Saccharine: Australian Body Horror

Hana's parasite is more dangerous than a tapeworm, because it is literally a hungry ghost. Ill-advisedly, she deliberately ingested it of her own free-will. Of course, she did not foresee the side effects. On the plus side, her weight loss is dramatic in director-screenwriter Natalie Erika James’ Saccharine, which opens today in New York.

Despite her medical studies, Hana suffers from low self-esteem, exacerbated by family issues. Therefore, she tries one of the diet pills given to her by a formerly obese childhood friend, who now looks unbelievably slim. It works, but the price per pill is prohibitively steep. Applying her training, Hana analyzes the substance, finding it identical to human ash. As “luck” would have it, Hana and her loyal friend Josie are dissecting a human cadaver this semester. Rather enterprisingly, Hana stays behind after class to pack a doggy bag of the remains they left for disposal.

Of course, her bootleg pills similarly work, to a shocking degree. Even her crush, Alanya, the trainer who overseeing her bootcamp-style fitness regimen, is impressed—and eventually concerned. Hana also starts to worry when realizes the cadaver’s ghost has been watching and menacing her. She only comes when Hana’s blood sugar falls below a certain level. Once the med student binges, the terrors subside. However, the pattern quickly grows disruptive and alarming to bystanders.

Larry Van Duynhoven’s prosthetic design work for the “before” Hana is remarkably convincing. However, Midori Francis must still sell Hana’s transformation, which indeed she does. Indeed, she delivers an unusually sensitive and emotionally complex performance, by conventional horror movie standards.

Smother: The Horror of Austrian Motherhood

Michaela is a bad mother, but it runs in the family. Her mother was the notorious crazy lady who killed herself. Maybe being the drunk driver who nearly accidentally killed herself and her daughter isn’t so bad in comparison. It still isn’t great—as her husband constantly reminds her. Regardless, when Michaela finally returns home, she will either face her ghosts or succumb to them in Achmed Abdel-Salam’s Smother, which releases Friday on IndiePix Unlimited.

Hanna still hasn’t forgiven her mother for the accident and her father Alex isn’t exactly letting it go either. Unfortunately, Alex caters to Hanna’s neurotic behavior and psychosomatic illnesses, which dramatically escalated after the incident. However, she enjoys the countryside when the family returns to Michaela’s ancestral home for her grandfather’s funeral.

Michaela hasn’t been home for years—and it is easy to see why. The crass locals still openly gossip about her mother’s notorious suicide. Understandably, Michaela repressed many of her childhood memories of that tragic day, but they start rushing back when she starts seeing vision of her mother. Her Grudge-like mother seems to have unfinished business with her—or maybe Hanna.

Smother is the kind of so-called “elevated” horror movie that devotes all its time to elevation, shortchanging the horror. There are some creepy elements introduced, but Abdl-Salam allows them to wither on the vine. Some might euphemistically describe Smother as a “taut slow burn,” but the truth is it often drags, which is a real drawback for a horror film. Rather confusingly, the film also clearly implies Peppi, the elderly neighbor abuses his partially dementia-afflicted wife Gerti, but then completely ignores the implications.

SBIFF ’26: Perla

One of the worst things about oppressive regimes is the way they corrupt and break people. When Perla Adamova fled Czechoslovakia after the 1968 Soviet Invasion, she never looked back (for reasons that will be painfully understandable). Yet, she remained deeply damaged. Her former lover Andrej didn’t get away. He represents a hefty share of the crushing guilt she carries. Consequently, it is hard for her to refuse when Andrej demands she bring their daughter Julia for a visit, even though she knows she shouldn’t. Indeed, going home will be emotionally and physically perilous in director-screenwriter Alexandra Makarova’s Perla, which screens at the 2026 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Adamova is a bit of a neurotic wreck, but that is perfectly acceptable to the Vienna art scene. Marrying Josef Hoffmann also brings some stability, even though she met him when he was dating her close friend. Then Andrej calls. She tries to deflect her guilt, credibly arguing everything she did, she did for their daughter. Then he plays his fatal tumor card.

Except—not really a spoiler alert—Andrej admits he lied as soon as she arrives with Hoffmann and Julia. Thanks to her husband’s resources, she entered the country with forged Austrian papers. Obviously, they need to keep a low profile. It is also increasingly evident that the trip is not healthy for Julia. Yet, Adamova displays a dangerous rush of excitement for the old sights and sounds of her Slovak homeland, including Andrej. If you suspect it will end badly, you have at least a basic grasp of the nature of early 1980s Warsaw Pact Captive Nations.

Makarova dedicated the film to her grandmother, but Adamova is unambiguously modeled on her mother, an expat artist who lived in Vienna. Both she and Andrej often act in selfish and even rather awful ways. Yet, Makarova always finds ways to remind viewers that their actions are the direct result of abuse they suffered. Indeed, there is an important scene that provides the key to unlock the entire film, but it is uncomfortable to watch because of its brutality, despite Adamova’s murky lighting and framing.

Secret in the Mountain, on MHz Choice

The picturesque Austrian village of Altaussee probably boasts the only working mine that also features an art exhibit. There is a good reason for that. During WWII, the salt mine served as the secret hiding place for art looted by the National Socialist regime. You might remember scenes of its liberation in George Clooney’s The Monuments Men. Screenwriter-director tells the story from the perspective of the miners in Secret of the Mountain, which premieres Tuesday on MHz Choice.

