Infinite Summer (2024) - Sci-fi Thriller Film Review

With an influx of film requests for review this summer I have been able to be a bit more choosy with what I decide to check out. Upon beginning Miguel Llansó's Infinite Summer I did wonder what made me go with this Estonian film. It is definitely a strange movie, but as it went on there were certain elements that really did appeal to me.

Shy and awkward Mia (Teele Kaljuvee-O'Brock) is at a decisive point in her life, having finished school she now has to decide what she wants to do with herself. During the summer break she has decided to spend it with her best friend Grete (Johanna-Aurelia Rosin) at a lakeside holiday home. Due to Mia's quiet nature she soon finds herself out-shadowed by a Canadian friend of Grete (played by Hannah Gross - Joker). In her solitude she meets up with a guy calling himself Dr. Mindfulness (Ciaron Davies) who she meets on an online dating app. Living nearby, he brings her a strange respirator device he had created that is tailored to deliver the ultimate mediation exercise. Using it, she is startled to see intense hallucinations in the form of a smoke based being. Her friends, seeing its drug like effects decide to also get their own respirators.
Meanwhile, two detectives - Katrin (Katariina Unt) and the eccentric Jack (Steve Vanoni) are found to have been monitoring all this, with the respirator maybe coming from a powerful world reaching secretive organisation who are near impossible to track down.

Infinite Summer had a whole load of different parts to it that made it seem like it was inspired by various films and TV shows. The world had a bit of a Black Mirror vibe to it, seeming to take place in a near future where not only has A.I become a more essential tool (shown to be used heavily both by the police and general places like the local zoo), but everyone communicates using an augmented reality headset rather than phones, even using the augmented reality to work on digital computers rather than physical ones. This respirator feeds into this near future technology, with it shown that cartridges in it are able to deliver the drug.
There was also a 'coming of age' feel to the film with some Garden State vibes. Mia appears lost as a character, and being so silent you never really get a good feel of what is going on in her head. This is sometimes to the detriment of the story as it did feel that occasionally she was a blank slate used to carry the viewer through the plot. There were not a huge amount of likeable characters, with Mia's father (Ivo Uukkivi) being the most decent one. Characters are often weird rather than nice, but this suited the film's comedic tone that it sometimes displayed, such as when Jack asks Katrin if she made the sandwich she hands him, with her then pointing out that they are in a diner so she obviously brought it from there.

The best parts of the movie for me where the many hallucinations characters have. This usually takes the form of smoky tendrils that form hands at their ends, as well as cosmic almost Lovecraftian style sequences where characters under the effect of the drug appear to travel the cosmos. The special effects used here were on the whole great, only a few times they didn't quite appear to gel well against the normal backgrounds. These digital effects are also used on the drug-users eyes to give them a milky quality reminiscent of zombies. I also thought the design of the respirator was great, as was the distorted vocal effect used for the voices of people wearing them.
The story did feel a bit all over the place with the first half focussing on Mia before later parts tried to move the story into a more spiritual path, somehow including slight elements of apocalyptic and possible alien themes.

Infinite Summer was a weird movie, but it did keep me guessing. I think I enjoyed the more thrilling second half more to the first, mainly due to Mia being such an odd character who it was hard to really get behind. I liked the trippy effects, and I liked were the story went, but I feel it could have been shaken up a bit to help with the pacing. Infinite Summer had its World Premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 27th 2024.

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Deliver Us (2023) - Horror Film Review

I rarely take time off from writing this blog, but a spur of the moment decision a week or so back saw me deciding that once a year on my birthday week I would do just that. This has led to all my scheduled posts being delayed by a week, but I think it has also helped me return to blogging more focussed.
Deliver Us is a religious horror co-directed by Cru Ennis and Lee Roy Kunz (the later also starring in the film and co-writing this with Kane Kunz) dealing with the antichrist. While I'm not a religious person, I do enjoy a good demonic possession film, and religious horror is a cousin of that genre.

Father Daniel Fox (Lee Roy Kunz) is a priest looking to leave the Catholic church in order to start a family with his pregnant girlfriend. Having had a history of helping those who believe themselves to be possessed, he is asked to take on one last job. In a Russian convent there is signs that one of the sisters there, Sister Yulia (Maria Vera Ratti) is experiencing religious miracles, having gotten pregnant with twins in an apparent immaculate conception. Daniel assumes this to be something that can rationally be explained, but the convent leader, Cardinal Russo (Alexander Siddig - Game of Thrones, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine TV shows) believes it relates to an ancient prophecy older than the bible itself. The prophecy states that twins will be born, one an instrument for good and one an instrument for evil. This is something that Father Saul (Thomas Kretschmann - Avengers: Age of Ultron, Resident Evil: Apocalypse) also believes, but his intentions are not noble, secretly worshipping the devil.
With Saul's intentions laid bare, Daniel, Russo and Yulia flee the convent, with the woman later giving birth on a train. They head to a remote house in Estonian woodland hoping to raise the children in peace, but Saul is hot on their heels, determined to kill the 'good' twin and usher in a time of darkness.

Of course, the most well known antichrist film is The Omen, and this shares some similarities with that one. The difference here is that it is known that the antichrist is there in person. There is some justification for keeping it alive with Yulia believing that it can be taught to see the world as good, as well as not wanting to see either of her children dead. To be fair, it would probably be better off dead as it has a habit of being able to psychically link with people in order to try to get them to murder its brother! There was a slight slow pace to the film, with much of the first two acts consisting of the babies giving Yulia and Daniel shared dreams/visions, while Saul has his own subplot of mercilessly seeking out their location.

