It was the city of my first love as the good old Hervé Vilard sang. Barely back from this charming Swiss bastion where the absinthe flows under the bridges, your two emissaries, Mr Wilkes and KillerS7ven, have spent almost three full days sequestered in dark rooms, so you can enjoy the latest selections selected at the NIFFF. Unpretentious fact that limits to exploitation, we still managed to pick up colors by tracking the lake's silts just steps away from the cinemas. Exceptional situation requires, the midnight bath remains an essential rite for washing blood and sweat from a selection totally « fantastic » Hey!
Awards
In International Competition
H.R. Giger price : Handling The Undead by Thea Hvistendahl
Mention : Cuckoo by Tilman Singer
Imaging The Future Award : I Saw The TV Glow by Jane Schoenbrun
NIFFF Award for International Criticism : Ennennum of Shalini Ushadevi
Youth Prize : Eternal of Ulaa Salim
RTS hearing award : Oddity by Damian Mc Carthy
Asian competition
Public prices : City of Darkness of Self Cheang
With its family setting, the NIFFF remains a festival that has kept its human dimension, giving it an inimitable charm. For this 23nd edition, there was drinking and eating with a panel of films coming from the whole planet, retrospectives committed like the Eat The Rich selection (see our Discussion with Judith Beauvallet of the channel Girls of horror) and night outdoor sessions for the most reckless. We share our hearts, our wounds and our weaknesses as we say in the dedicated jargon while waiting for our next interviews and more comprehensive reviews!
Our NIFFF marathon
MaXXXine
USA | Release date : 31/07/2024 | Implementation : Ti West |International competition | Critique to read Here
MaXXXine closes the arch opened in 2022 with X. Closer to the giallo than the slasher to the Tobe Hooper, the film again takes a different orientation from that of X and Pearl. In the wake of Dario ArgentoTi West delivers us a modern giallo pastiche. The murders are over-dressed as the psychopath, model par excellence of the genre. Dressed in an impermeable mackintosh and equipped with a bright white weapon in his black gloved hand, it's the very image of the faceless killer of the film Six women for the murderer (1964).
If the formula is well calibrated, it will be regretted, however, that not all ideas, although ingenious, are pushed to the end, especially during its strangely more prude finale, no doubt because it moves away from the slasher. Far from being missed, this last film succeeds all that it undertakes but with a little less panache than the previous films. One would certainly have expected more hemoglobin just like his amoral heroine who would want this frenzy never to stop. So do we.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪🔪🔪
Eternal
Denmark, Norway, Iceland | Release date : NC | Implementation : Ulaa Salim | International competition
Iceland, neon, smoked bars, deaf music. The night gives birth to a couple with a promise of always. She's crazy in love, singer, artist. He, a scientist, nose in the handlebar of his life's project: the closing of an open flaw in the island's maritime undergrounds, threatening to drastically worsen global warming. The couple is tied up, but life is about to roll over them, leaving only the shreds chewed and then spitted out of their love.
Strange mix. One side Our Ceremonies, with this SF in retreat, discreet, placed in the background of a story to the height of Men. On the other hand a decadent romance, nearing with the heightened feelings at the 99 Moons. The whole mixed with shaker in an ecological and feminist rereading of the Tartar Desert. Atmosphere visually, interesting by its experimental breakthroughs and constantly mastered photography, Eternal However, it is missing in its recipe. Resolutely too long, the film ends up shooting on itself like the nauseous circular planes opening and closing the film.
Nifffometer of the Mr Wilkes : 🔪🔪
Cuckoo
Germany | Release date : 29/08/2024 | Implementation : Tilman Singer | International competition
Among the birds, the Coucou is known for its tremendous adaptability by investing the nests of others while coldly eliminating their offspring. Parasite par excellence, the animal offers a good playground for a horror movie. In this German film, Gretchen reluctantly moved to a hotel in the German Alps with her father's family, from which she was separated.