Sepp Rottenbacher keeps himself to himself, but not his childhood friend, Franz Mittenjager, who is widely known to supply food to the band of deserters encamped in the mountains. That secret is a little too open for his own safety, but his equally rebellious wife Leni would not have it any other way. Slowly but surely, the villagers are also becoming more defiant, as they receive news of the Axis’s military defeats.

The mines might not seem like a good place to store art, but the temperature and humidity in the deeper shafts were almost perfect. Their depth also provided protection from Allied bombing runs. Unfortunately, Hitler decided to destroy the Altaussee mine and all the art stored within, as part of his scorched earth strategy. Blowing up the art would also obliterate the village’s primary source of employment. Of course, the fanatical National Socialists do not care, but the catastrophic prospect finally shakes Rottenbacher out of his apathy.

Even though Secret in the Mountain was produced for Austrian television, but it is a high-quality period production, with some surprisingly sophisticated characterization. Unlike many “reluctant heroes,” who cannot hardly wait for their awakening of conscience, Rottenbacher’s change of heart is a bitter, hard-fought process. Likewise, the miners’ “courtship” of SS Officer Ernst Kaltenbrunner to countermand the Altaussee’s standing orders for destruction gives the film an ironic twist. However, it is worth noting Zerhau’s screenplay largely lets the mining village off the hook for collaboration, while short-changing the efforts of the American Monuments Men to secure the imperiled art beneath Altaussee.

Ruzowitzky’s Hinterland

Sadly, too many Vietnam veterans could relate to the indifferent and sometimes hostile homecomings these Austrian POWs experienced after WWI. In retrospect, this turned out to be a terrible long-term social policy. Fully cognizant of the scars he carries, former Lt. Peter Perg is skeptical he can transition back to civilian life, but the ex-cop agrees to help his former colleagues hunt for a serial killer preying on his fellow army veterans in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s Hinterland, which releases Friday on VOD.

This is 1920 Vienna, but it looks a lot like Tim Burton’s Gotham. Using digital technology, Ruzowitzky immerses his cast in a highly expressionistic urban jungle, inspired by Dr. Caligari and other silent films of the era. It looks amazing, like film noir from Hell, in a good way.

However, Hinterland also has a narrative of some substance to go with its stunning visuals, unlike many would-be dazzlers that forget the other elements that produce a worthy film. Perg has a real case to investigate and macabre clues to uncover, as further horrific murders are discovered.

Initially, the only one who really wants him involved in the case is Dr. Theresa Korner, a woman as you might have guessed, whom the police commissar reluctantly promoted to her current medical examiner position during the War, simply because there were no qualified men at the time. Yet, she also remembers first-hand Perg’s brilliance during previous cases.

Ruzowitzky does not ring this bell obsessively, but it is pretty easy to see from their treatment from interwar society why many of Perg’s fellow veterans would be radicalized by the National Socialists. Ruzowitzky also nicely shows the not-so cold war being waged between the Communists and various nationalists in the city’s streets and back alleys. Ironically, even though a great deal of the picture was digitally generated, Hinterland has a keen sense of time and place.

Tribeca ’22: Family Dinner

We need to get horror film directors some sort of group subscription to Discovery+, because they need to start developing healthier relationships with food. You would think there would be plenty of healthy eating in this film, because Simi’s Aunt Claudia is a nutritionist, but the ominous countdown to Easter dinner clearly implies something awful will be happening in screenwriter-director Peter Hengl’s Family Dinner, which screens during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Tired of getting bullied over her weight, Simi invited herself to Aunt Claudia’s rural Austrian farm over Easter break, in hopes she could get some personal weight-loss mentoring. The thing is, Claudia (an aunt by a marriage-now-divorced) is not as welcoming as Simi hoped—but her new husband Stefan is weirdly hospitable. Her cousin Filipp is probably downright hostile, but he isn’t getting along so well with his mother and Stefan either.

Despite some initial misgivings, Aunt Claudia agrees to help Simi, but her rigorous program borders on the draconian. It seems physically unhealthy and the mind games grow increasingly sinister. On the other hand, Stefan finds Simi more useful than Filipp during a hunting trip, so she has that positive reinforcement going for her.

There is a lot of slow-boiling in Family Dinner, but it is pretty clear what is it all heading towards. Not to be spoilery, but if you really think about the title, it is a dead giveaway. Unfortunately, Hengl expects the climax will be so shocking, it will make up for the slowness of the build and the lack of significant plot points.

Party Hard, Die Young: Dead Austrian Teenagers

A little social distancing would have been healthy for this class of Austrian teens. However, this is the “before-times” and these kids are young, dumb, and randy. That is tantamount to a death sentence in slasher films. True to form, a masked man with a grudge will try to bump them off one-by-one in Dominik Hartl’s Party Hard, Die Young, which releases today on DVD and streams exclusively on Shudder.

Julia and her friends intended to party their spring break away at an EDM festival underway on a picturesque Croatia isle. Of course, the techno will come in handy muffling their screams. The island setting is also convenient, since the ferry to the mainland leaves almost never. When Julia’s bestie Jessica storms off after a fight, she makes herself easy pickings as the first victim. The guilt-wracked Julia is convinced something bad happened to her, but the rest of her class and the worse-than-useless cops don’t want to hear it. Unfortunately, as the bodies of Julia’s classmates start to pile up, everyone has to admit there is probably a killer on the loose.

