Vincent Must Die is a French film with a dark sense of humor and sharp social commentary, offering an interesting twist on zombie movie conventions. The plot follows a man, Vincent (Karim Leklou), who is violently attacked by an intern at his workplace after making a joke. However, the incident is not isolated, and he soon discovers that anyone who makes eye contact with him will attack him to the death, forcing him to flee, hide, and rely on a waitress (Vimala Pons), with whom he starts developing feelings but can never look in the eye. Through its disturbing yet macabrely funny premise, and an exciting-paced narrative, the film reflects on social isolation, paranoia, and anonymous violence facilitated by our digital age, expressed almost literally through hordes of aggressive people who will stop at nothing to annihilate someone.
Oddity is an Irish feature film that joins the strong selection of horror films that gained critical and public success in 2024. Written and directed by Damian McCarthy, the film made waves at the South by Southwest festival, winning the Audience Award in the festival's Midnighter Selection. The story follows Darcy, a self-proclaimed psychic who collects cursed items and claims to have the power to know an object's history through touch. However, she is consumed by grief after the murder of her twin sister. To solve the crime and seek revenge on those truly responsible for her sister's death, the psychic decides to visit suspicious family members, bringing with her the most dangerous items from her terrifying collection.
Every now and then, a work of horror emerges from South Korean cinema that, beyond the common elements of entertainment and frights, stands out as a disturbing piece of art due to its rich folklore mixed with a story where reason and faith are futile against the darkness, let alone explain it. This can be said of The Wailing and now also of Exhuma' a film where paranormal experts are hired to trace the origin of a supernatural evil to an ancestral tomb, and end up tampering with a force that should not have been disturbed. It's a film that doesn't resort to cheap jump scares, but rather builds something more interesting: an atmosphere of constant dread and despair.
In very simple terms, the Argentine production 'When Evil Lurks,' directed by Demián Rugna (Terrified), is one of the most disturbing horror films in recent years. And not just because of the brutal physical violence it portrays on screen - and there's plenty of that - but because what motivates it is even more impactful and desolate. The story is set in a remote rural village in Argentina, where two brothers discover the existence of a “rotten": a person whose body has been possessed by a parasitic evil that seeks to feed on them to "be born." Attempts to get rid of the rotten unleash calamity in the town, bringing out the worst of the human spirit in the community. A film inspired by the local context of Argentina but universal in the cruelty, selfishness, and intolerance it puts on screen.
'Titane' is certainly one of the most provocative - and we can say, one of the strangest - films of the 2021/22 world cinema season. That's why it's not a feature film for everyone. Now, don't be fooled: all this is indeed a quality. Director Julia Ducournau (from 'Raw') builds a movie that traverses between terror, suspense and drama, surprising the viewer - whether with powerful imagery or with a complete change in the direction of the story. In this way, we have a film with a distorted, even disturbed vision, touching on themes such as hatred and disconnection from others, traumas, paternal love, motherhood, gender identity and fetishism - whether for the perfect body, for cars or even for fire. For all this, 'Titane' is one of those works that will make you reflect for a long time, without suffering from the ephemerality of more commercial productions. Highlight for the great presence of Vincent Lindon ('The Value of a Man'), one of the most recognized faces of current French cinema, and for the powerful performance of Agathe Rousselle, who, even debuting in a feature film, manages to traverse very well all the themes and changes of course of the script. Not surprisingly, it won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.