On an original idea, Tilman Singer s A stage entry between shadow and light that Bram Stocker wouldn't deny. These few fulgurances probably explain why the film received the special mention of the international jury. Too bad Cuckoo breathless in its endless epilogue, which, by showing the beast, removes all its horrific potential. Too bad because the film had an artistic approach to be greeted.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪🔪
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
Hong Kong | Release date : 14/08/2024 | Implementation : Self Cheang | Asian competition | Critique to read Here
Adaptation of the series of successful manhuas of Andy Seto, City of Darkness (Twilllight of the Warriors: Walled in) comes to distribute a new slap in martial arts cinema. A year after the fantasy Mad Fate (2023) and two before thriller Limbo (2022) with both graphic and symbolic blackness, the Hong Kong master Soi Cheang signed a new film of formidable efficiency. «I'll take you.Come on. Don't cause troubleème. Troublemakers die » warned Cyclone, the legend of the underworld and protector of the Kowloon Citadel, this Chinese enclave that was in the middle of the former British colony of Hong Kong.
This urban setting is once again the opportunity for Soi Cheang to demonstrate all his talent for staging by delivering a vision of Kowloon that overflows with life. The completely decomplexed and staggered choreographies fly in these environments of crazy density. Better than Mad Fate, City of Darkness is a choice piece for any Asian action movie fan and an instant classic.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪
Gas
United States | Release date : NC | Implementation : Ryan J. Sloan | Third Kind
Victim of a dyschronometry that distorts his perception of time and reality, a young woman (Ariella Mastroianni) tries to find the custody of his daughter who escaped from him. While attending groups of lyrics, she will accept a mysterious deal with one of the participants that will lead her into a crescendo of violence.
Presented in the Third Kind selection (at the margins of the genre), Gas offers a stunning 16mm which, aesthetically, gives all its character to a particularly neat feature film. Co-written with her main actress Ariella Mastroianni, Gas offers a modern rereading of the paranoid thriller, simmering more and more in a nightly and peaty atmosphere that takes on the guts. Featuring cutting and editing that perfectly supports the representation of the mental disorder affecting his main character, the feature film will remain one of the best threaded thrillers of this NIFFF edition.
Nifffometer of the Mr Wilkes : 🔪🔪🔪🔪
Bursting Point
China | Release date : NC | Implementation : Dante Lam Chiu-Yin | Asian competition
Polar overflight action, Bursting Point tells the story of an inspector of an anti-drug unit about to drop narcotics. Classic classic in its history, the film locks in endless secondary axes that drown the main frame in an indigestible glubi-boulga with a number of victims worthy of genocide. If the staging remains inspired, this permanent deluge of fire ends up weaning with nearly 2h20 of frantic action.
We no longer know too much where to give head with this crazy camera that giggles so much that the scenes certainly punchy cruelly lack readability. We no longer count the unlikely number of explosives and Molotov cocktails launched per minute. The Napalm budget had to burn off a large part of the production funds because the explosions left something to be desired. Bursting Point Should have shown more modesty by focusing on the main axis of the undercover policeman rather than leaving in all directions. A not naughty film that makes too many mistakes to be forgiven for its bolimic generosity.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪
Respati
Indonesia | Release date : NC | Implementation : Sidharta Tata | Asian Competition
A strange entity attacks a teenager, soon projected into a world on the edge between fiction and reality. An Indonesian story of dream warrior, which reads like an Asian rereading ofHarry Potter, violence in addition. While the obvious comparison by the number of similarities (the home elf rouble, the reassuring simili-Hagrid, the strange forest of nightmares) has not escaped the international press, the film offers a far more horrific and black vision than Rowling's novels.
However, sometimes casting with roses (so a main actor with rather dubious charisma) and too many (many too many) lengths make it memorable. Respati ends up locking in an ultra-repetitive form, traversed by horrific visions (a mouth filled with far too many teeth in particular) sometimes impressive but which does not erase the number of its weaknesses. Too bad...
Nifffometer of the Mr Wilkes : 🔪🔪
Mi Bestia
Colombia | Release date : 04/09/2024 | Implementation : Camila Beltrán |International competition | Interview and review to read Here
Bogotá, 1996. The population is afraid, convinced that the devil will arrive during an imminent moon eclipse. Mila, 13, feels that others look at her more oppressive. As the red moon illuminates the sky, the girl sees her body change. Coming of age from childhood to the body of a woman, Mi Bestia full of idea of staging and can boast of a magnificent photograph. Filmed in silver, the film takes us into a confusing sensory experience.
