that is made clear from the beginning; he's a victim as much as are any of the characters to the celebrity-obsessed cultural world surrounding them. He understands his clients who want to imagine that they've been kissed by Geist when they are injected with herpes simplex virus and await the cold-sores which will naturally appear as a result of an entirely imagined physical contact. Some of the most uncomfortable moments of the film are when you're not sure whether Geist is dead yet or not; and ultimately who it is that will profit most from her death. Our anti-hero who has infected himself by accident with a disease he had no idea would be fatal, seems to have an active interest in finding a cure. Surely, if he can cure himself, he can cure her and fight the system? But his attitude towards the system remains ambiguous. What is his ultimate motive? These are some of the provocative questions posed by the film. The anti-hero March has links with the black-market and smuggles through his own blood samples out into the seedy dives where strange masses of muscles and nerves could be becoming people and customers come daily to get their supply of the star they wish to cannibalize. Through an unexpected encounter with Hannah Geist after his colleague is caught committing the crimes he himself is also guilty of, he takes her blood – assumedly for the purpose of marketing by the company – but quickly removes it from its secure packaging and injects it into his own bloodstream. From the beginning his obsession with Hannah Geist seems pretty clear, but whether or not his attempts to find a cure for the disease that was killing them both remained ambiguous to me and I've seen the film a couple of times. There is a bizarre scene that ends the film that is open to interpretation; is he attempting to cure her or simply to feed on her flesh in some way, fulfilling the fantasy of becoming one with her? You'll have to make your own minds up, and that's why this film is worth seeing if you like to be stimulated to think. In the film Brandon seems to be making references or signs of respect to his father; I recall immediately Geist's mutated genitals which references Bujold's mutated cervix in 'Dead Ringers'. Another notable reference to his father's work is the surreal sequence when March is attached to the machine that is designed to test his blood and which seems to become part of his own body; the direct reference is naturally to Cronenberg's unusual film Videodrome. Brandon will probably have more success because thanks to his father the world has become more prepared to explore many of the themes introduced in this fascinating film; but I wonder what it's like living in the shadow of such an important figure, especially if you feel the need to reference their work so much and so often.

Silent Hill (2006)

SILENT HILL : video game adaptation or unique surreal horror nightmare?

[10/10 · 1 April 2013]

I had the fortune to see this film before I knew it had anything to do with a video game and even though I went out and played the games and its many spawns, I've formed my opinions on what the film presented rather than what I expected of it. It came across as a surreal Gothic horror masterpiece, particularly beautifully designed and with a strong cast, dominated by the four actresses who play essential roles as the little girl is brought home and the strange religion which keeps the ghost town's inhabitants trapped forever within an 'other world'. In this respect, the film is filled with flaws; there are things that just don't make much sense and if you try to compare them to the video game you won't get any wiser. If, however, you're not restricted by these expectations, these flaws add to set of ambiguities which create a roller-coaster horror ride towards a climax that is well-worth waiting for, and one that's thought provoking and disturbing as well, although you're never quite sure why. In a nutshell, if you don't know the games, Silent Hill is like Mullholand Drive on acid. No one expects Lynch to provide exact answers to experiences which are deliberately ambiguous, dream-like and/or that can communicate simultaneously on different planes. Because this is classed as a horror film and still worse one that lies in the shadow of other horror game film adaptations like the dreadful 'Resident Evil', a set of different parameters are applied. I was lucky; I saw the film knowing none of this and came out feeling stimulated, excited and extremely creative.

The film seems to use as its central premise a very disturbing idea about how an insane sect that seems to be based on hate, sacrifice and death can demonise a child into becoming the prophesied vehicle of utter destruction. Alice Krige is perhaps the highlight of the film; her penchant for playing evil characters receives in this film a stellar expression as Cristabella, the cult's mouthpiece that has kept the village trapped in a kind of eternal purgatory (her death scene torn apart by barbed wire is not to be missed). Deborah Unger, although in a small role, is the film's only real recognition that the whole concept of the film results from Japanese artistry; her character looks like something out of Noh theatre, and her acting style is similarly exaggerated and stylized.

If you don't know anything about what the film's origins are, you're in a position of advantage because you can make your own mind up about what the constant barrage of symbols could mean and what sort of reality the characters become trapped in. In this sense it's both a journey of discovery which quickly sinks into a terrifying nightmare, one which seems to be based on the anger of the little girl who is expected to bear the universe's woes and lead to its destruction. The ambiguous ending - that the character's who have overcome what the film confronts them with, are not able to return to the real world, is both ambiguous and disturbing. Did any of it actually happen at all? Did all the characters who became trapped in Silent Hill die, seeing that they were all involved in pretty nasty car accidents? Do we ultimately exist at all?