Soreghina Reviews

The House (III) (2022)

Finally Netflix gives us something good

[8/10 · 17 January 2022]

This was a lovely watch! The animation and design are flawless and well-crafted, the voice acting is great, and the stories are very compelling. I don't know what the people complaining were expecting, they probably thought it was a children's film. Not so, it's very much for adults, not only because it might be disturbing for younger viewers, but also because the themes it follows are painfully grown-up. All three chapters to me capture a Kafkaesque kind of horror (especially the second chapter). The protagonists bury themselves inside an archetypal house that promises them everything (status, money, familiar comfort) but ends up eating them alive as they fall victims of their own illusions. The house is a symbol of our blindness, our greed; all flaws which, if left to fester, may cause our ruin. Only the final chapter allows us to see a way out of our this prison, introducing some hope into this rather dark tale.

More like this, Netflix, pretty please??

Wreckers (2011)

Folk horror disguised as romance

[8/10 · 21 October 2020]

This film is far from perfect, it suffers from a visibly low budget (the version I watched had such bad audio quality I could hardly make out what they were saying most of the time) and maybe being a tad too subtle for its own good. But having watched it for the second time, I've stopped seeing the lack of answers and clear plot points as a flaw, it's most likely an integral part of the director's vision.

Important information and dialogue is glossed over, so that you have to pay really close attention to catch every little detail in order to make sense of the bigger picture, in a kind of "show, don't tell" filmmaking that I found incredibly refreshing. What I like the most about this film is its underlying darkness, which seeps through the shots of beautiful countryside and accordeon-based soundtracks.

The story seems fairly straight-forward, a young married couple that is trying to have a baby receives a visit from the husband's younger brother. But from this simple dynamic some very dark subjects are explored.

This film's saving grace is the actors: Claire Foy as Dawn, the young wife is incredibly compelling in her role as the observer of the brothers' relationship, Benedict Cumberbatch is very subtle in his portrayal of David, the husband, who reveals a hidden darkness as the film progresses, and Shaun Evans is equally compelling as Nick, the younger brother who comes back from the war with PTSD and inserts himself in the couple's life, disrupting their peace but in the process also revealing David's true nature.

I thought the way the brothers' horrible childhood was revealed bit by bit and the way their relationship slowly reveals itself to be so twisted was brilliant, and an incredible study on trauma and on small communities.

It's a film I would recommend to anyone who likes movies which focus on character study and likes to pick apart the scenes to find hidden meanings, and also to people who like films set in rural England which unveil its unsettling, eerie side.

The Shadow Line (2011)

Give me a break...

[7/10 · 21 October 2020]

First of I want to say I mainly enjoyed this series, especially for the first few episodes. But the further on it went, the more frustrated I became with the overall message this show beats you over the head with: light and shadows yadda yadda, nobody knows which side of the line they stand on... more times than not it comes off as really out of touch and overdramatic. Another user expressed it perfectly, this show takes itself too seriously and the result is a great bleakness, but at the same time it's too unrealistic and cartoonish to really come off as gritty. The two main villains seem like they just hopped out of who framed Roger Rabbit, I mean come on. The other issue I had is with the dialogue. I enjoy imaginative, colourful dialogue, but not from every character, in EVERY SINGLE SCENE. Nobody talks like that in real life, and it really takes you out of it a lot. The final scene with the policeman saluting the baby also did me in, I couldn't stop laughing, which I presume was not what the director was going for. Overall it had potential, a pretty good mood and acting, but it blew it on ovestylized dialogue and overdone morality dilemmas.

Rope (1948)

Technically impressive, but shallow.

[6/10 · 1 April 2019]

I have the utmost respect for Hitchcock as as filmmaker. The tracking shots, the colours, the set, it's all really handsome, but apart from these strictly technical aspects, though, it falls short of pretty much everything else.

First off, let me just get this off my chest: STOP MISINTERPRETING NIETZSCHE. He did NOT believe in a superhuman race that was allowed to kill all people perceived as inferior. That was Hitler. All he said was that we should ALL set out to look for our own values and ideals, breaking free of those pre-imposed by society, hence becoming a race of "Übermensch". At no point did he say that murdering people was OK. His words were twisted by his family when his work was published, then the nazis and finally by a bunch of Hollywood directors. The poor man is spinning in his grave.

That being said, I can't have much respect for a film that doesn't understand the philosophical statements its characters make. The characters themselves are quite bi-dimensional, and the acting isn't great. The dialogue is dull. The psychological angle to the story is almost completely glossed over. Overall what we get is a good piece of cinema that diesn't have anything to say, and what little it has to say it messes up completely. Sorry, but if like me you're looking for some depth or meaning in a film, this is not it.

24 (2001–2010)

One of the worse shows I've ever seen.

[1/10 · 13 March 2019]

It just baffles me how this piece of garbage has such a high rating. "What's so bad about it?", you may ask. Well, everything. Yes, the production values are terrible. Yes, the acting is mediocre at best. Yes, it's completely unrealistic and laughable. But what really got me was how mind bogglingly stupid and clichèd the writing was. Let me just describe to you a scene of this show, which also happens to be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. The daughter and wife are escaping a group of terrorists. The wife, DURING THE CHASE, stops the car and gets out to check if they've lost them, as you do. Now, the car is parked in a quite nice, wide and solid path. But wait... just as I'm mentally screaming "don't you dare", the ground under the car collapses for no apparent reason, and the car goes a-rolling down the hill, with the daughter still inside, catches fire and explodes. In that moment I made a promise to myself: if the daughter was still alive after that, I would stop watching the thing. Sure enough, a few episodes later we learned that she threw herself out of the car before it exploded, Jason Bourne style, getting only a few scratches on the knuckles. Before we learn this, though, we have to watch the show turn into an Argentinean telenovela for a few episodes, as the mother sees the wreckage of the car, passes out, and loses her memory. She got to wander around for a bit, hooking up with strangers, before yours truly decided that enough was quite enough. I can't for the life of me understand how anyone could possibly find this bearable, let alone good. I almost never give such low ratings, but this trash deserved it, please take my word for it.

The Ritual (I) (2017)

As good as horror gets

[8/10 · 15 January 2019]

This is what I'm talking about! Scary, engaging, realistic, this is all I ask from a horror film. Horrors these days don't understand the importance of setting an atmosphere and creating relatable characters, but this one does. The claustrophobic anxiety induced by something as simple as getting lost in the woods is captured perfectly, the supernatural element creeping is is just as well. I really sympathized with the protagonist, and I didn't think the ending was a let down, as it showed how he finally won the struggle with his inner demons. The acting was solid, and the camerawork was on point. I wish all horrors were this good.