Locked in a 4:3 ratio, the sexy image on Mila's face reinforces this suffocating feeling. The film opts for a radical choice with an image refresh rate below 24 fps to better simulate the pressure exerted by the outside world on the girl. The world takes another coloring where sound becomes an additional landmark to grasp this changing world. Mi Bestia was selected at ACID at the Cannes Festival. A sensitive film to be reserved for lovers of experimental proposals and lovers of independent films. Interview with Camila Beltrán to come soon on MaG.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪🔪🔪
Plastic Guns
France | Release date : 26/06/2024 | Implementation : Jean-Christophe Meurisse |Third Kind | Critique to read Here
A man disappeared after slaughtering his entire family. This is the point of departure (true) of this sketch film, which leads to its wake of zealous investigators Facebook, a duo of cops of questionable efficiency and a poor innocent caught for murder and sequestered by the Danish police...
After the bloody Oranges Sanguines, the return of Jean-Christophe Meurisse is frightful. Daying to approach the Dupont affair of Ligonnes in a frontal fashion, he will multiply the comic force of his narrative while persisting in his work of constant probe of the traverses of current French society. Enjoying as well as black!
Nifffometer of the Mr Wilkes : 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪
Pig That Survived Foot-and-Mouth Disease
South Korea | Release date : 06/11/2024 | Implementation : Hur Bum-wook | Asian competition
Korean animated film, Pig That Survived Foot-and-Mouth Disease tells the story of a pig looking to become a man. Ready to do anything to do that, he leads with him a horde of wild boar. With its extension name, the film already indicated the color. Too long, this South Korean anime is scattered along the way and its endless epilogue makes it all the more laughable. At the same time, a former soldier shook by his comrades took the maquis and ended up turning into a non-funny Similie. This second axis is even more indigent than the first.
Besides these narrative pitfalls, this anime does not shine with its plastic. The adopted style hardly hides the small budget and the choice of 3D was certainly not the best deal. Between completely labial synchronization with strawberries and very poor character models, Pig That Survived Foot-and-Mouth Disease It would have been better to avoid prolongations during his epilogue. With other artistic choices, perhaps it would have been nice to reconcile, especially since the film had an inspired pitch and unfortunately poorly executed.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪
Animal
France | Release date : 27/11/2024 | Implementation : Emma Benestan | International competition
A young woman (Oulaya Amamra) wants to count in the viril and macho medium of the Camargua bullfighting. If she succeeds in making her place, hints of the past seem to have a palpable influence on her body. Little by little an explosion of violence will shed blood in the dead waters of the Camargue marshes.
To be entered in line with the Animal rule, director Emma Benestan proposes a feminist and current western within a Camargue rarely as magnified on screen. Between ancestral traditions and topical burning societal questioning, Animal is a film of bold genre, sometimes lame in its rhythm or in the development of some of its characters, but which has for it a freshness and care that make it a perfect opening for this 23nd NIFFF edition. Hotly recommended!
Nifffometer of the Mr Wilkes : 🔪🔪🔪
Teufels Bad
Austria | Release date : NC | Implementation : Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala |International competition
In a small village in the middle of the 18thnd The pious Agnes sees her faith undermined by the harshness of life. Psychological thriller in clinical coldness, the movie divided Kilian and myself. This Austro-German film is a radical proposition by its exhausting approach to life between endless routines and insipid daily tasks. Almost naturalist in his approach, Teufels Bad Deprives himself of any emotion, at least until his epilogue, which makes him particularly harsh to digest. Yet it is distinguished by its breathtaking 35mm photograph and its sense of composition.
These swamp landscapes where cat fish swarm in muddy water is a total success. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala succeed in generating an atmosphere apart by not falling into miserabilism or in springs proper to the fantastic. Bad Teufs show the horror of peasant life, between pagan rites and stupidity of a ubiquitous religion that deprives beings of their own bodies. A confusing film that, although a little long, has to go through this process to take its spectator to his icy epilogue. Des Teufels Bad, who was a nutty NIFFF, had serious assets to compete for the grand prize.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪🔪🔪
Oddity
Ireland | Release date : 19/07/2024 (US) | Implementation : Damian Mc Carthy | International competition
After her twin sister's unsolved murder, a woman will exploit her so-called medium skills and a strange wooden model to try to trace the story of her death.
Spirits-fighters, cabinet of haunted curiosities and icy mansion, Oddity does not propose to renew the genre, far from it. Yet, quickly, his story of whodunit in the land of spirits will captivate his spectator and lock him in a rather effective spiral of anguish. This second feature confirms Damian Mc Carthy's talent and has offered the NIFFF audience a slice of well-deserved bursts!
