- Directed by Romola Garai
- Written by Romola Garai
- Stars Carla Juri, Alec Secareanu, Imelda Staunton
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV_lUlOc4mQ
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a slow-moving slog through depression and despair and guilt and entrapment. Gradually, we figure out what happened in the past and what is happening now by flashing back and forth. Even when we piece it together, it’s not that satisfying. Horrorguy Kevin liked it somewhat more than Horrorguy Brian, thinking it has some interesting elements. One thumbs down and a moderate thumbs up.
Spoilery Synopsis
Tomaz wakes up in his cabin in the woods. Then he reports to work running a roadblock on a desolate road. He digs a hole and finds a little statuette. Then Tomaz wakes up in a homeless shelter in the city. He then waits on the corner for construction work.
That night, he dreams about the roadblock again. A woman runs up to him, and he nearly shoots her. Suddenly, the homeless shelter is on fire, and he has to wake up and get out quickly. He passes out and loses all his belongings.
He wakes up in the hospital, and the nurse tells him that Sister Claire brough him in. He goes to see the sister, and she’s kept his photos but doesn’t have his money. He says that he doesn’t want to go back home, even though the war is over.
Sister Claire takes Tomaz to a place where he can stay, with Magda. Magda feeds him and explains that she’s living with and caring for her dying Mother on the top floor. All he has to do is help around the house, which they cannot maintain. On the way out, Sister Claire throws Tomaz’s money in the sewer.
Magda explains that they don’t have electricity, since the old woman keeps trying to put her fingers in the sockets.
Tomaz dreams about the roadblock and the woman he picked up from the road. He tells her that the nearest village is two days walk away. She’s trying to cross the border to find her daughter. He invited her to stay with him. She sees the little statuette that he dug up.
Tomaz notices that Magda’s house is falling apart and filthy, so he gets to work fixing things up. Magda doesn’t want him to fix things up, but he sees the need. When she goes out, he fixes the toilet anyway. He finds a dead thing in the toilet; a batlike creature, which he stomps to death. He’s never seen one like this, and neither has Magda.
In the woods, the woman talks about the little statue as an amulet. “Maybe it will protect me,” she says.
Tomaz and Magda go to the market and talk about the house. They talk about him writing a dissertation about Philosophy. While working, Tomaz sees a pattern in the wallpaper that reminds him of the amulet. There’s a scream from upstairs, and when Magda goes up to deal with it, Tomaz follows.
Magda’s Mother sleeps in a huddle in the cold attic. “It’s not my choice, it has to be this way, otherwise she harms herself,” Magda explains. When the old woman tries to strangle Magda, Tomaz has to intervene.
Tomaz and Magda start getting friendlier and go out to a dance club. He stops in to talk to Sister Claire about his troubles. He wants to be with Magda, but his PTSD is making him crazy. Her Mother watches them through a hole in the ceiling.
Tomaz goes upstairs to see “Mother” writing and bleeding on the floor. The old woman gives birth to another of those bat-creatures. Magda squishes it. “I have to; they’re born with teeth.” Tomaz talks to Sister Claire, who arranged this whole thing. She says that it’s his destiny to be here. “You will protect her, won’t you?”
Tomaz goes home and gets a knife. He goes upstairs to the attic and the old woman bites him good. He stabs the old woman, but she just pulls the knife out and is just about to kill Tomaz when Magda comes in and simply tells her to stop.
Magda wants to be left alone with her Mother, and she tells Tomaz to leave. He flashes back to his days in the guardhouse, as the strange woman prepares to leave and cross the border on her own; he says they’ll certainly kill her if she tries. He warns her not to run, but she does. He chases her, rapes her, and kills her.
Tomaz tells Magda, “I told myself if I could free you, then I’d have a right to be happy again.” Tomaz wakes up in a filthy bathtub, quite ill. Sister Claire is there, dressed unlike a nun, and she explains things a bit. He goes back to the house to confront Mother and kills her rather excessively. When he examines the body, he sees that it was really a man, the man who owns his house.
Tomaz goes in the next room and finds a giant shell in there. He crawls inside it and sees a human version of his amulet. Claire comes in and says, “They choose their own path,” as Tomaz gives birth to a little bat-baby.
We cut to Magda, buying snacks in a convenience store. She feeds it to what must be Tomaz under a blanket in the back seat.
Brian’s Commentary
This place is really bleak and awful. You know something bad is going to happen in both timelines and stories, so I guess “Impending Dread” is the mood here. Visually, it’s all about the depression and bleakness, but the plot is really thin and the scares are few and far between.
This was ultra-dull, and I admit I was so tuned out toward the end that I may have missed some meaning to it beyond getting revenge on Tomaz. Maybe some kind of feminist thing that I dozed through.
Boring!
Kevin’s Commentary
Guilt. So much guilt and remorse and evil in this movie. It’s not a happy journey by any means, but I thought it had some interesting aspects to it. It’s hard to follow what’s really going on, and what’s causing it, but things are a little clearer by the end. I liked it more than disliked it.
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