Director – Pascal Laugier (Martyrs, Saint Ange, The Secret)
Starring – Mylene Farmer, Emilia Jones, Crystal Reed, Taylor Hickson, Anastasia Phillips…
Release Date – 2018
Rating – 4/5
Ten years after “Martyrs”(2008), the film that causes controversy over the fact that it is forbidden to minors, Pascal Laugier is back with “Incident in Ghostland” (2018), his first feature film in English.
Upon its release, the film received several awards at the Festival international du film fantastique de Gérardmer (grand prize, public prize, Syfy jury prize).
Pascal Laugier is known for the extreme brutality of his movies and “Incident in Ghostland” is no exception. “Incident In Ghostland” put us into a real nightmare in which we witness moments of extreme violence and cruelty.
We meet Pauline Keller (Mylene Farmer), a single mother who takes her two teenage daughters Beth (Crystal Reed) and Vera (Taylor Hickson) their new home, which they have just inherited. We find two very different profiles, on the one hand a reserved teenager who is fan of Lovecraft and dark stories. And on the other hand someone extravagant who is more socially comfortable.
We find a similar atmosphere to French speaking movies such as Calvaire (2004) or Frontières (2007). A rural environment that seems forgotten by society and where anything can happen, no one will ever know. The house on its side looks classic from the outside. But contains a particular atmosphere brought by creepy dolls and old things. The night of their arrival, the three women will be attacked by two monsters that can be associated to a witch and an ogre in the Lovecraft universe.
Indeed one of them is very skinny, dressed with a long black coat and can be a woman or a man. The second is a giant, who seems only animated by the flesh. These two creatures are nevertheless very real and are only here for one thing, suffering and murder.
After a brutal confrontation between Pauline and the two aggresors, the family miraculously comes out of it.
The film plunges us 16 years later. Beth has become a famous horror short story writer, living in a beautiful house with a loving husband.
However, her sister Vera stayed in their old house with her mother, still shocked by the attack, she relives that night over and over again and gradually sinks into madness.
In order to help her sister, Beth decides to come back to the family house. It will take a moment for Beth and the spectator to realize that Vera is not the one going crazy.
Pascal Laugier in an interview tells us that he wanted to use subjective visions, which is a central question in cinema. The fact that cinema allows us to record dreams, fantasies and illusions.
He is going to use this cinema tool in a masterful way.
Indeed, this vision of a dreamed and successful life for Beth is only an illusion, the reality is quite different. It’s still a few years rather, only a few days/weeks after the savage attack they suffered. Since that night, she has been subjected to violence, abuse and mistreatment from the two monsters.
Their faces are deformed by the different blows they received. The scenes follow one another between cries, hysteria and distress.
Through this violence, Pascal Laugier still manages to bring out a rare aestheticism through visuals as beautiful as they are icy.
We find a cruelty and sadism rarely seen in a film made with such care for the visuals.
The performance of the two actresses, who were very young, is amazingly realistic and allows the spectator to fully immerse himself in this horror. However, this movie for Taylor Hickson (Vera) will cost her 70 stitches and a scar on her face, she will file a complaint against the production.
For some, this brutality and radicality contributes to the success of this film. But for others the observation is the same as for “Martyrs”, this brutality is far too extreme and brings nothing special.
Whether we appreciate or not this violence, no one can take away from Pascal Laugier’s special talent for intermingling the beautiful and the violent.
Two years after Raw (Julia Ducournau, 2016), French cinema is finally trying to get out of its comfort zone and it’s real pleasure for all fans of this kind of cinema.
Trailer :
