Movies
The straight-up genre version of Tsukamoto's Haze. That said, it's probably pointless to stretch that comparison, as both films were made with very different mindsets and intentions. Turi's Meander aims for juicy genre entertainment and delivers on that promise, which is fine by me. After a short introduction, Lisa ends up in a tiny metal room, completely oblivious to how she got there. A hatch opens and a small crawlspace reveals itself. Lisa has no choice to go in, hoping she can find her way out of there, but the road to freedom is littered with traps and lethal pitfalls. With a limited cast and locations, Tori can show his worth as a director. The setting is atmospheric and stylish and never loses its appeal, the film feels claustrophobic, the traps are slick, performances are solid and the mystery is kept alive until the very end. The film isn't terribly original, but that's hardly an issue if you can accept this for what it is. Prime genre fun.Read all
A film with potential, but Turi fails to notice the good bits. The post-apocalyptic scenes are pretty solid, a nice mix of desolate sci-fi and nasty horror. The flashbacks on the other hands are dreary and kitsch. Turi keeps alternating between the two, which makes for a very uneven experience. Juliette is driving home to camp, when her car hits a ditch and crashes. She wakes up in the middle of the night, in a desolate area surrounded by hungry creatures. As she tries to barricade herself, she remembers the events leading up to the destruction of the Earth as we know it. The performances are quite poor. That's not a problem for the sci-fi/horror scenes, but the more dramatic flashbacks fail to engage and quickly become a real drag. The cinematography is decent enough, Botet looks creepy, and the horror scenes are pretty tense, it's just a shame that they get interrupted every 5 minutes.Read all