Even by the standard of slasher movie teens, Julia and her friends are glacially slow to figure out who is out to get them and why. Frankly, once they do, our sympathies shift to the Smiley Face slasher. That is a problem, because the killer really isn’t very interesting, but his victims are just completely appalling characters. That includes Julia too. She is the only potential victim that gets fleshed out to any extent, but Elisabeth Wabitsch’s portrayal is still pretty colorless.

Occupation: Australian for V

Australians definitely seem to be a freedom loving people, despite their 1996 and 2002 gun laws. Unfortunately, they will regret that legislation when the alien invaders arrive, but at least there are still plenty of hunting rifles out in the rural communities. A rag-tag group of survivors will take the fight to the aliens in director-screenwriter Luke Sparke’s Occupation (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The aliens first attack during exhibition Australian Rules football match. It was supposed to be former captain Matt Simmons last hurrah and the current captain’s golden opportunity to be scouted, but it did not end that way at all. They do not get along much, but they will have to work together as charter members of the resistance. It turns out their core group is quite resourceful, thanks to members like Simmons’ girlfriend Amelia Chambers, the grizzled but wiser-than-he-looks farmer Arnold, and Peter Bartlett, an ex-militant and would be family man, who just finished serving his prison sentence for murder.

Sure, we have seen this all several times before, starting with the classic George Pal-produced War of the Worlds and recently in the African-set Revolt, which was also released by Saban Films. There are scores of superior alien invasion films, but Occupation’s nicely drawn characters and game cast keep us hooked anyway.

Temuera Morrison is probably the best known and fans will enjoy watching him seething with rage as Bartlett, the distressed father. Stephany Jacobsen shows real star potential as the forceful, action-oriented Chambers, while Charles Mesure looks and acts like Australia personified as crusty, trusty Arnold. Plus, Jacqueline McKenzie steals a few scenes as the uber-commanding Col. Grant.

There is not much time or thought devoted to the aliens’ backstory. Basically, Sparke cribs here and there from the original V and Independence Day. The two-hour running time is really pushing it for what is essentially a B-movie, but to his credit, he keeps the energy level amped up. It cannot compare to the 1953 War of the Worlds, but it is lightyears better than the Tom Cruise monstrosity. Recommended for science fiction fans who enjoy a straight-up throwback now and then, Occupation opens this Friday (7/20) in New York, at the Village East. So, keep watching the skies everybody.

Stefan Ruzowitzky’s Cold Hell

According to this religiously motivated serial killer, Islam’s Zamhari Hell is so cold, it burns. In that case, it would not mean much if Hell froze over. Regardless, Hell may very well have frozen over judging from the surprises this Austrian thriller has in-store for viewers. In addition to being relentlessly tense, it also stays true to current realities, in ways that would be spoilery to explain. It also happens to be the work of an Academy Award winner, Stefan Ruzowitzky (for The Counterfeiters). Hitchcockian elements get a very-of-right-now spin in Ruzowitzky’s Cold Hell (trailer here), a Shudder exclusive, which premiere tomorrow on the horror streaming platform.

Özge Dogruol has a right to be bent out of shape. She constantly endures hostile sexism, especially from her Muslim Turkish family. She is closest with her cousin Ranya, whose husband employs Dogruol as a cab driver. She even faces condescending chauvinism at her Muay Thai gym, but fighters quickly change their tune after going a few rounds with her. She is a tough customer, but she is still alarmed to see a shadowy psycho torturing a prostitute to death through a courtyard window, especially when she realizes he noticed her watching.

Initially, the Archie Bunkerish Det. Christian Steiner dismisses her fears. He still isn’t very compassionate when Rayna is murdered wearing her jacket. However, he finally admits she might be in peril when the killer tries to murder her in her own cab, causing a series of spectacular accidents as a result. In addition to playing the killer’s cat-and-mouse game, Dogruol is determined to protect Rayna’s toddler daughter Ada from her pederast father. It is a lot of pressure, but at least she somehow forges an unlikely alliance with Steiner.

Cold Hell played a number of horror-specialty festivals, but it is really a dark thriller in the tradition of Se7en, but considerably superior. This is a lean, mean psycho-suspense machine. It all starts with Violetta Schurawlow blowing the doors off the joint as Dogruol. If it were not for Kim Ok-vin’s action lead for the ages in The Villainess, Schurawlow’s Dogruol would probably rate as the best action heroine since Angela Mao retired. She is intense, vulnerable, and completely credible when administering a beatdown.

Schurawlow is also terrific playing off and with Tobias Moretti’s Steiner. Although unlikely, their sharp-edged chemistry is so potent, it just carries us along, sweeping us past any credibility objections. On the other side of the ledger, Sammy Sheik is relentlessly sinister as a character who turns out to be rather malevolent.

If a Social Justice Warrior ever watched Cold Hell, they would probably start protesting. Fortunately, they really do not pay attention to indie and international genre films, because this is an absolutely dynamite thriller. Cinematographer Benedict Neuenfels makes it all look ultra-stylish, in the De Palma-esque tradition of being Hitchcockian. Ruzowitzky keeps it hurtling along like a runaway train, while eliciting gritty but sensitive work from his ensemble. It is easily one of Shudder’s best exclusive acquisitions. Very highly recommended, it starts streaming on the horror service tomorrow (3/15).

