Best thing you'll see all week: A Dark Song

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071RH55SW?tag=qt3-20 In the usual horror movie, a monster stalks its victims. Will it get them? When will it get them? How will it get them? What even is it? A Dark Song is the inverse of this forumula. The lugubrious soundtrack that would normally promise Something is coming instead promises Something is being steadily approached.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2017/05/02/best-thing-youll-see-week-dark-song/

Was there supposed to be a link at the bottom where you mention the Amazon.com site? I’m sure I can find it by searching, but right after the “:” seems the perfect spot for a link since you linked so many other films. Thanks for pointing this one out… I’m off to check it out!

There is a link, but it won’t show up if you’re blocking ads. I’ve put one at the top of this thread as well.

-Tom

Maybe it’s because I’m reading this on my phone but I don’t see any links in the thread at all (nothing in your “this, this, and this”). I do in the front page article however.

How are you seeing the full article in the thread? It should be edited down to just the first few lines.

And you don’t see the Amazon.com link in the top post? That’s odd.

-Tom

There’s a button that says “Show Full Post”, and when you click it then it, you know, shows the whole post.

Ah, I didn’t realize that was different from the link in the post itself. That’s terrible. It destroys the formatting. Has it been doing that to articles all along? Blargh.

-Tom

For what it’s worth, this is the first one I’ve noticed that ditched links entirely. It pretty much always just lumps all the text into one block, though.

Billy O’Brien eh? I think I have to give this a look. And thanks for reminding me I still need to see Isolation.

In case it wasn’t clear in the write-up, this is NOT a Billy O’Brien movie. I just know its lead actress from a crappy Syfy movie called Ferocious Planet that O’Brien must have directed because he had a mortgage to pay off.

-Tom

No I think it’s clear on re-reading I just let my mind run away on that one.

Oh man this was really good. Spoilers to follow.

It’s not quite on the level of The Babadook maybe, but it’s still very impressive. And it’s easy to bring up The Babadook since there is a little overlap here (grieving mothers who cannot move on, indies who had to be careful about what to show, etc). But not too much; Esse Davis is running from her grief. Catherine Walker is running towards what she thinks she wants: revenge. I would call the movies cousins, if second cousins.

I like how it came together. The Guardian Angel was. . . weird, but it managed to avoid being cheesy. I quite liked the. . . other beings? Demons I guess, although they might have been anything (except guardian angels), as Solomon suggests. We’re out in strange territory afterall (true October Country). The teases - the increasing oddness, the incongruities - followed by periods of roteness really help give weight to Victoria’s growing frustration (and desperation). The scene where something was begging to be let in was superb. It’s not anything new creatively (one might call it a sub-genre staple) but it was executed to a T.

I thought both leads were very good, Oram especially.

I’d recommend it as well. The two main performances (which is really all that matters in a single-location drama like this) were excellent.

The proviso being, don’t go in expecting a horror movie. It’s not even a tiny bit scary or disturbing (unless disembodied kid’s voices really freak you out). The entire plot can be explained as a folie à deux. But in the end it doesn’t really matter if the supernatural happenings are actually happening. This is a meditation on loss and forgiveness, and that it does very well.

This was quite solid. I’d recommend this one.

Well acted, well told, and there is an interesting journey here to hitch along for the ride.

This was one of the better horror movies I saw this year.

Yes this movie is eminently recommendable, even outside fans of the horror genre. Go see it!