Nifffometer of Mr Wilkes : 🔪🔪🔪
I Saw The TV Glow
USA | Release date : 10/06/2024 | Implementation : Jane Schoenbrun | International competition
I Saw The TV Glow surf the nostalgic wave of the '90s and it shows. Passionate about the same TV show aired late on Saturday night, Owen and Maddy high schools forge a curious friendship. Kitschissim episodes of The Pink Opaque they are obsessed until they invade their personal lives. Coming of age obvious, I Saw The TV Glow went very well at the start to get better at the finish. Terriblely talkative, the film feels compelled to build an indigestible narrative by failing to trust the audience's intelligence. Too opportunistic about his tribute to the 90s, I Saw The TV Glow Deprives ourselves of a certain sincerity to want to flatter our memories of this unique time of the VHS.
Too generous in her approach, director Jane Schoenbrun, who claims to be non-binary (and found in Maddy's character), locks up her story with time jumps that don't work. Owen is absolutely not credible aged and the constant concern to provide supernatural explanations to the plot ends up losing the viewer. Too bad, because there was an aesthetic and a pitch that would have deserved a more subtle treatment. This did not prevent the film from receiving the prize Imagining The Future Award (€3,000 with Microcity), rewarding the best design production.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪
Meanwhile on Earth
France | Release date : 01/05/2024 | Implementation : Jérémy Clapin | International competition | Critique to read Here
A young woman suffers from the disappearance of her brother, an astronaut lost during a mission. Yet, one evening, strange voices that seem to come from space promise him that they can organize his return. But this deal obviously has a cost...
Philosophical reading of the Faustian pact within a quasi Spielbergian science fiction, Meanwhile on earth is a feature film as captivating as it is plasticly neat. Placed on horseback between animation (where his director comes from) and live action, the film plays this duality until in the readings that one can make of it. Is there a pure fantasy lost in the limbos of a rich imagination or is it a realistic story? It's up to you to make your own opinion in front of this stimulating and exciting feature film.
Nifffometer of Mr Wilkes : 🔪🔪🔪🔪
Toxic Daughter
Japan | Release date : 12/06/2023 | Implementation : Eisuke Naito | Asian competition
While Hagino settles with her spouse, her daughter-in-law receives a visit from a dangerous kid who leaves behind a pack of victims. Not by four ways, Toxic Daughter is by far the worst film in the selection so we wonder how he ended up here. Between his photograph that friezes zero pointed for total absence of artistic involvement and his paper-mache scenario, nothing makes it possible to cling to this endless narrative, decidedly far too long. It is predictable, poorly executed, very incarnate and terribly cheap in terms of means and yet it cannot be said that its director Naito Eisuke has been bold or ambitious. A film to avoid at all costs!
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪
She loved blossoms more
Greece | Release date : NC | Implementation : Yannis Veslemes |International competition | Interview
Three brothers work in an isolated mansion on a mysterious time machine, hoping to bring their long-dead mother back to life.
If their macabre experiences focus first on animals, it is first a young pig who is sent into the limbs of this time machine. The poor animal comes back in the cart, an image that would remind the poster of Delicatessen Young but rotten by cronenbergian miasms. And Veslemes obviously does not deny this relationship, evoking in his fetish films The City of Lost Children and convoking in his cinema none other than Dominique Pinon, a leading actor in the world of Jean-Pierre Jeunet (see our Interview). Atmosphere to cut with knife in decorations Mandico, all to narrate a story that could have been extracted from a book by Burroughs, this is the tempting promise (no matter what it is) of this feature film in all singular points. A very nice surprise!
Nifffometer of Mr Wilkes : 🔪🔪🔪🔪
Ennennum
India | Release date : NC | Implementation : Shalini Ushadevi | International competition| Interview
Independent Indian film, Ennennum managed to take us with his writing qualities more than his more generic plastic. Refusing death to separate them, a couple decided to test revolutionary technology to safeguard human consciousness. With a rather classic synopsis, Shalini Ushadevi managed to transform the essay. Sci-fi is ultimately only a pretext for approaching the couple under the prism of possession by approaching the terriblely classical face of any relationship aimed at changing the other.
This lock-up succeeds in highlighting the relational flaws of a society that seeks to keep control. Ennennum also managed to dose his humorous scenes with intelligence. With a very good duo of actors, this Indian film has rightly won the Award of Criticism. Ennennum proves that even with limited means, one can produce a very beautiful narrative by healing writing. Next interview on MaG.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪🔪🔪
In a Violent Nature
United States | Release date : NC | Implementation : Chris Nash |Ultra Movies | Critique to read Here
Slasher put to power minus one, In a Violent Nature sticks to the Basques of a masked killer from end to end of a nomadic film, sometimes contemplative, sometimes ultra-violent.