Osiris Child: Oz Sci-Fi

Since the nation was founded as a penal colony, it makes sense Australia would produce a science fiction yarn about an uprising in a colonial space prison. The part about using the prison for top secret monster-creating experiments is where the logic breaks down. However, the unlikely circumstances create a wicked sense of urgency for Lt. Kane Sommerville, who must rescue his young daughter before the company that chartered the colony unleashes Armageddon on the planet’s surface in Shane Abbess’s The Osiris Child (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Somerville made a mistake that led to the death of his soldiers, but the whole incident was hushed up. The guilt-ridden officer hits the bottle hard, but he is still a crackerjack pilot. As far as being a parent goes, not so much. Yet, he and his daughter Indiana (Indi) can still bond by blasting old road signs in the desert. Unfortunately, the prison riot that frees the mutant monsters happens while Somerville is posted to the orbiting space station. To save Indi, he will have to hijack a ship, run the blockade, and make his way to the city of Osiris.

He will need a little help once he lands (hard). Fortunately, he immediately encounters Sy, a former nurse, who masterminded the escape attempt that precipitated all heck breaking loose. They will need some wheels, preferably armored, so Somerville bribes Gyp and Bill, a slightly incestuous couple, who could have stepped out of a Mad Max movie. They need guns too, so they will indulge in a shopping spree with a couple of arms-dealing hicks, who would be at home in a dystopian Tremors movie. All the while, Abbess slowly reveals nuggets of Sy’s backstory through flashbacks.

Strangely enough, Osiris shares many similar plot points with Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars, but it has the more cartoony narrative. Plus, there are long unnecessary flashbacks to Warden Mourdain acting like a sinister jerk, just to give Temuera Morrison a chance to chew some scenery, which is as good reason as any. Frankly, the special effects look pretty impressive, but there is nothing uniquely distinctive to this world we haven’t seen before.

Still, fans will find Daniel MacPherson’s Kane a refreshingly hardnosed and manly protagonist. The hard-drinking bad dad is definitely not a vegan Social Justice Warrior. Kellan Lutz also broods decently as Sy. Frustratingly, the film completely wastes up-and-coming action star Grace Huang, as Sy’s head nurse. However, Rachel Griffiths nicely counterbalances the fiery Morrison with the coolly calculating villainy of General Lynex, a character very much like Sky Marshal Amy Snapp in Traitor of Mars.

Osiris has its nutty pleasures, but it never fully achieves lift-off. Given the former title, Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child, it was obviously intended as the launch of a franchise, but it is highly unlikely go too far past volume one. It will be a distracting enough film to stream when it hits Netflix or Shudder, which will probably happen soon, but there is no need to make any great effort to see it in theaters when it opens this Friday (10/6) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Tribeca ’17: Hounds of Love

If Vicki Maloney had paid more mind to her mother, she would not be in this spot. Unfortunately, she snuck out when she was grounded and got into a car with strange people. We can only hope she was wearing clean underwear, because there is a very good chance she could end up dead in Ben Young’s Hounds of Love (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.

Maloney and her mother Maggie would be arguing like cats and dogs anyway, because that is what mothers and teen daughters do. However, her parents’ separation only makes matters worse, especially since her more financially secure father Trevor is so good at playing the abandonment card. Tragically, Maloney brief lapse of judgement might be fatal. It is clear John and Evelyn White have abducted, terrorized, and murdered a number of girls before her. Yet, even amid the horrors she endures, Maloney picks up on tensions between her tormentors. She has darn good reason to believe the manipulative John has been playing his needy wife and she can tell the more passive captor is starting to suspect it too.

Meanwhile, the Perth coppers are so unhelpful, they might as well be considered accomplices. However, the alarmed Maggie is in her fiercest mothering mode and will not be intimidated into waiting at home for Vicki to call. Old Trevor largely agrees with her, but he lacks her forcefulness. Basically, they are on their own, with the clock ticking.

It seems like abduction-captivity thrillers just keep getting increasingly more sadistic and disturbing. To be frank, Hounds continues the trend, but it also has redemptive substance to go with the unsettling cruelty. It sounds like a shameless pull-quote, but the third act climax really is so tense you can hardly breathe.

As John White, Stephen Curry creates a chilling portrait of clammy, calculating evil. In the potential victim role, Ashleigh Cummings gives a bravely exposed and vulnerable performance, but the real heart and soul of the film comes from Susie Porter’s defiantly haunting turn as Mother Maggie. In contrast, the arrested emotional development of Emma Booth’s Evelyn White does not always ring true, but her pathological codependency is generally credible enough to cover for it.

The sunny Australian Christmas season is also rather feverishly disorienting, like the original Die Hard transferred to a suburban dungeon. The 1980s period details are also spot-on. It is quite a distinctive way for Young, a TV and short film director, to announce his feature arrival. Recommended for fans of dark, provocative thrillers, Hounds of Love screens again this Monday (4/24) and Tuesday (4/25), as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

AFI’s EU Showcase ’16: Stefan Zweig—Farewell to Europe

Stefan Zweig was one of the many Jewish intellectuals who escaped National Socialist-dominated Europe through Varian Fry’s network, yet he tragically took his own life in 1942, out of despair with the state of the world and his Austrian homeland. Such depression was not uncommon among European emigres. The guilt and alienation of the involuntary expatriate experience are fully explored in Maria Schrader’s Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (trailer here), Austria’s official foreign language Oscar submission, which screens during the AFI’s 2016 EU Film Showcase.

After Thomas Mann, Zweig was the second most widely read German language novelist in Europe and the Americas during the 1930s. Thanks to The Grand Budapest Hotel, he has made a recent posthumous comeback. Farewell to Europe should further fuel the Zweig renaissance, even though does not always portray him in the most flattering light. Frankly, many viewers will be frustrated by Zweig’s reluctance to condemn the country he could no longer call home. However, they should also respect his principled refusal to grandstand or to criticize as someone now safely standing on the outside looking in.

