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[ForAcademicPurposes]

I found another Baphomet sighting!

This is turning into Where's Waldo the movie, demonic edition.

 

[Days like these...]

Could this have been an X-File?

Now that I think about it, It really do feel like it be

 

[StueyDuck]

Nah. It's well made I guess, but it's more goofy than scary, the story is shit, and the end is dumb af.

People comparing this to silence of the lambs lol....

Yeah they fumbled the premise.

I liked the demonic, cultist angle but they just didn't do it justice.

Felt like it needed 30 minutes more and to properly flesh out an ending. Suffers the classic newcomer issue of not knowing how to end a movie.

 

[Sonik]

Nah. It's well made I guess, but it's more goofy than scary, the story is shit, and the end is dumb af.

People comparing this to silence of the lambs lol....

It didn't know what it wanted to be, Mandy for comparison was a balls out insane revenge horror film and it was awesome because it was consistent and had great pacing, on the other hand we had this clusterfuck where Cage plays his usual goofy character screaming MOMEEE and the next scene is slow as fuck pretending to be a serious horror movie, a serious horror movie where nothing happens in half of the film. And it's not like Cage can't play a serious character, in Pig for example he was excellent.

 

[ForAcademicPurposes]

Spoiler

 

[ForAcademicPurposes]

Interrogation scene:

 

[Giallo Corsa]

I don't know about the whole pre-release "hype" thing, just some initial thoughts here on Gaf so I pretty much went in blind and :

Absolutely loved it, excellent, excellent cinematography which led to some intense and oppressive atmosphere, good acting and as for the plot...I see people being disappointed with it for not being "horror" or "scary" enough which wasn't the case for me since I treated it more like a police thriller with some horror elements thrown in.
It was more like a 7even x The zodiac detective film than - say - something like It follows or what have you...
In fact, if it wasn't for the final act where...

Spoiler: Spoiler

"SaTaN and sheeit®"

, it would have been exactly that, just a police/detective/serial killer type of film.

Now, regarding N.Cage : I liked him even though he was..."more of the same" doing his usual fuckery, I'll have to agree with others though, it would have been better if they had cast an unknown actor since, IMO, it would have been more impactful that way.

I saw people mentioning Arcadian (also starring Cage) and while I liked it, it wasn't as good as this.

All in all, a good, solid 7.5 out of 10 horror atmospheric, slow burn movie where you have to be in the right mood to enjoy it as it can get a bit slow or even abstract in some spots.

Really, really enjoyed it, will watch it again on my OLED wearing headphones as to properly enjoy it.

Edit : some observations

Spoiler: Main themes/Spoiler

Maybe it's just me, maybe it was the cinematography and framing but, it felt like the director tried to convey that the film's characters are already in...Hell/purgatory (?) - the whole Satanic themes (didn't notice Baphomet myself like others in here) and the sets which felt empty, devoid of any other characters/life (notice how sterile/empty/rundown the police station looked/felt), how there's only 1 scene where characters are not in the police station or houses where the killings took place (Bar), the general eerieness/emptiness of the characters, the fact that there's - basically - only 6-7 characters on-screen during the whole movie, the dark, (almost) unresolved ending and, don't know, it gave me the impression that the director wanted to convey the futility of it all since Satan is a real entity/thing and there's no real resolve or good things happening in the end...

 

[Alebrije]

Good movie , the end needed 20 minutes more to go deeper on the story. Great photography and acting. Hope there is a sequel or a prequel.

 

[BadBurger]

I am doing a rewatch now

Spoiler

There are a lot of glimpses of Satan either in reflections or hidden in background shots.

 

[ForAcademicPurposes]

I am doing a rewatch now

Spoiler

There are a lot of glimpses of Satan either in reflections or hidden in background shots.

Baphomet

 

[Alebrije]

I am doing a rewatch now

Spoiler

There are a lot of glimpses of Satan either in reflections or hidden in background shots.

 

[OverHeat]

Wtf did I just watched…I want my time back

 

[John Marston]

I am doing a rewatch now

Spoiler

There are a lot of glimpses of Satan either in reflections or hidden in background shots.

You don't need a rewatch for those.

Unless you ingested a cocktail of shrooms, weed and some fish paralyzer

 

[ForAcademicPurposes]

fish paralyzer

This

Sounds intriguing

How does one paralyze a freddi fish? Does it work.on humans?

 

[ithilion]

I like it. More of a psychological thriller than horror. Hope for some sort of seguel that double down on satanic cults

 

[Insane Metal]

I liked it. The cinematography is quite old school.

 

[ForAcademicPurposes]

I liked it. The cinematography is quite old school.

Love that wide angle shit. Very John Carpenter-esque.

 

[calistan]

I thought this was great, but I was entering it from an expectation of X-Files meets Silence of the Lambs via Nic Cage craziness sort of thing. Which is exactly what I thought I got.

But is there some deeper meaning to it? I'd be amazed, but it wouldn't be the first film I'd needed Google to explain to me (for example Killing of a Sacred Deer, Beau Is Afraid). Or is this just fan theories?

 

[FunkMiller]

Far too clever clever for its own good. And unfocused where it needed to be far sharper. In the hands of a better writer it could have been truly terrifying, but Perkins doesn't quite have the chops to pull it off.

 

[Putonahappyface]

You don't need a rewatch for those.

Unless you ingested a cocktail of shrooms, weed and some fish paralyzer

I've watched Silence of the Lambs on a large dose of magic mushrooms and it was quite the experience. I imagine Longlegs would be equally as fun.

 

[Days like these...]

Far too clever clever for its own good. And unfocused where it needed to be far sharper. In the hands of a better writer it could have been truly terrifying, but Perkins doesn't quite have the chops to pull it off.

Blackcoat's Daughter was better than this x files episode.

 

[Audiophile]

It insists upon itself.