Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Mara (Side Effect) (2020) Russian Film Week 2021

 


Wanting to help his wife forget a vicious assault a man makes a deal with a healer who will help her forget what happened. They move into the healer's spacious flat and everything seems fine until they start to have visions. Desperate to stop the weirdness consuming their lives the man tries to find out who he made a deal with and how he can get out of it.

After a WTF was that opening (I mean that in a good way) this creepy horror film slowly builds in fear as we are dragged along into hell. I love that the film takes it's time in telling us what is going on we are not told anything until we need to be informed, so that tidbits like the opening suddenly click with an "ah ha!" as revelations later on in the film show us what was going on. In its way its so nicely plotted that when the film ended I rewatched a couple of sections in the film just to see how they played knowing what comes later.

I really liked this film a great deal. Its a beautifully made film that melds modern horror with classical supernatural tales. Its so good that the only thing about it I really can complain about is the use of black light colors for some of the images at one point.

Definitely worth a look when the film plays Saturday during Russian Film Week. Details can be found here.

1 comment:

  1. I recently watched this film and I really liked it. It gets quite messy sometimes but I think it's part of the charm. Enjoyed the use of color, photography, some acting and as you said a very interesting mix of modern horror and old horror tales. Loved Mara's black dress. Definitely would watch it again.

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