In a Violent Nature Returns all the slasher codes. Where the victims are usually followed, the executioner is now being held. Where editing tended to become epileptic to maintain palpable tension, this film turned to the most complete contemplative. That being said, it was also this feature film that offered the NIFFF its most ridiculous gore scenes, always placed in total rupture of tone compared to what was played before. An unclassifiable object, aesthetically worked, that manages to never annoy despite a rather hovering rhythm. Anyway, a beautiful (and intriguing) midnight session.
Nifffometer of Mr Wilkes : 🔪🔪🔪
The Last Ashes
Luxembourg | Release date : NC | Implementation : Loïc Tanson | Third Kind
This is a film that featured in the NIFFF selection. The action took place in the heart of Luxembourg in 1854. Helen returns to her native village, determined to charge the clan that had murdered her parents fifteen years earlier. At the crossover of the film The Village Shyamalan and a twilight western, The Last Ashes Starts on the wheel hats to conclude with a feeling of disrepair, as if his director Loïc Tanson had not fully believed in his story. A missed opportunity to become a cult movie, shame.
Despite its ill-flavoured final, the film is carried by a very beautiful drums of actors. Against all expectations regarding the ideas received about the Luxembourg language, the VO is very beautiful and the film manages to create a singular atmosphere. The Las Ashes even pays for the luxury of a first part in black and white inspired before turning to the present in digital. On the side of photography, it is an unfailing one that will certainly please lovers of beautiful images.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪🔪
Isla Alien
Chile | Release date : NC | Implementation : Cristóbal Valenzuela Berríos | Third Kind
What is the commonality between aliens, amateur radio operators and Pinochet? This is the question which places (vaguely) the unclassifiable Isla Alien, a Chilean documentary of the category Third Kind of this edition of NIFFF.
The documentary begins in a glubi-boulga images of archives, current interviews, fictional reconstructions, reading audio and written documents, all in a black and white shared between the grain of the era and the platitude of a current ultra-definition. Meandering, sometimes stagnating, the tracks pile up, engulfing the spectator in a overflow of stories, images, situations that seem all more disjointed than each other. Yet, in the course of the feature film, all the pieces will blend perfectly into each other, revealing a complex and exciting puzzle questioning our relationship to reality. Perhaps not the most obvious film to discover at the end of the festival, within a tricky selection, spitting out every day its assiduous (and more surrounded) spectator with ever more hours of sleep less. Sitting certainly, but session decidedly to catch up!
Nifffometer of Mr Wilkes : 🔪🔪
Blood Star
UK – USA | Release date : NC | Implementation : Lawrence Jacomelli | Ultra Movies
In the middle of the desert, Bobbi crosses the road of a sheriff who brings terror to the district. The man of law, who has long been on the other side of the world, is hunting for him and will do everything to get out of this hell alive. Lawrence Jacomelli has good ideas but never really manages to convince, the fault of an academicism that frishes the decal of classics of the genre.
It always hurts to see directors paying tribute to films like Tronsaw Massacre without ever matching Master Tobe Hooper. Reciting the alphabet of red-neck slasher is one thing, overcoming it is another. Too much school to convince, Blood Star can't get to the end of these ideas. Predictable and therefore very unstressing, one does not feel much for his characters. Too bad, there was so much better to do. It remains a nice hour that we will reserve to the people who foamed the genre.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪
The Empire
France | Release date : 18/02/2024 | Implementation : Bruno Dumont | International competition
A northern village is the scene of a confrontation between two major alien forces, which could have a destructive impact on the future of our planet.
Dumont all codes of science fiction to the Star Wars, to condense them and integrate them into his own universe: landscapes of northern France, mix of pro actors and perfect strangers, sometimes raw realism... Yet he never managed to find the maestria of his previous films and never seemed to want to decide on the ambitions of his film. Is it a pastiche of a mediocre SF connoisseur or a failed tribute? Anyway, despite some nice comic ideas, The Empire Never manage to take off...