Basically, Schrader evokes a sense of Zweig’s life in exile through five extended vignettes. In terms of tone and structure, Farewell to Europe often resembles a theater piece, but the thesp-turned-helmer shows a strong aptitude for visual composition, which helps viewer engagement. Much like its subject, it is a cerebral film that refuses to engage in cheap sentiment or phony moral uplift.

Although scrupulously buttoned-down and reserved, Josef Hader is just terrific as Zweig. When he quietly lowers the boom, it is guaranteed to flatten the audience. Likewise, Aenne Schwarz is wonderfully smart and sad as his younger but constitutionally weaker second wife Lotte. German grand dame Barbara Sukowa (who played the title role in Von Trotta’s Hannah Arendt, a fitting comparative film) gives the film some real bite as Zweig’s first wife Friderike, with whom he maintains complicated but mostly amicable relations. The way she first rebukes him and then absolves him during a New York reunion is quite compelling, but also rings consistently true.

Schrader proves to be an actor’s director, which maybe is not so surprising. Farewell to Europe also represents quite an accomplishment of mise en scène, but pacing remains an area where she could better refine her craft. Still, it is refreshing to watch an intelligent film that trusts the audience to pick up on its points without shining a searing spotlight on them. Recommended for admirers of Zweig and German-language cinema, the potential Oscar contender Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe screens this Sunday (12/11) and Wednesday (12/14), as part of the AFI’s annual EU Film Showcase.

Other Worlds Austin ’16: Hidden Reserves

Good news, death panels will be safely abolished in the future. Instead, heroic efforts will be taken to prolong the lives of the poor and the powerless. That’s the whole problem. Those in debt, who might otherwise die in peace, will be kept alive in vegetative states, so their bodies can be used as energy sources and their unused brain capacity can be utilized for networked computing. Basically, you need yourself some death insurance. That’s what Vincent Baumann used to sell until he was demoted to an undercover operative. Baumann might just uncover more than his insurance company bargained for in Valentin Hitz’s Hidden Reserves (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Other Worlds Austin Science Fiction Film Festival.

Baumann’s meticulous preparation and keen understanding of human psychology made him a good sales agent. It also makes him a perfect narc. Baumann was on the fast track to promotion until he failed to close a sale with the reclusive industrialist Wladimir Sokulov, who might harbor mixed feelings regarding his role in realizing this brave new world. His activist daughter Lisa’s misgivings are even more pronounced. Her resistance cell was planning a major operation until her inside source was suddenly promoted.

Bringing her down will be Baumann’s first assignment. However, Sokulov is clearly onto Baumann’s true identity, while he is most likely falling for her. The stakes really start to rise when her father doesn’t quite die without death insurance.

Clearly, within the context of the film, so-called death insurance is just a fancier and more morbid manifestation of protection money. If a cat like Wladimir Sokulov can get hooked up to the ventilators for ostensive debts, anyone can. So why is it so hard to sell policies? As a concept, it pushes a lot of class warfare/right-to-die hot buttons, but it doesn’t really make sense.

On the other hand, the style of Reserve is to die for. Frankly, it evokes a Fassbinder vibe with its near future Vienna setting, resembling the divided post-war city and the Berlin of the early 1980s. There is also the seductive but androgynous femme fatale and even a breathy Ingrid Caven-esque soundtrack. Martin Gschlacht’s (mostly) black-and-white cinematography is absolutely striking, in a suitably austere, dystopian sort of way.

Indeed, Hitz has an eye for composition, but his dramatic sense is not as keen. Of course, he deliberately cast two of the iciest, most rigidly severe co-leads you will ever hope to see. Yet, there is something weirdly compelling about them, especially when they are struggling to act semi-human.

The lack of a consistent internal logic system is a big drawback for Reserve, but it definitely looks cool. If you plan on seeing several films at a genre festival where it is playing, its distinctive visuals might be enough to recommend it, but it is probably not worth a special trip on its own. For fans of Teutonic dystopian science fiction, Hidden Reserves screens this Sunday (12/4) as part of Other Worlds Austin.

Art of the Real ’16: The Dreamed Ones

Think of it as A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters, if it had been written for post-war intellectuals like Arendt and Camus. In spite of their radically different backgrounds, poets Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann conducted an ambiguous but tempestuous romance, largely via letters. Two actors reading the Celan-Ingeborg missives get caught up amid their passion and angst in Ruth Beckermann’s The Dreamed Ones, which screens as part of this year’s Art of the Real.

Film do not get much more epistolary than this. Aside from a few meta interludes in which the readers analyze their respective characters and maybe flirt a bit, the script for Dreamed Ones consists entirely of the poets’ letters. Their words are indeed heavy. It quickly becomes apparent they both had a knack for writing the last things the other wished to read. Often they respond too quickly in the heat of the moment or allow day-to-day business to forestall their replies longer than they should have, yet they never really broke off from each other or had a moment of closure.

As the volume of correspondence mounts, we hear Celan develop a persecution complex, but as an anti-Communist Jewish-Romanian Holocaust survivor, it is hard to judge his paranoia harshly. In fact, as the daughter of National Socialists and the wife of Swiss playwright Max Frisch, who was often perceived as a fellow traveler, Bachmann must have had a great many inherited political-ideological-cultural differences with Celan, but Beckermann almost exclusively focuses on the personal.

