I was very impressed by Nicolas Pesce's debut "The Eyes of My Mother", to me it was an inspirational movie, for it felt just like the kind of horror I love and respect the most, and wish to make one day. I missed "Piercing" when it came out, but not too long ago saw Pesce's "The Grudge" reboot, which sadly, wasn't too good, but it was real mean and tried to beat some clichés. As I'm on the task to see more movies starring the excellent Mia Wasikowska, I got to finally feel the rest of Pesce's current trinity, and I am reasonably satisfied.
Creed (Christopher Abbott), a family man, a troubled man, kisses his wife and daughter goodbye and seemingly heads away on business, but his true plan is known by nobody else, and that is to check into a hotel, call an escort service, order a prostitute, and killer her. With an ice pick. She arrives, the name is Jackie (Mia Wasikowska), and she turns out no less demented than Creed. Their inner demons will make the whole affair sleazy, violent, off-putting and contradictory.
I knew I'll like "Piercing" during the first minute, where only the titles dance, but they did so with an old-school aesthetic, both visually and audibly. Full disclosure, I have not read Ryu Murakami's novel, so I don't know the reality of the original story, but I absolutely love the sleazy 70's vibe that "Piercing" is clothed in. Nicolas Pesce has created a beautiful, shadowy, sort of pseudo-modern looking little world, in which Creed and Jackie love, hate, and don't know each other. I hear the viewers who call out the pointlessness of it all, and I agree it is, though it doesn't have much weight on my rating. Besides the awesome production design, great and minimalistic-effectively used FX, and absolutely cool-as-hell soundtrack (with borrowings from "Deep Red" and "Tenebrae"), the force that drives "Piercing" are the interactions between two reasonably demented personalities. Personalities who are given just the right ambiguous treatment by Christopher Abbott and Mia Wasikowska. Couple years ago I didn't really know Christopher Abbott, but by now I've seen the man has many good, offbeat indies under his belt. He's good.
Pesce has crafted "Piercing" meticulously, setting out to hypnotize the viewer, so he doesn't know where exactly is he led to. Pacing's not always consistent or up-going, and the movie tends to lose itself someplace in the constant brushes between Jackie and Reed, more so around the middle parts of "Piercing". I both love and dislike how the film ends, pointlessly and unexpectedly, but at the same time it nicely loops it all together, sort of. Ultimately, does "Piercing" lack substance? It does, the psychological terror is always masterfully manifested, but not always we know or understand what were the things that put these characters into the state they are in.
A sleazy throwback erotic thriller mixed with a dark comedy about an unsure man catching a fish too big, thrown in the blender of modern arthouse horror. And a pinch of Cronenberg-esque body horror. Feel like signing up? My rating: 7/10.
Creed (Christopher Abbott), a family man, a troubled man, kisses his wife and daughter goodbye and seemingly heads away on business, but his true plan is known by nobody else, and that is to check into a hotel, call an escort service, order a prostitute, and killer her. With an ice pick. She arrives, the name is Jackie (Mia Wasikowska), and she turns out no less demented than Creed. Their inner demons will make the whole affair sleazy, violent, off-putting and contradictory.
I knew I'll like "Piercing" during the first minute, where only the titles dance, but they did so with an old-school aesthetic, both visually and audibly. Full disclosure, I have not read Ryu Murakami's novel, so I don't know the reality of the original story, but I absolutely love the sleazy 70's vibe that "Piercing" is clothed in. Nicolas Pesce has created a beautiful, shadowy, sort of pseudo-modern looking little world, in which Creed and Jackie love, hate, and don't know each other. I hear the viewers who call out the pointlessness of it all, and I agree it is, though it doesn't have much weight on my rating. Besides the awesome production design, great and minimalistic-effectively used FX, and absolutely cool-as-hell soundtrack (with borrowings from "Deep Red" and "Tenebrae"), the force that drives "Piercing" are the interactions between two reasonably demented personalities. Personalities who are given just the right ambiguous treatment by Christopher Abbott and Mia Wasikowska. Couple years ago I didn't really know Christopher Abbott, but by now I've seen the man has many good, offbeat indies under his belt. He's good.
Pesce has crafted "Piercing" meticulously, setting out to hypnotize the viewer, so he doesn't know where exactly is he led to. Pacing's not always consistent or up-going, and the movie tends to lose itself someplace in the constant brushes between Jackie and Reed, more so around the middle parts of "Piercing". I both love and dislike how the film ends, pointlessly and unexpectedly, but at the same time it nicely loops it all together, sort of. Ultimately, does "Piercing" lack substance? It does, the psychological terror is always masterfully manifested, but not always we know or understand what were the things that put these characters into the state they are in.
A sleazy throwback erotic thriller mixed with a dark comedy about an unsure man catching a fish too big, thrown in the blender of modern arthouse horror. And a pinch of Cronenberg-esque body horror. Feel like signing up? My rating: 7/10.