Ghostland (2018)
The story follows a mother of two who inherits a
home from her Aunt. On the first night in the new home she is confronted
with murderous intruders and fights for her daughters lives. ...
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Director:
Pascal LaugierWriter:
Pascal LaugierStars:
French director Pascal Laugier ('Martyrs') takes another stab — make
that multiple stabs — at the horror genre in this English-language
feature co-starring Mylene Farmer.
Just when you thought it was safe to move to an isolated country
house filled with creepy antique dolls, dead bugs and way too much
floral wallpaper, in comes Ghostland, a violently twisted take on the home invasion tale from French horror junkie Pascal Laugier.
Like the director’s gory debut, Martyrs, which took the
torture porn genre to untold levels of unpleasantness, this taut — if
somewhat corny — slasher flick once again features two young women
subjected to all kinds of abuse both real and imaginary (though mostly
the former) as they’re locked inside by a pair of first-rate
psychopaths. Why any of this happens remains unclear, although Laugier
does make some inventive narrative moves to render his Franco-Canadian,
English-language effort more interesting than it should be. Still, it’s
neither for the faint of heart nor the sharp of mind, which should turn
it into perfect VOD fodder for most territories.
Following in the footsteps of fellow Frenchies Alexandre Aja (High Tension), David Moreau and Xavier Palud (Them), and Alexandre Bustillo (Inside),
Laugier tackles the well worn trapped indoors scenario with a
considerable amount of carnage, trailing teenage sisters Beth (Emilia
Jones) and Vera (Taylor Hickson) as they move out to the boondocks with
their single mom, Pauline (Gallic pop star Mylene Farmer).
With news reports of killings in the region, and an extremely
menacing candy truck roaming the neighborhood (because, why not?), it
doesn’t take long for the girls to fall victim to a prolonged and
vicious attack right at their doorstep. After their mother is brutally
sacrificed on the kitchen table, Beth and Vera hide down in the basement
as a mentally handicapped ogre (Rob Archer, credited as “Fat Man”) and
his witch-like guardian with an Iggy Pop vibe (Angela Asher) subject
them to an array of cruel and usual punishment.
But wait — was it all just a nightmare? That’s what we’re led to
believe when Beth (Crystal Reed) wakes up screaming a decade or so later
in a comfy Chicago highrise. Not only is she a happily married mother,
but she’s also a bestselling macabre author whose latest book (entitled
“Incident in a Ghostland”) details the very incident seen at the start
of the film. No sooner is this made clear then she receives a terrifying
call from her sister, Vera (Anastasia Phillips), who still lives in
that haunted house with their mom, prompting Beth to go back and visit
the source of her trauma.
Another major twist is still in store, with Laugier jumping between
past and present, dream and reality, to keep catching the viewer by
surprise. The structure feels fairly novel for such a B-grade
fright-fest — call it Last Year at Amityville — but it’s soon outdone by the litany of torturous scenes that the director piles on one after the other.
Like Martyrs, though with less gore, Ghostland
seems single-mindedly obsessed with the idea of making young women
suffer. In this case, Laugier subjects Beth and Vera to the ogre’s
pedophilic sadism, which includes dressing them up like dolls, stroking
them, smelling their vaginas to see if they are menstruating, then
savagely beating and raping them on the floor. It’s all rather painful
to sit through, with each scene teased out for maximum stomach-churning
tension.
Laugier tries to frame — perhaps even justify — the nonstop nastiness through Beth’s obsession with the great early 20th
century horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, who even makes a cameo
appearance. But while the latter conveyed fear in his stories through
suggestion and cultish fantasy, Laugier can only double down on the
violence at every step, tossing in tons of prosthetics to show in
sinister detail what a grown man’s fist can do to a girl’s face. You
can’t exactly call that “Lovecraftian.”
Still, the director deserves a bit of credit for trying something
different here — even if, for his second film in English after 2012’s The Tall Men, he could have brushed up more on his dialogue, which rings awfully flat. In terms of chills, Ghostland
does however deliver a few good ones in the jump scare mode, with DP
Danny Nowak and production designer Gordon Wilding contributing to the
atmosphere of sustained dread.
Fans of Farmer, who was the Gallic equivalent of Madonna in the late
‘80s and throughout the 1990s, may be either amused or appalled to see
their favorite singer beaten to a pulp, stabbed repeatedly and
pronouncing her lines with an unruly French accent.
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