To the credit of Anja Plaschg and Laurence Rupp, Dreamed Ones proves how little is truly required to realize good drama. The co-leads read Beckermann’s collected letters with the sensitivity they deserve and develop some potent chemistry together, both “in” and “out’ of character. Still, film is an inherently visual medium, so nobody need feel embarrassed if Beckermann’s static approach makes them feel a tad antsy. Despite Johannes Hammel’s warm, rich cinematography, Dreamed Ones also feels like a radio play artificially exported to the big screen.

Dreamed Ones’ limitations are indeed obvious and not inconsiderable, but it is impressive to see how Plaschg and Rupp challenge and exceed expectations for screen performance. Recommended for those who can appreciate its seemingly contradictory poetic soul and minimalist aesthetic, The Dreamed Ones screens this coming Tuesday (4/19) at the Beale, as part of this year’s Art of the Real.

EU Chicago ’16: Last Summer of the Rich

Fascists and fetishists share a similar taste in shiny black clothes. Hanna von Stezewitz’s old National Socialist grandfather was the former, whereas she has the latter covered. With the old man on his death bed, she has already taken the reins of the multinational he built in rather unsavory ways. Arguably, she is sort of a more engaged Paris Hilton. However, von Stezewitz’s hedonism might finally lead to her undoing in Peter Kern’s Last Summer of the Rich (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Chicago European Union Film Festival.

Despite a well-earned reputation for her lavish orgies and lesbian S&M sessions in brothels, von Stezewitz has made herself a kingmaker in Vienna politics and a patroness of its art scene. Its because of her money. Like John Gielgud’s Hobson in Arthur, the loyal Boris tries to smooth over her scandals as best he can, but the family of a sixteen-year-old model roughly molested by von Stezewitz is being difficult. Of course, she refuses to give it much thought.

Instead, she decides to hasten her ailing grandfather on his way to his infernal rest. However, through a rather dubious O.Henry-esque twist, she also finds herself in the hitman’s crosshairs—or at least she thinks she is. It is not clear just how firm her grasp on reality becomes, as the film progresses. Regardless, she will not let such matters dissuade her from romantically pursuing Sarah, the young nun who tended to her grandfather during his final days. In fact, von Stezewitz has rather fallen head-over-heels, which is out of character for her.

So, obviously Last Summer is about three parts Rainer Werner Fassbinder and one part Tinto Brass (the worst part). Kern (who also has extensive acting credits, including Fassbinder’s Despair) apparently never met a taboo he couldn’t put in a film. That probably makes Last Summer unreleaseable in American, unless a distributor can somehow remove the scene with Stezewitz and the under-age model, while maintaining narrative cohesion. Good luck with that.

Clearly, it is all rather ridiculously over the top, particularly the masked assassin stalking von Stezewitz like the Pink Panther. Seriously, these folks spend more time in brothels than the characters of Game of Thrones. The tacked-on fig leaf of class-consciousness just makes it all even sillier.

At least, everyone understands what is required of them. As von Stezewitz, Amira Casar vamps it up like a poor man’s Asia Argento. Nicole Gerdon’s Sister Sarah seems almost ethereally unreal, but she still has her moments. Yet, it is Winfried Glatzeder who steals the show as dour, vinegary Boris.

Last Summer is not a great movie, nor is it bashful or apologetic, but there are still reasons to see it. You should know by now whether those are your reasons. Ludicrous and lecherous, Last Summer of the Rich follows in the tradition of Teutonic art house exploitation, so fans of Brass’s Salon Kitty can have at it when it screens this Friday (3/25) and next Tuesday (3/29) at the Siskel Film Center, as part of this year’s Chicago EU Film Festival.

Dreams Rewired: Retro Future Shock

If Guy Maddin set out to adapt a ten year-old Wired magazine article, the result would probably look a lot like this, but the resulting film would not be so smugly assured of its insightfulness. That must be the difference between the Canadian and Austrian temperaments. Martin Reinhart, Thomas Tode, and Manu Luksch suggest our current digital era is only one of many successive information revolutions that constantly recalibrated the speed of Twentieth Century life. They will illustrate their point through the collage of rarely seen but suitably ironic early cinema clips that constitutes Dreams Rewired (trailer here), opening this Wednesday at Film Forum.

So perhaps the more things change, the more they stay the same—or rather maybe the only constant is change? One of those is the general gist of Rewired. The trio of co-directors plus their fourth co-screenwriter Mukul Patel somewhat convincingly suggest the magnitude of innovation wrought by the internet and wireless communication is not so very different than societal transformation brought about by the telegraph, telephone, radio (the original wireless), and forms of moving pictures.

They probably have a point there, but they never really take it to a deeper level. Instead, the film is really more about the cascading images of retro-futurism and technological anxiety culled from the films of Thomas Edison, Alice Guy, Dziga Vertov, Carl Dreyer, Rene Clair, and Louis Feuillade. Both Chaplin and Keaton make cameo appearances, but probably the most readily identifiable clips come from Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, which turned out not to reflect the future after all.

Throughout Rewired, the audience waits for Reinhart, Tode, Luksch, and Patel to step up their analysis, but it stays at the level of “look at how impressed people were with their televisions and switch boards.” As a result, the real reason for watching the docu-essay is the wild imagery they have assembled. If you want to see Teutonic men in tights and space helmets, this is film you have been waiting for. A game Tilda Swinton also plays along, narrating the repetitive thesis and sometimes providing archly anachronistic contemporary dialogue for some of the scenes the filmmakers incorporate.

