A cursory glance through the ratings on this site show just how divisive Sebastián Silva’s psychological horror is. It isn’t difficult to see why opinion is so widely spread as the film is light on answers and sympathetic characters making it a rather prickly proposition. Yet what is such a turnoff for so many is also what makes Magic Magic appealing for others with its unorthodox creepiness and escalating hysteria.

Made alongside the less appealing Crystal Fairy after the film hit a number of production problems, this Chilean-set psycho-thriller is a melting pot of influences featuring an eclectic global cast (including Juno Temple, Michael Cera and Emily Browning) and horror references that seem to touch on a number of sub-genres…

This is a tough one to rate! My main reason for watching it was Emily Browning because I adore her. But there were things I loved and mostly just one thing I hated.

I loved the location and the cinematography. I appreciated the whole “people blindly ignoring mental illness leads to tragedy” story because it’s true and it happens all the time. I’ve read that the ending was too ambiguous to many, but it wasn’t at all to me so if anyone wants to hear my take feel free to slide on in my DM’s. The performances all around were great, but Juno Temple really went all out and Michael Cera did an admirable job of being someone you truly…

Apart from an excellent Juno Temple and some beautiful cinematography, this film holds absolutely nothing that would earn it the label 'tense, psychological horror' that I read somewhere. It is boring, safe, predictable and tries to be smart by giving us a completely superfluous and unfitting ambiguous ending.

If you're going for a thriller and try to capture the psychological breakdown of someone you need to do something more than have her wailing around most of the time. Make us care for her, or the company she keeps. As convincing as Temple was, her character is extremely annoying surrounded by excruciatingly unpleasant people. Walk away from this liking any of the characters and I'd be impressed. Or sad. Whatever.

The…

After enjoying Sebastián Silva's Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus, I figured I should probably check out Magic Magic - the film they were saving up for while they shot Crystal Fairy....

The entire cast of Magic Magic were transformed into brilliant, varied characters and each person acted with immense talent.

Alicia (Juno Temple) is a young American girl who has left the United States for the first time to visit her cousin Sara (Emily Browning) who is studying in Chile. The two set out on a 12-hour drive with Sara's boyfriend - Agustín, Bárbara (brilliantly acted by Catalina Sandino Moreno) and Agustín's friend Brink (Michael Cera).

Halfway through their drive Sara gets a phone call and has to return to…

An unexpected, unnerving, impressive horror film about social and psychic dislocation. Alicia (Juno Temple) travels with her cousin and cousin's friends to a remote location in southern Chile, and her discomfort--an exhaustion from travel and an introvert's unease--is exacerbated by social codes and behaviors that repel connection. Brink (a superb Michael Cera) is an outsized caricature of a sex-crazed adolescent; Barbara (Catalina Sandino Moreno) is brusque, brittle, patronizing; Sara (Emily Browning) and Agustin (Agustin Silva) are grappling with their own problems.

The movie embraces a grotesque naturalism that keeps the viewer equally decentered, nervous, frustrated. The performances are inflated yet grounded; the cinematography (by the reliably brilliant Christopher Doyle and Glenn Kaplan) is simultaneously lush and wild and formalist --…

While it doesn't at all surprise me that Magic Magic is receiving it's fair share of hate from audiences, I simply cannot dismiss how effectively it creeped me out with it's dread-laden atmosphere in a similar way to the equally confounding Kill List if I am to compare. Striking a similar chord as (the superior) Rosemary's Baby with it's central character riding a fierce maelstrom of paranoia as her environmental displacement, language barrier and distrust of the people around her pulls her down like a sinking stone, in a mood piece where narrative thrust is not the key, and any information we are privy to may or may not be helpful in helping us find our bearings. Juno Temple nails…

After a cinematographic slideshow of the wildlife of South America we get to know this group of youngsters taking a break in a vacation house. On an island, where cell phones are useless. Unless on the hill, as in Lost.

Temple is invited by her cousin, who leaves for a few days to have an abortion (?). Juno, whose body is a temple, is the odd one out: due to not being at ease in the Spanish speaking group, and to her introvert nature causing difficulties to connect with the other characters, combined with the typical travel fatigue and insomnia, she starts seeing things and slowly is losing her mind.

Apart from the stunningly believable performance of Temple and the…

Though it has its own angle, this reminded me a lot of Queen of Earth, but personally succeeded where that film fell short in striking the balance of making some characters dislikeable, but believable. There is an awkwardness to being surrounded by people you don't know, in an unfamiliar place, where actions can be read in different ways, and personalities can clash. Of course there is no denying that some of these actions are shitty, but the justification for the characters remaining together was a bit more sound as well. This is a frustrating and exasperating experience, in the best of ways. An ever escalating sense of dread and heartache, read well in the breakdown of everyone involved as it…