La Mano Del Demonio

And how heroic are you? Or rather afraid? And is it being afraid or is it being reasonable and actually doing the thing with the most succesful outcome (probably)? Sometimes we are put in situations where there is nothing that is 100% correct. How do you help someone else who is being assaulted when you yourself are being held at bay/distance? Having said that, there are some interesting themes here, some of which get dismantled by inner logic or rather are suspended for ... suspense. And characters then seem to try to outdo each other by doing the worst things possible.

Then again, this would not be a horror movie if it were otherwise. Some very fine images and cinematography and some really interesting ideas story-wise. Not great but decently done - if you can overcome certain scenes, that while not explicit, really do cut to the bone - no pun intended.

Week 42 of the #OhMyHorrorChallenge is One-Word Title Horror so naturally I picked Mara from (2020). It's listed as Side Effect here but when I found it on Screamify it's listed as Mara so cut me some slack.

After thieves invade an architect and his wife's peaceful life, he seeks help from Mara, a strange woman in the House on the Embankment who offers a mysterious cure to erase his wife's trauma.

This Russian made film was really quite a surprise. It's the story of a man trying to right some wrongs using powers that he doesn't understand. Two major takeaways from this film is that you can't make a deal with the devil and expect it to be straight up and two wrongs do not make a right.

It's a little confusing at the beginning but reveals little bits of information as the story develops that brings it all together. The acting is wonderful but it is in Russian. The voice overs SUCKED. They were delivered with bland emotions that it drags the whole production down. The imagery is wonderful. The use of color and light, the foliage in the apartment, the views of the city-everything was gorgeous. There's even a couple of decent songs in Russian.

Not overly scary. A little bit gory at times. There is a couple of scenes of SA that might be triggering. Overall a very solid movie, I just wish I could have had the original audio and subtitles. Side note,this is the second of 4 international films I watched this week. Not trying to sound like I'm all fancy and all that, it's just weird how they all ended up in the same week.

IMDb gives this one a 5.0/10 For me, it's a 7.0/10 Solid Screams

Right or wrong, weak or strong...these are my opinions.

I'm only being generous and giving it 2 stars because it had some cool transformation scenes, wasnt afraid of using colour and had some cool scene transitions.

But the sexual assault and other hateful stuff really made this movie bad. Ew.

Side Effects (or Mara as it is listed on FreeVee) is a confusing mess of a movie. The opening has a rape (or attempted rape as I fast forwarded through it) that is off putting; it occurs in a home robbery/invasion situation so unnecessary as physical violence would have worked as well in the plot. After this, the husband tries to "erase" this from his and his wife's mind, falling upon a "herbal hypnotist (?)" that seems to unleash alternate versions of the husband's life where his wife knows him or doesn't. There are supernatural elements that pull in surreal qualities leading to a psychedelic quality becoming a confusion part of the plot. There are pieces of this that I liked, but it doesn't come together well as a whole. And it ends with a recapture of the rape. This main plot device is just ugly. Not enough of a movie value to suffer through these 2 scenes or appreciate any of the cinematic element devices employed.