If you enjoy retro-futuristic space opera, there are amusing bits and pieces in Rewired, but you are probably better off revisiting episodes of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet or classic films like Metropolis and Destination Moon (neither of which suited the purposes of Reinhart, etc., etc.). It sounds like brainy fun, but it really plays like an internet supercut. Problematically lightweight, Dreams Rewired is bound to leave viewers wanting more (of something, anything) when it opens this Wednesday (12/16) in New York, at Film Forum.

TIFF ’15: Jack

Jack Unterweger was the Roman Polanski of Austrian letters. He had been convicted of the sadistic murder of a young woman, but the smart set, including Günther Grass and Marxist "feminist" Elfriede Jelinek, thought his poetry was too accomplished for Unterweger to remain behind bars. About a dozen subsequently dead prostitutes would have preferred they not advocated on his behalf. Unterweger’s brutal and notorious life gets a glitzy screen treatment in Elisabeth Scharang’s Jack (trailer here), which screens again this morning at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

Unterweger’s predatory savageness is not exactly seen in the opening sequences of Jack, but there are no mistaking the grisly consequences. However, Scharang will keep that Unterweger bottled up for most of the second act. Since Unterweger wrote some lovely poetry and a confessional autobiography, Schäfer’s death was therefore okay with Jelinek et al, who are saved the indignity of appearing in Jack.

After serving his minimum sentence, the world is laid at Unterweger’s feet. He has a fat literary contract waiting for him and a luxury flat paid for by his soon to be mistress, Susanne Sönnmann, a well-heeled and very married architect. Hipster editor Marlies Haum will pave his way into fashionable society, provided he revisit the world of pimps and prostitutes he knew so well, as a correspondent for her magazine. Everyone seems to be obsessed with Unterweger, even though the new book is not selling nearly as well as the prison memoir. However, when his toxic mother reappears, it is a bad sign. Sometime thereafter, the Vienna police start to suspect him for the murder of a string of prostitutes. They can even match dead bodies to his international travels.

While Unterweger’s partisans still question his guilt with respect to the prostitute spree killings (his nine convictions not withstanding), Scharang hardly seems interested in the matter. Instead, her film is sort of the narrative equivalent of Bruce Weber’s Chet Baker documentary Let’s Get Lost. Both present a nonjudgmental portrait of artists with deep-seated hostility towards women, preferring to focus on their scarred surface beauty. At times, Jack looks like the sort of layout Weber, the fashion photographer might have shot.

Yet, Johannes Krisch plays Unterweger with such a piercing psychopath’s stare, you have to wonder how everyone around him manages to not get it. Krisch’s Unterweger is a microwave of rage, primed to explode. If his icy demeanor and casual cruelty are not clues enough, his old school pimp-hand wardrobe ought to send some kind of signal.

In contrast, Corinna Harfouch (who could pass for Dame Helen Mirren’s younger sister) seems too smart and sophisticated to fall for Unterweger or to have anything to do with his world of celebrities and low lives. Still, she invests Sönnmann with an earthy sensuality that really sets the tone for the film.

If nothing else, Scharang’s Jack certainly looks right. Cinematographer Jörg Widmer makes everything hazy and dreamlike, while production designer Isidor Wimmer perfectly replicates the 1990s Euro club milieu. Nevertheless, Scharang seems intent on embracing an amoral, hedonistic vision until hedging at the last moment, leaving us to wonder just what was the whole idea of all that? Fascinating to observe, in a clinical way, but rather distasteful to digest, Jack is probably too arty for true crime audiences and too lurid for art house patrons. It is a real quandary, so use your own judgement if you are still in Toronto, when it screens again this morning (9/20), as part of TIFF.

Goodnight Mommy: Twins Can be a Handful

By now, when we see twins in cinema, we assume at least one is evil—maybe both (as in The Shining, The Krays, and Full House). Evil is probably too strong a word for Lukas and Elias. It might be fairer to say they are intense. They are also rather confused by their mother’s seemingly arbitrary behavior following her countenance-changing surgery. Their family drama will take a decidedly macabre turn in Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala’s Goodnight Mommy (trailer here), Austria’s recently announced foreign language Oscar submission, which opens tomorrow in New York.

This is the sort of film that is dashed difficult to review because Franz and Fiala build it around some audacious misdirection. They either keep you looking in the wrong direction, or they don’t. Regardless, it is probably safe to say this family is massively dysfunctional. For some reason, the mother seems to prefer Lukas over Elias, whom she is currently giving the silent treatment. Of course, her behavior makes no sense to the brothers. Since they are inseparable, they would both be equally culpable for whatever triggered her annoyance.

Her strange comportment coupled with her unrecognizable new features lead the lads to conclude the bandaged woman in the house is not really there mother. At this point, they commit to an antagonist course of action that will often be difficult to watch. Unfortunately for the woman, their house is quite remote and apparently sound-proof.

Produced by festival favorite Ulrich Seidl, Goodnight Mommy is the sort of horror film that explores corrosive psychological pathologies in the much the same manner as Polanski in his prime. There is also a big third act revelation that changes viewers’ perspective on everything that came before. Whether you see it coming or not, it is impressive how slyly the film is cut together leading up to that point.

Lukas and Elias Schwarz are frighteningly believable as the extreme twins. They are all kinds of twitchy, yet they keep us consistently off-balance and hesitant to pass judgement. If they have seen their own movie, they should probably be in therapy now. Susanne Wuest also maintains the ambiguity, while playing some truly harrowing scenes. (Wuest also made a strong impression in Marco Kalantari’s The Shaman, proving critics ignore short films at their peril.)