Nifffometer of Mr Wilkes : 🔪
Saýara
Turkey | Release date : NC | Implementation : Can Evrenol | Ultra Movies
Ah Saýara, you had to close the NIFFF in beauty... If we didn't get caught in the guts, we had to say that we laughed. To avenge her sister's death, a young maid will slaughter all her oppressors on her way. Besides these successful special effects for such a small budget, Saýara really didn't have much to brag about. It's long, flat and ugly despite hectolitres of hemoglobin that jump us to the face. We don't even want to vomit so much Revenge movie Mad leaves marble.
It's hard to make a list of everything that's not so good this Turkish movie fails on almost every level. Interminable, his story is gangred by completely stupid flashbacks on Saýara's father who taught his daughter how to become a ripper of jugulars and other joyous people. Was it really useful to make us believe the story? Too much free violence makes this asepticized show a serious turnip that competes with the worst NIFFF film with Toxic Daughter. That's a deserved title!
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪
Mercy
France | Release date : 16/10/2024 | Implementation : Alain Guiraudie |Third Kind | Critique to read Here
Coming to pay his respects to his former deceased boss, Jeremiah (Felix Kysyl) will unleash in its wake a real hurricane of desires and unsaid, inflaming the rural population of its native village.
After Lake unknownGuiraudie returns with a queer thriller based on the strange emulsion between lies and desires. A film that jostles its spectator, training in an absurd whirlwind and ruptures of tone. A sexless ass movie, surrounded with humour and derision the contours of a suffocating and suffocating rurality. A surprise nugget, for which it will be necessary to wait until October to discover it at the cinema.
Nifffometer of Mr Wilkes : 🔪🔪🔪🔪
Choke
Japan | Release date : NC | Implementation : Nagao Gen | Ultra Movies
In a future in which all humanity has become silent, a strange relationship will be formed between a survivalist and the man she has captured. With Mi Bestia, Choke is perhaps the most experimental film of the festival. But the comparison between these two films stops there. If the first can boast of a remarkable photograph and crazy scenographic ideas that leave no doubt about the work of reflection that had to be done upstream, Choke oscillates between good ideas and a very clumsy performance. Let's not talk about overjoyed acting, which, in wishing to pay homage to silent cinema, leaves more an impression of unease than anything else.
Choke will gradually decide to go further by deleting the sound and image with a particularly violent editing. The photograph could have been searched for but again it is a failure. The unwashed blacks and whites rather act as a cover for poverty in a low-budget setting. There was, however, room for more originality. Too long but nevertheless fun at times, Choke is saved by his words from almost primitive peoples caught up in the discovery of sadism. A bancal film, nevertheless intriguing for its UFO side. In short or medium film, it would probably have been much more striking. Too bad.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪
The Soul Eater
France | Release date : 24/04/2024 | Implementation : Maury and Bustillo |Third Kind | Critique to read Here
Commander Elisabeth Guardiano is responsible for investigating a double murder of a rare brutality. On the spot, she met Frank, a gendarmerie captain with vagrant airs and relative insight. They will have to team up and set aside their rivalries to investigate a series of children's disappearances.
Well, we're cheating a little with this movie we've already seen at Gérardmer Festival during a session that had terrified us of so much nullity. Maury and Bustillo's latest feature film fails lamentably on all levels... Rare are the films that have so confused us with their nullity. Halfway between the telefilm and the abyssal bid, The Soul Eater is a failure on all levels. Written with the feet, realized with the ***This is by far the worst film in the selection. A real purge that succeeds in making Julie Lescaut's episode look like a masterpiece. Just for that, The Soul Eater is entitled to a special mention for the nifffometer!
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪(special reference 💩)
Kill
India – USA | Release date : 11/09/2024 | Implementation : Nikhil Nagesh Bhat | Ultra Movies
Amrit, an old commando is on a train taken by bandits. As he decides to attack, the journey turns into a bloodbath. Indian film directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, Kill bears his name: a simple and basic project, in the image of the entire film. While some choreographies are not all to throw away, disastrous acting and completely stupid history don't make you dream. From one kitsch scene to another, the dead of the characters are so excessive that it's hard to hide our smile. Wedding proposal in the train toilet, fragile women and large muscles, this is basically the program.
On MaG, we are not hermetic to Indian cinema as long as he knows how to get a little higher than his point as was the case with Bediya presented last year at the NIFFF or RRR. There it is so first degree that the film friezes the nanar. If you want a good action movie on a train and with a bonus for an excellent story, go see Snowpiercer If not already done, you will avoid almost two hours of mediocre action.
