A weary working mother tries to catch up on life by purchasing a red dress from a strange department store, but the dress begins to leave its mark ...
Strange indeed, for reasons good and bad. The good is in the concept and execution of the retail experience - lots of influences claimed by reviewers, and for me it's obviously Gilliam's Brazil and the dark whimsy of Tim Burton, but there's a uniquely engaging energy from the androidishly gothic head saleswoman and her batty patter. The music is evocative, and the sound design runs through everything with wonder and menace. I got the feeling that, if the cameras had kept rolling, the cast would have burst into a song 'n dance routine to the tune of the cash registers in Are You Being Served - but with blood. And pussy.
Performances and editing are good, plus some interesting camera effects and emphases on certain artefacts and advertising. Surprisingly, the humour is subtle and consistent, superior to most efforts in the wheezing genre of comedy-horror. And I think in one scene they use ASMR techniques, when the fashion photos of a victim are clipped up with scissors.
In horror terms, I do want to go easy, because this scores high on atmosphere, but the strangely bad part lies in the story. The best a storyteller can do is take mundane experiences and light them up from unexpectedly revealing angles, and the attempt is made here, but with an under-powered plot that would have been at home in a TV episode from the '70s, plus associations that are chaotic, verging on lazy.
It's hard to pick apart. I was stop-start with the movie up to about minute 50 - engaged by the retail scenes, but not so much with the domestic and work stuff. The creepily intrusive bank managers are amusing, but that's a sideshow ... and to what? Why the central character, this everywoman? Why put so much energy into the son and his girlfriend without payoff? And what is the mythos of the department store?
For reasons you'll see, these distractions disappear, and I relaxed into the final hour as the movie just whirled around to a climax with jubilatory madness of the style exertiones.
Overall: imaginative vision, skimpy story.
Strange indeed, for reasons good and bad. The good is in the concept and execution of the retail experience - lots of influences claimed by reviewers, and for me it's obviously Gilliam's Brazil and the dark whimsy of Tim Burton, but there's a uniquely engaging energy from the androidishly gothic head saleswoman and her batty patter. The music is evocative, and the sound design runs through everything with wonder and menace. I got the feeling that, if the cameras had kept rolling, the cast would have burst into a song 'n dance routine to the tune of the cash registers in Are You Being Served - but with blood. And pussy.
Performances and editing are good, plus some interesting camera effects and emphases on certain artefacts and advertising. Surprisingly, the humour is subtle and consistent, superior to most efforts in the wheezing genre of comedy-horror. And I think in one scene they use ASMR techniques, when the fashion photos of a victim are clipped up with scissors.
In horror terms, I do want to go easy, because this scores high on atmosphere, but the strangely bad part lies in the story. The best a storyteller can do is take mundane experiences and light them up from unexpectedly revealing angles, and the attempt is made here, but with an under-powered plot that would have been at home in a TV episode from the '70s, plus associations that are chaotic, verging on lazy.
It's hard to pick apart. I was stop-start with the movie up to about minute 50 - engaged by the retail scenes, but not so much with the domestic and work stuff. The creepily intrusive bank managers are amusing, but that's a sideshow ... and to what? Why the central character, this everywoman? Why put so much energy into the son and his girlfriend without payoff? And what is the mythos of the department store?
For reasons you'll see, these distractions disappear, and I relaxed into the final hour as the movie just whirled around to a climax with jubilatory madness of the style exertiones.
Overall: imaginative vision, skimpy story.