Lyla starts with a young boy running over a Mego Invisible Woman figure over and over again with a reflective toy care. Then his mother appears and tells him that things are going. To be different now that she has to leave. He begs her to stay and she reminds him that she will always love him before slicing open her own throat and bleeding all over the wallpaper.
Hugh (Clark Moore) takes his wife Lyla (Jolene Andersen) and son Lars (Mason Wells) on a getaway so that he can have the solitude that he needs to write his first book. As you can imagine, seeing that this is a horror movie, that escape from the distractions of modern society is short-lived. Have we learned nothing from every other writer who has tried to do the same and found strange people and familiar ghosts out to destroy not only his family but himself too?
Director and writer Gordon Cowie has only made this one film and it looks gorgeous. He definitely has skills as a cinematographer and unlike so many direct to streaming movies, this actually looks like a movie where someone has taken the time to make the colors rich, to think through the shots and to push things beyond just pointing and shooting.
As for what it's all about, I watched it twice and went back a few times to review things and I wonder if I've made it more complicated than it is. I didn't want to be one of the other people I've seen review this on Letterboxd and go off on it, because hey, I've watched enough giallo to make my way around a confusing narrative. Yet Lyla is so obtuse at times that I honestly can't tell you where the story begins or ends.
That said, it has one of the most beautiful depictions of someone smashing someone else's head with a rock on a wave swept beach I've seen, so there's that, right?
Hugh (Clark Moore) takes his wife Lyla (Jolene Andersen) and son Lars (Mason Wells) on a getaway so that he can have the solitude that he needs to write his first book. As you can imagine, seeing that this is a horror movie, that escape from the distractions of modern society is short-lived. Have we learned nothing from every other writer who has tried to do the same and found strange people and familiar ghosts out to destroy not only his family but himself too?
Director and writer Gordon Cowie has only made this one film and it looks gorgeous. He definitely has skills as a cinematographer and unlike so many direct to streaming movies, this actually looks like a movie where someone has taken the time to make the colors rich, to think through the shots and to push things beyond just pointing and shooting.
As for what it's all about, I watched it twice and went back a few times to review things and I wonder if I've made it more complicated than it is. I didn't want to be one of the other people I've seen review this on Letterboxd and go off on it, because hey, I've watched enough giallo to make my way around a confusing narrative. Yet Lyla is so obtuse at times that I honestly can't tell you where the story begins or ends.
That said, it has one of the most beautiful depictions of someone smashing someone else's head with a rock on a wave swept beach I've seen, so there's that, right?
