A Banquet

It PAINS me to rate this an average score, but damn that ending.

Absolutely no spoilers, but to ME, personally the climax, or more accurately, the last few moments, were such an incredible letdown. YOU or anyone may love it, and more power to you. So, I'm not really trying to discourage anyone from making it to the end. Hopefully, you'll get more out of it than me.

UP to that point...I really dug this movie. The atmosphere, tension building, acting, cinematography...ALL so top notch, you'd think you were watching a $50 million-dollar Hollywood film. In fact, I was so amazed during this movie, I was wondering why most Hollywood movies I see aren't half as good as this talent.

The film revolves around a family tragedy that leaves a single mom to raise her two daughters, the older of which is somehow transformed one night in the woods near a party she was attending and now...she won't eat. Okay, there's more to this, as expected, but her lack of eating, mood-swings and possible premonitions will increase alongside her mother's desperation to help her.

This is labelled as "horror," but I'd put it more as a slow-burn suspense/family drama. And I've seen movies like this before and no offense to this cast/crew, but much better. Such as the real horror movie, Raw. There was also a segment of the horror anthology, XX, called "The Box" - also, much better.

Still, it was fantastic to the end and I'll leave it up to you if you decide they did the story justice with their conclusion.

***

Final Thoughts: Completely different movie, but I would also compare this slightly to 2021's Malignant. And that's only a small part of A Banquet. Please know, I loved Malignant 3x more overall. Still, I felt the need to bring it up.

After witnessing the death of her father, a young woman has a mysterious experience which leads her to believe that she is intended for a higher purpose.

Deliberately paced and slow burning, Ruth Paxton and Justin Bull's film manages to portray the existential horror without (too much) reliance on gross out or trope-ish apocalyptic imagery.

The slow burn unravelling of proceedings is sustained by smartly controlled filmmaking and excellent performances, particularly the double leads of Sienna Guillory and the extraordinary Jessica Alexander.

It's final scene feels a tad familiar but doesn't lessen the strength of what's gone before.

Well worth a look for admirers of films like Violation, Censor and Saint Maud or Von Triers mid period films, particularly Dogville and Melancholia.

First off who ever did the cinematography and styling deserves an award. Don't listen to the negative reviews, and like the other high ratings stated this movie isn't for everyone. I'm not really sure how people said it was a "slow burn all the way to the end", when it had me glued to the screen, intrigued and feeling uneasy the entire time. (Coming from someone who has the attention span of a goldfish and extremely picky with movies, especially these days........

If you like eerie, anxiety induced psychological movies this is for you. I'll admit we've seen this theme before but it's nicely done.

This story is a slow burn that only burns at the very end of the movie. When you're already so tired of the crap it's been spouting the entire time you're watching it. It's like an orgasm which was put on hold indefinitely. I regret that I didn't just fast forward all of these nonsensical gibberish right to the end. Cause even at the ending, there's not a single explanation for all of those crap they're throwing at the audience. This is a really good example for a bad psychological thriller. Slow, boring, no explanation, and have a crappy ending. Don't watch this piece of crap! Don't waste 1 hour and a half of your life for this garbage just like I did!

I thought about this movie for a few days after I watched it and I came to one solid conclusion, "What was the point?". The acting was good, and the movie was intriguing and intense, but not in the ways that make for good cinema. The audience has to come away with a sense of satisfaction that their hour and a half wasn't wasted and I'm sorry, but I just can't say that about this movie. It's tiring, it requires a lot of patience and the pay off just isn't there. I get what they were trying to do but...no. It's just not happening with this movie.

If you are patient and can stand long periods of tedious camera shots where nothing happens, then this movie is for you. Everyone else will be bored to tears or worse, they'll end up asking, "What was the point?" like i did. I think that is the worst thing that can be said about any movie.

To the reviewers scoring this movie really high; Stop it.

It seems like there are a lot of disingenuous ratings for this movie ( take a look at their one movie review histories), probably by friends and family who think that scoring a movie high is doing these actors a favor. It isn't. It's deceiving people into thinking that this film is good when it is not.