Psychosis is a very strange Australian black and white thriller that has a unique concept to it. Written and directed by Pirie Martin in his feature length debut, this captivated me throughout, drawing me into its odd world.
Cliff Van Aarle (Derryn Amoroso) is a criminal fixer who has a special set of skills and abilities. The man suffers from schizophrenia, hearing a multitude of voices in his head but which are able to point out things that he might otherwise miss. He is also skilled in hypnotic suggestion, something that he learned from his criminal father who had used the skills for evil. With Cliff's sister in a coma in hospital he is quite desperate for money, so against his better judgement he accepts a job from two small time drug dealers. They had inadvertently stolen drugs from a near mythical criminal mastermind known as Joubini (James McCluskey-Garcia) and angered at this he has tasked his zombie-like 'hollow men' to kill them. Cliff agrees to track down Joubini, though discovers that the man has mind control powers even greater than his own.
I loved this movie, it is surreal and strange without feeling too much like an arthouse film. There is no end of interesting editing and shot techniques to give the film a weird vibe all of its own. The black and white look gave a film noir feel to events, while there are plenty of varied effects, such as scenes shown upside down and blurry slow motion footage used at times. Mind control segments create confusing sequences that make use of cool special effects to give more of a dreamlike feel to them. The initial reveal of the antagonist during a dream sequence for instance was very cool looking as one strong example.
Cliff made for a great protagonist, the voices in his head sounded wonderful with headphones, with the voices seeming to dance around in a way that reminded me a lot of the way they did a similar thing in the video games Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and Senua's Saga: Hellblade II. My favourite part of his character was the movie's narrator (Lindsay Dunn), another voice in Cliff's head, but one who narrates his actions in third person. This allows the protagonists motives to be revealed to the viewer, it also creates comedic elements, such as when the narrator is speaking when a character with Cliff then interrupts what the narrator is saying mid flow. The way this voice spoke and the light hearted tone of it reminded me a lot of the narrator from comedy video game The Stanley Parable. There are not that many characters in the movie but a highlight was the furry superhero LoneWolf (Pj van Gyen). This character should not have worked but he somehow fitted in to the gritty criminal world of the film, and his constant lines of "I work alone" when Cliff suggests teaming up with him were always amusing.
The story was relatively easy to follow despite the often confusing camerawork. The story is mainly a search for Joubini with some classic story beats along the way, such as the hero getting captured, and a third act assault on the HQ of the mastermind. I liked the trippy vibe that came in to play when characters are brainwashed, made for some unique looking scenes, such as characters growing extra arms. There were a fair few action scenes, a bit hard to follow due to the fast paced editing but they worked well. Cliff isn't a John Wick type character, instead he is someone who is flawed and well aware of his flaws, so the fight sequences almost always felt desperate. Psychosis released on August 30th on digital/VOD and comes to Tubi on October 4th, I loved this and think it is well worth a watch for something that is definitely different.
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