Even with Seidl’s imprimatur, it is somewhat surprising Austria has submitted a genre film for Oscar consideration, albeit one that is quite polished and rather challenging. After all, within the last ten years, they have won twice with The Counterfeiters and Amour, garnering a third nomination for Revanche. However, what really baffles is the decision not to release Goodnight Mommy in time for Mother’s Day. Seriously, it’s a natural tie-in. Recommended for fans of horror and dark psychological thrillers revolving around children, Goodnight Mommy opens tomorrow (9/11) in New York, at the East 86^th Street Cinema.

Dark Valley: A Strudel Western

Old European feudalism is about to get a taste of revenge, served up in vintage American Western style. A stranger has come to a remote town high in the Austrian Alps and that means what it always does. Someone will pay for something in Andreas Prochaska’s Dark Valley (trailer here), which releases on DVD today from Film Movement.

Greider is an American, but he learned fluent German from his mother. He has come to the inhospitable town with his daguerreotype camera and an equalizer. He would have the locals believe he is an early forerunner of Ansel Adams, there to photograph nature, but they are not buying it. Nonetheless, he finds lodging with the reluctant Luzi and her widowed mother for the winter (which will be long, everyone ominously assures him). The entitled Brenner sons quickly key in on Greider as a target for their bullying. However, he also seems to take an interest in them, asking questions like “if someone were to start killing old Brenner’s sons, how busy would they be?”

Soon, a couple of Brenners turn up dead and Greider is not exactly disavowing responsibility. It turns out Brenner and his sons enforce the old feudal custom granting them wedding night privileges with all brides in the valley. That is why Luzi’s impending nuptials with the earnest but mild-mannered Lukas are more of a source of angst than joy, despite their mutual love for each other. Greider is familiar with the tradition and he has had enough of it.

So evidently you have to go to Austria to get a credible western these days. In fact, Austria selected Valley as its official foreign language Oscar submission, but it did not make the shortlist cut. Prochaska definitely understands the genre conventions, even though he realizes them in an austerely chilly, Teutonic style. Frankly, he executes a darned good shoot-out down the stretch, while capitalizing on the awesome Alpine backdrops (shot with fittingly dark majesty by cinematographer Thomas Kiennast).

Sam Riley hardly looks like a killing machine, but his pale clamminess works well in context, nonetheless. Evidently, the crew referred to him as “Pale Greider” during shooting, in reference to the Eastwood film, which is not wholly inappropriate. Valley has a similar vibe to Eastwood’s later, slightly revisionist westerns. Regardless, the Brenners still need killing and when Greider obliges it is pretty satisfying.

Even though she is stuck with some plodding narration, Paula Beer is relatively forceful and dynamic as Luizi. Let’s be honest, this is not exactly the sort of premise that is conducive to strong female characters, but she does rather well given the circumstances. On the other hand, Tobias Moretti really cuts loose with the moustache-twisting villainy as the elder Brenner Brother, Hans.

Frankly, the Austrian Alps make a nice change of pace from Monument Valley. It is also good to see some life left in the western genre. Anyone who enjoys a rugged revenge tale should appreciate Prochaska’s Strudel Western. Highly recommended, Dark Valley launches on DVD today, from Film Movement.

The Wall: A Very Private Apocalypse

When the television adaptation of Stephen King’s Under the Dome hits the airwaves, fans will duly wonder where he gets his ideas from.  Hmm, maybe Christoffer Boe’s Allegro or Marlen Haushofer’s Die Wand.  Of course, both predecessors are much more introspective in nature.  Indeed, viewers witness a very private apocalypse in Julian Pölsler’s adaptation of Haushofer’s 1963 novel, The Wall (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

A woman is holidaying with friends in the Austrian mountain lodge.  Her hosts drive into town for supplies and never return.  Venturing out the next morning she discovers an invisible barrier blocking the road.  Scouting the mountainside, she discovers the strange wall encircles her.  She can see people on the other side, but they appear frozen in place.  Time seems to only pass on her side of the wall, but it passes very slowly.

Told in flashbacks via the unnamed woman’s journal entries, The Wall consciously echoes Robinson Crusoe.  With no Man Friday, the woman develops a close bond with the couple’s dog, Lynx.  Indeed, it is largely her rapport with animals that keeps the woman engaged in her solitary world.

Obviously, The Wall implies much about man and our unbalanced relationship with nature.  The English language voice-overs are often rather heavy-handed (and clash with the limited subtitled German dialogue) but the film’s vibe and rhythm are eerily evocative.  Viewers will feel like they are getting a true taste of what it would be like to be the last sentient person on Earth.

Shot over the course of several seasons, Pölsler and his battery of cinematographers fully capitalize on the stunning scenic vistas that utterly dwarf the lone woman.  Carrying the film almost single-handedly, Martina Gedeck (co-star of the modern classic The Lives of Others) gives a remarkably assured performance.  Mixing depression and empowerment, it might be the purest cinematic portrayal of existential living.  However, it is also worth noting Pölsler’s own dog Lynx is quite the performer in his own right.

The Wall may well be a rebuke of patriarchy and industrialization, but it still works rather well as a survivor’s story.  Admittedly, it is deliberately paced (for obvious reasons), but the overall effect is hypnotic.  Recommended for those who appreciate apocalyptic and allegorical cinema, The Wall opens this Friday (5/31) at the IFC Center.