Maus

I'm not sure which was worse, the movie or reading the reviews praising the movie. It was terrible. Great premise made bad by a plot way too slow to develop, confusing plot motivators, and a total WTF? ending.

Not a horror film in the scene of pop ups. More like the affects of war on people. If you're looking for an action packed horror with pop ups and jump scares this isn't it. Good film could've been better if it explained some stuff, which is didn't do on purpose for the sake of interpretation. The more you think about the film the better it seems to you, if you just watch it you probably won't enjoy it as much.

This movie does open up a lot of room for discussion on what happened in the film. If you are open to a movie about affect of war on people and how it changes/divides them, with a neutral party being involved watch this, but if not I wouldn't recommend this.

The Maus is one these films in which the location serves to create a meaningful part of the overall discomforting mood. As always, it comes with all sorts of supporting (or unsupportive from the protagonists' perspective) features, such as no cellular reception and a language barrier. While I'm not a fan of using these particular defining aspects, I must admit that including the female protagonist's obvious (and completely understandable) PTSD after surviving the Serbian cleansing of Bosnian Muslims added a lot of character and quality to the story.

The plot is quite simple to understand from the film's description (and from watching the first ten minutes). Selma (Alma Terzic) and her boyfriend Alex (August Wittgenstein) visit Bosnia and become stranded and lost in one of its vast forests, which happens to be riddled with unmarked mine fields. By chance they happen to meet two "local" Serbs, Vuk (Aleksandar Seksan) and Milos (Sanin Milavic), who offer to assist them. From that point - reality and paranoia become mixed and intertwined as Selma initially distrusts the two on account of their origin, seeing in them the same type of people who murdered her family during the war.

The acting is quite impressive (especially by Seksan and Milavic whose performance keeps the audience guessing as to their true intentions and nature and Selma's sanity) and the story progresses in a very compelling way. Each and every scene seems to have been meticulously chosen to serve the film's conclusion and final plot twist (which isn't brilliant but definitely serves as a fine and terrible closure). While in no way "fun" to watch - The Maus is pretty rewarding for Horror fans who enjoy being depressed by human nature and what we can at times bring ourselves to do to our fellow man.

All in all, The Maus is far from being a masterpiece and none of its features are delivered in an overly impressive manner. It's simple enough and does a pretty decent job in toying with the audience's thoughts and emotions (which I assume was the creators' initial goal). Nothing fancy, yet quite rewarding by its own right. I don't think it deserves the low rating and all the harsh criticism it has received here (now there's a surprise), but you could still find something better (or a lot worse) to watch.

This movie is billed under horror but is definitely not what most would consider conventional horror. It's more like the story of a couple places in horrific situations. That being said, I have to agree with the other reviews saying that it is largely 90min of watching people walk around. The premise is about a couple who are lost in the Bosnian woods, when they encounter a pair of suspicious men who offer to lead them to safety. The girlfriend comes off as a bobble head with anxiety issues, constantly afraid of everything and everyone and arguing with her boyfriend at each and every decision. Also, how does a 100lb girl survive a landline explosion with only a flesh wound? There's an unseen entity that seems to follow them around while they traverse land mines (wtf were they doing in the woods to begin with?) The whole thing felt like a bad European nightmare version of Deliverance, only without any decent actors.

Firstly, let me start with some positives. I thought the theme of the film was interesting, to do with land mines and the Bosnian War, and presumably atrocities and genocidal acts. I have to say before watching it I did not know much about what I was about to watch. I have to say I was mislead to believe it was Horror, but in actual fact it feels more like a Dark Thriller with themes of Horror and War i.e. there was clearly a Deliverance vibe going on at the start, and aside from the creepy looking Guardian Angel that would be about where the horror side of things ends.

The filming style was fun for the first few minutes, but an hour and a half later of revolving cameras, darkness, and behind the head shots it all seemed a bit ridiculous and you wonder how a supposed 2 million euro budget (according to Wikipedia) was used up on just 4 actors, a forest and a great deal of what I can only describe as pointless videography.

Without trying to slate it too much, I found 'Alex' to be fairly unbearable, as an overly dramatic naive young chap who was an insufferable wannabe man-to-the-rescue but simply lacked any strength both physically and of character; Extremely annoying in every way possible. I think 'Selma' was at least interesting and played her role well though unfortunately this leads me on to my next comment about The Story, which overall I can once again only describe as being fairly 'pointless' or insubstantial. There were some interesting psychological moments where it felt like the dread was closing in, but then once the cat was out of the bag there wasn't much left to say. I knew from the moment I saw the car 'stuck' in the road in the very first scene that this movie was not exactly going to win any Oscars. I really am surprised about the budget here and can only presume the directors paid themselves substantial salaries through some questionable laundering function - But seriously, overall it wasn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me, and certainly illuminating in some regards. I think a 5/10 is generous, I'd say more like a 4.5 but I suppose I've rounded up.

One more comment: I saw that 'Maus' according to Wikipedia is an 80s/early 90s graphic novel about a Holocaust survivor, so I suppose that's what would have inspired the name of this movie.

Thank you for reading.