Comment by Magic Marmalade:
I found this as part of a three-movies-on-a-disc set by bootleg dvd outfit: 23rd century...
(The others being: Ape Man, and Mesa - haven't watched yet)
... Pretty decent looking DVD, I have to say!
It's not really a "horror" movie, to be honest, as, while there are some disturbing (unsettling) images, there are no real jump scares of graphic horror scenes... It's just more a woozy, hallucinatory tone - the dread Dr Doom speaks of is most accurate -
It starts abruptly, with a woman in a car being run off the road and into a river... She survives, but is haunted by fleeing glimpses of a weird looking man who seems to be silently stalking her. After getting out of town she comes to another town and takes a room in a boarding house, but is increasingly obsessed with an abandoned old pavilion she saw on her way into town.
The movie basically follows her around...
(not many other characters to speak of - bar a priest, a psychologist, the landlady, and the real creep if the story: the guy taking the room across the hall from her's)
... And this intimate portrait of her doubt, and decent into possible madness if the real, true horror of the story... Eerie.
The performances are pretty wooden, yet precise, and they have to be, as the real stars of this show are the director, cinematographer, and ultimately, the editor, who conspire to elevate this way above a mere horror movie, but even worthy of being considered a with of cinematic art:
Every shot is like a perfectly composed photographic portrait, the actions and words of the characters move fluidly in a brilliantly visually poetic way of telling the story, and the editing... Wow! Spot on.
The timing of the edits are absolutely perfect... Leading from one scene, or frame to the next beautifully. A well as the juxtapositions of the cuts. Perfection.
No, this is more than a b-movie, or horror movie... It looks, feels, and movies not like a cross between an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and a Stanley Kubrick movie...
... In fact, not only would I say that if either of those filmmakers had made this, they might consider it among their best work, I could well believe they both saw this and wished they'd made it themselves!
I could even go so far as to say that this might well be the reason The Shining exists at all, not to mention others if a similar standard, like the sixth sense, or Jacob's ladder
Masterpiece.
