Horrible Imaginings Film Festival: Luz: the Flower of Evil (2020)

Directed by: Juan Diego Escobar Alzate

Notable cast: Conrado Osorio, Andrea Esquival, Yuri Vargas, Sharon Guzman

 

There is a dreamlike quality to Luz: The Flower of Evil that many films aspire to and never quite achieve. In the effortless fashion of a David Lynch or Jodorowsky, Luz creates a world with internal, consistent logic that is both horribly familiar and terrifyingly alien. Every frame of it looks like an oil painting, like a sort of perverse lost Norman Rockwell “Hidden Columbian Religious Cult” collection. It’s almost hard to even call Luz a horror movie in a modern sense of the term, as it owes more to something like the original Wicker Man or The Holy Mountain than anything even close to a slasher movie. It means that it evokes a different kind of horror, something existential.

 

Pornostar (1998)

Director: Toshiaki Toyoda
Notable Cast: Koji Chihara, Onimaru, Akaji Maro, Tetta Sugimoto, Rin Ozawa, Kiyohiko Shibukawa

Rock 'n roll, slo-motion, passing Tokyo citizens, and one pissed off dude in a green coat walking towards the camera kick off Mr. Toyoda's debut (well technically he made Unchain 1st, but I digress) film, Pornostar, which no, porn has nothing at all to do with this film, but it will grab your attention, no?

 Arano, the lad in the green coat, bumps into a few people, and eventually a Yakuza, in which he really, really hates... not that particular Yakuza, but them in general. So he begins to kill, and kills some more, and more, and so on. That is the plot. Not much to it, but there doesn't need to be, and no, that is not by any means spoiling anything. The premise is a dude in a green coat hates the Yakuza and begins to kill them.

The Blood Splatter: 2016 Horror Vol. 4 [The Invitation, What We Become, Martyrs]

THE INVITATION (2016)

Director: Karyn Kusama

Notable Cast: Logan Marshall-Green, Tammy Blanchard, Michiel Huisman, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Lindsay Burdge, Jordi Vilasuso, Mike Doyle, Jay Larson, John Carroll Lynch, Karl Yune, Toby Huss, Michelle Krusiec, Marieh Delfino

This review will seem irrelevant to the experience that The Invitation gives its audience. While there is a love it or hate it kind of approach to this film, which I have been so graciously made aware of, this is a film that is meant to be experienced and its slow burn abilities ensure that. There is an overpowering sense of unease that bleeds into a paranoia which impeccably drives the narrative, punctuated by phenomenal performances and an atmosphere of complete engagement with the audience. The setting, the lighting, the score, the pacing - they are all lavishly simple and viciously effective in their execution from director Karyn Kusama and I was engrossed from the opening scene until the hollowing climax with one of the best final visuals I have seen in horror all year. The Invitation is one of those films that simply takes its simple idea and layers it so densely with subtle details that I was easily drawn into its melodramatic tones and huge credit has to be given to the film for that.