Pora mroku

During a short holiday in Poland, it was nice to see this little horror film on DVD. I never knew that Poland had a film-industry, let alone a horrorfilmindustry. So I liked it in the sense that this is quite unique in a way that almost nobody in Poland has done this before.

But the movie itself... not so good. I didn't really care about the fact that the film was full of clichés, what I really regret about it, that it's too soft. No nudity, no gore, and almost no really exciting scenes. The DVD-cover promises more than the film actually delivers.

I expected a sort of Hostel-type of film, with all the saws and the bloody doctors pictured on the DVD-cover. But sadly no... the one scene with a little bit of gore was so badly lit that it was barely visible.

Nice scenery though.

Truly the acting was not the best and surly not what polish actors has to offer. Actually the only actor that has enough experience to play in that movie was the one that had almost the less important role (Jan Wieczorkowski)playing Adam. Other actors were playing rather poor but they were chosen due to the fact that in Poland we make a lot of comedies and most of the good actors are associated with this type of movie and wouldn't fit in the horror movie. I would agree that location was chosen very carefully and the background of the film is great. Who I also liked was the mentally ill boy, in my opinion he did quite a good job on his role. All in all the movie presents the level of movies made in 90's the music and flashbacks are cheap and trashy but since it is (probably) first polish horror movie I really liked it. I was trying to enjoy it throughout the whole movie and turn the blind eye to the imperfections. Quite a good movie but with Very complicated plot.

The news of this movie being made sparked hope in the hearts of Polish moviegoers as it represents a genre almost dead in Poland. Having that said, it's easy to fall in this overly critical mindset about almost anything that the movie has to offer. With this in mind I approached all its elements with a certain dose of precaution and as much as I'd love to say it fared out well... it did not. Firstly, the script feels too complicated. It's not that I don't like unexpected twists and rapid changes in the characters' development. I just like the above to follow simple rules of logic I can relate to. Here, logic is absent. Instead, we get a bunch of random people, driven by random motives, and all that is seasoned with random flashbacks the source of which never gets apparent. This semi-scary horror device, incorporated in many 90's movies just doesn't fit here. Next, we have poor acting. You don't have to understand Polish to see the omni underdevelopment of everything here present. Sadly, this movie (and a few others screened this year) makes me believe that Poland does not have young, capable actors. Their workshop tries to be b-grade Hollywood level, but the effort put into that just shows, making the experience of viewing this film something not to recommend. The only good thing I can point out are the locations the movie is shot at. Using post war bunkers, old factories and other 60+ y-o facilities makes some scenes enjoyably disturbing. But that's really all the movie has to offer. Sadly.

I recommend giving this one a pass.

Today. Argentina. Buenos Aires. An elderly woman looks through a fence - in anguish that she is no longer in her youth. This has faded away and anger has taken over this crippled body.

A year ago. Poland. Silesia. A young entrepreneur, Adam, purchases an old mine at 5% of its full price. Accompanied by his friend he descends into the mine only for something terrible to happen to his companion.

Today. Poland. Silesia. A group of friends travel to this remote area for fun. Unknown to some of them Joanna is actually in search of her brother, Adam, who went missing a year ago. In the meantime Karolina, a juvenile delinquent is transported to a local loony-bin, where she is to work in return for shortening her sentence...

Sounds promising? Well... so did I. The tech credits are fine save for the overusing of screeches and noises in the most idiotic moments. Up until this point I was really questioning the bad rep this movie has - nicely filmed, the acting was decent and script seemed to be going places. But boy its rep is well deserved... The story descends into chaos incarnate pulling punches left and right ending up with an incomprehensible mess of a ending.

Some of the scenes were just so bad, that a hefty laugh is guaranteed. If you watch the movie in that direction I can safely say you'll love the idiosyncrasies of this little flick and might very well cough your heart out with laughter. The worst thing in this terror of a horror is the script itself. The movie is very open-ended, but not in a good scary way. Basically many questions are left unanswered, but all the answers given seem to contradict them. Additionally film characters reach all new level highs of stupidity in horror movies. Question: What should you do if you suddenly get yanked up a mine chute and your friends at the last moment manage to save you? Answer: According to this movie you organise a campfire outside the mine entrance and start smoking weed... I kid you not.

This must be how a movie looks if everyone behind the movie is constantly high on ecstasy...

The only positive thing I could find in regards to this movie is Michał (played by Jakub Wesołowski), who is a mildly whacked-out crazy with the best lines and arguably the only thing resembling a character.