Of course, their paths eventually do cross, and while I thought Kretschmann was decent in his role, this antagonistic character didn't really have too much to him, his every action is evil, with him happy to kill anyone even remotely in his way. It does lead to a great payoff, with some scenes in the movie being quite gory. From someone being mauled to death by wolves, to a crucifix in the eye, a poker through a face and people's throats being slit, this violence looked great on screen. I especially liked the opening scene of a row of victims being killed one by one, the blood from each kill splashing onto the next person.

Deliver Us has quite a saturated look, with an absence of much colour to be found in the washed out imagery. For a dark and despondent feel this worked well, as did the choice of locations. Whenever protagonist rock up to an apparent place of safety that itself looks like the setting for a horror film, you know that things are going to remain bleak. I loved the remote house due to the bizarre paintings left there by the previous owner that seem to relate to what is happening in the present. I also thought this taking place against a backdrop of a world falling into ruin was neat, Daniel's girlfriend might not have really done much, but she gave a look into the goings on of the outside world. This does lead to one of the more silly looking scenes. There was supposed to be a big brawl happening in one scene, but if you pay attention to the background characters, they are blatantly pulling their punches, making for unwelcome distraction from the part of this scene that is meant to be the focus!

I enjoyed Deliver Us, it worked well as a religious horror. With a somewhat slow middle, and characters who weren't the most engaging this wasn't all perfect, but the special effects and choice of locations were all fantastic. Deliver Us had its UK and Irish release on 19th February on digital platforms including Google, Apple TV, Sky and Amazon.

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Kratt (2020) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Kratt is an Estonian dark fantasy that despite its sometimes bloody storyline never devolves into pure horror. Written and directed by Rasmus Merivoo and starring the director's relatives, this remained an enjoyable adventure from start to finish.

Mia (Nora Merivoo) and her younger brother Kevin (Harri Merivoo) have been left at the rural home of their Grandma (Mari Lill) while their parents go away on a short holiday. Used to spending their days on their phones, the children are dismayed to discover they no longer have them, and soon come to despair at their situation. One evening the Grandma tells them a story about a local legend called the Kratt. By using a spellbook, someone is able to create this creature who will be compelled to perform any job asked of it. By sheer chance, while at the local library, Mia and Kevin find this book, and with the assistance of two friends they make, they decide to try and create a Kratt, mainly out of boredom. They figure they will ask it to help out their Grandma, though is more likely that they hope it will mean they won't have to do the chores she has set out for them. Surprisingly the spell works, but a series of incidents means that it is the Grandma herself who gets transformed into the Kratt.

At first I thought this may be more high stakes than what it turned out to be. This wasn't actually a bad thing, while there are moments of horror to be found here, the protagonist children never felt like they were in any real peril, a good thing as I found them to be quite likeable. If not for all the gore and moments of violence this would have felt like a kids film. At times I found myself feeling like this was an Estonian version of Stranger Things.
The 'Kratt' part of the film may be the centrepiece, but there is a substantial subplot going on, and this element I almost found to be better than the main film. I'm couldn't decide who the standout actor was here, I'm split between the Governor (played by Ivo Uukkivi who looks like a live-action version of Arataka Reigen from the anime Mob Psycho 100) and Lembit (Paul Perga, who looks like a live-action version of Weird Ed from the video games Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle). I loved these characters, and I loved how surreal this subplot was. The Governor is racked with misery, feeling like he is trapped in his job, while Lembit is a local activist who wishes to preserve a local sacred forest that is in danger of being chopped down. I loved how the main story would occasionally overlap with this subplot without actually pulling it in to it. Lembit is the father of the two friends Mia and Kevin make for instance, while it is the Governor's blood which was used to create the Kratt. My one complaint with this excellent subplot was that it felt like it ended without any real resolution, the fates of two characters never explicitly revealed.

Eerie Fairy Tales (2019) - Horror Anthology Film Review

Eerie Fairy Tales is an Estonian horror anthology that combines four of director Mart Sander's short horror films into one whole. Any regular reader of this blog will know I love anthology films, variation is rarely a bad thing. Being films of Sander means that all four were written and directed by him, he was even responsible for the original music used here. There was only one short here I didn't enjoy too much, but by far the shortest that didn't really impact on my enjoyment.

The wraparound story has a shadowy figure reading from an old book of fairy tales, the pages are all blank so the stories he tells are from his mind. The first short is Actually which takes place on a dark and stormy night at a remote hotel. A mysterious woman (Jekaterina Novosjolva) appears and asks for a drink. Starved for company the bartender begins to tell her about the dark past the local area has had. As the twenty minute short goes on there is a back and forth between the two that makes you question from which one the horror is to come. There was a great atmosphere here, kind of a film noir vibe with the mysterious woman in her coat and hat. While the story didn't end up anywhere too surprising I did appreciate the ending that was open to interpretation as to what had actually transpired.

In a complete change of direction the second short, Abeyance takes place in modern day. Two Interpol officers (played by Tanel Saar and Mart Müürisepp) visit the location of a secret underground hanger that once belonged to the Nazis. They are greeted by the caretaker (Märt Koik) who discloses that the rumours of a UFO being housed there for the past 75 years are true. He also alleges that everyone who has ever seen it has immediately requested to have their memories of the event wiped due to the horrific experience. This was a real gem, the build-up to the reveal took up a lot of the time and was fantastic. Of course, the reveal itself couldn't live up to that but it was still an interesting story that had elements of a H.P Lovecraft story. There was an obvious twist towards the end, but then this is countered with a great final unexpected twist.