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪
Love Lies Bleeding
England | Release date : 12/06/2024 | Implementation : Rose Glass | Third Kind | Critique to read Here
He murmured that a man would have been seen in the English gardens of the NIFFF in questioning passersby to tell them about Love Lies Bleeding. Always adorned with a flower shirt, black beard, and hair tied to a samurai bun, it was sometimes accompanied by a green absinthe glass by hand. It is said that it now haunts the bottoms of the lake while waiting for the next film of Rose Glass….
Love Lies BleedingWe've been talking to you for a while on MaG so much we loved this movie! He could certainly have shaded the genre film The Substance (read our critical) s’il avait eu droit à une place à Cannes. Lou, salariée d’un club de gym, tombe amoureuse de Jackie, une culturiste ambitieuse qui prépare la compétition de ses rêves à Las Vegas. Cette rencontre passionnelle va de fil en aiguille les précipiter dans une spirale de violence où s’entremêlent désirs, vengeance et stéroïdes.
Production A24 qu’on attendait de pied ferme, le film est porté par la fantastique performance de Katy O的Brian and Kirsten Stewart. Loin des clichés de douceur de ce que certains croient voir comme une unique et même vision d’une supposée essence féminine monolithique, leur histoire reprend les codes d’une pure relation toxique et passionnelle. Parce que Rose Glass déconstruit méticuleusement nos représentations, le film parvient à faire preuve d’un authentique regard féminin, interrogeant avec malice la manière de filmer les corps des femmes. Film coup de poing et libérateur, touchant et incisif, Love Lies Bleeding Is he our Thelma and Louise Modern?
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪(coup de💘absolu)
Longlegs
USA | Release date : 10/07/2024 | Implementation : Oz Perkins | Film de clôture | Critique to read Here
After the noticed Mandy (2018), Prisoners of The Ghostland (2021) and Dream Scenario (2023), le cygne noir d’Hollywood n’en finit plus de gâter les fans de films de genre. Nicolas Cage revient dans un rôle taillé sur mesure où il incarne avec maestria un détraqué et tueur en série insaisissable. Lee Harker, nouvelle recrue du FBI jouée par l’actrice Maïka Monroe travaille sans relâche pour résoudre l’enquête et empêcher qu’il ne prenne la vie d’autres familles. Un tête-à-tête implacable et diaboliquement glacial.
L’histoire rappelle immédiatement Le Silence des Agneaux tout comme le travail de Fincher sur les films Se7en et Zodiac. Maïka Monroe, l’actrice remarquée d’It Follow-up and excellent Watcher (read our critical) livre elle aussi une performance magnétique. En dosant les apparitions du tueur en série, Longlegs réussit à renforcer la puissance de suggestion, à l’image des vieux films d’horreur qui savaient faire confiance au spectateur et ses démons. Dans la veine des meilleurs films d’horreur de ces dernières années, Longlegs montre s’il le fallait encore combien la figure du croquemitaine est inépuisable. Un tête-à-tête implacable et diaboliquement glacial à soutenir au cinéma !
Nifffometer of KillerS7ven : 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪(coup de💘)
Retrospective Eat The Rich
Sélection : 22 films | Eat The Rich | Interview : Judith Beauvallet à voir Here
« Rousseau was a people too, and he said: When the people have nothing to eat, they will eat the rich ». C’est en ces termes appétissants que Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, figure des sans-culottes et chef de file des « exagérés », appelait les sans-dents à la révolte. Présentée au NIFFF, la rétrospective Eat The Rich lui faisait écho en mettant en lumière la représentations des élites dans les films de genre. Avec près de 22 films allant de Pasolini à Snowpiercer, on n’a pas pu voir tous ceux qu’on visait même si on en connaissait déjà une large partie.
Sélection engagée et engageante, cette rétrospective Eat The Rich nous rappelle l’urgence de (re)voir ces monuments du cinéma. On vous invite à aller lire notre Article sur ce thème cher à l’histoire du cinéma. En prime, on a même changé sur ce sujet alléchant avec Judith Beauvallet, journaliste et créatrice de la chaine Girls of horror. Un échange qui déborde tout naturellement sur la politique et le rapport aux corps féminins dans le septième Art, son sujet de prédilection
[…] un petit tour d’horizon des courts qui nous ont marqué dans les festivals de genre au NIFFF comme au FEFFS, sur ShadowZ, Mubi ou encore Arte ! Un menu idéal pour flairer les cinéastes […]