Directed by Navin Ramaswaran and written by James Gordon Ross, Poor Agnes is a film about a serial killer with a slight different feel to the norm. I watched this for review while off work sick from my day job with a bad cold (which turned out to be my second Covid infection in the end), so I'm sure that had a slight part to play in my muted interest in this horror, though that was more due to having zero likeable characters at all to be found.
Michael Mercer (Robert Notman - In Its Wake) is a private detective investigating the disappearance of a man from ten years back. It is assumed the man is dead, but his family are insistent on finding out the truth of what happened to him. Following a lead, Michael tracks down Agnes Poelzl (Lora Burke - Motherly), a former friend of the missing man. He feels an attraction for the woman and ends up seducing her, or so he thinks. She soon reveals herself to be a cold blooded serial killer who swiftly drugs Michael, with him waking up to discover he is a prisoner of hers. While she would normally kill her victim, she finds herself being drawn to the man, who in turn, over a period of many months gets brainwashed into being her mostly obedient slave, clearly suffering Stockholm syndrome.
I disliked both the protagonist characters, and with the film focussing on them so much this became a problem. First is Agnes, a narcissistic, man hating edge lord (edge lady?) who believes that she is the most interesting person in the whole world. I found this character to be insufferable, where things could have taken a Dexter route with her being someone with good qualities, she doesn't have any. She is obsessed with her own self importance and has an irritating self righteous outlook the entire movie. One reason I didn't get on with Poor Agnes is that I couldn't shake the feeling that things would end up fine with this terrible character, the vibe of the film was between the twisted relationship between her and Michael, but this doesn't achieve that magic that films like Natural Born Killers achieved.
My reasons for disliking the character of Michael is not a fair one. Basically, Notman strongly resembles Andy Samberg, and I couldn't take him seriously as a result. All I saw when looking at him was Jack Peralta from police sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, so I couldn't help but expect comedy constantly. As to the actual character, he doesn't have much to him outside of being brainwashed, there are moments when he develops a slight backbone, but he is a pathetic snivelling character who seemed too far gone to be redeemed.
While much of the film is conversations between captor and victim, there are some moments of action, with some decent looking special effects, especially one involving an axe. The majority of the film takes place within Agnes' home, but there are little subplots that show what the sociopath gets up to when she is outside the house, particularly with her relationship with I.T geek Christopher Thomas (Will Conlon - American Gods TV series). There are definite darkly humorous moments, but again, going back to disliking the cast, I wasn't really into those parts either.
Poor Agnes is another horror of recent years that really could have done with having a likeable character. Instead, these flawed, annoying and ultimately dull people are played well by the chosen actors, but the feeling of the film left me feeling cold and disinterested, just waiting for it to finish.
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