Nocebo

Nocebo is a bit low budget but certainly not bad as a thriller. And even if my first guess turned out to be the correct answer to the mystery it was still an enjoyable story to follow. There was enough tension building to keep you guessing. Mark Strong and Eva Green played husband and wife whilst Chai Fonacier played the mysterious guest from The Philippines. Overall decent acting from the cast but nothing award-winning in my opinion. In the thriller genre Nocebo is worth watching, just don't expect outstanding cinematography as the budget for that was just not there. But for a low budget it was decent.

This is a film that will sneaks up on you with how good and effective it is as horror mystery. The central relationship in this film is between Christine (Eva Green) a fashion designer who suddenly falls to a mysterious and debilitating illness, and her Filipino helper Diana (played by the wonderful discovery Chai Fonacier) who appears from nowhere and starts taking care of Christine using unorthodox methods that alarms Christine's husband Felix (Mark Strong). Diana has drive and determination, but her motives and agendas are mysterious, is she a snake-oil salesman taking advantage of Christine? Or is she un altruistic healer who wants to take care of her? By the end of the film, you will realize this is a horror film that delivers the goods, and it all ties up its threads logically. It's not a very scary horror film, but it's thoughtful and it's cathartic. I really like this one and I highly recommend it.

Eva Green is a top of the range children's fashion designer suffering from a bizarre psychological complaint that flummoxes doctors. Into her life comes Chai Fonacier, a shaman from the Philippines who manages to improve Green's health immeasurably. Her husband, played by Mark Strong is not so sure neither is her feisty young daughter.

Strong performances all around make for an interesting and rather different horror / thriller which features a good deal of icky, though sometimes unconvincing, effects. Overall though this is a fascinating effort which gets you about 20 minutes from the end and then spells out quite disturbingly, which is actually quite hard to watch in places, exactly what's going on and why Green is ill and why Fonacier is there - quite chilling.

1) Watch it without reading anything about this movie. There are no mind-blowing twists but you will enjoy it more if you don't know anything about the plot. Some things that happened are not difficult to predict, but still, their reveal is shocking.

2) During the first 10-ish minutes, i thought that this was going to be a mediocre to bad movie. I was wrong. This is getting better by the minute. The ending is shattering, i liked it very much.

3) Stil, it's flawed. Green and Strong are very good actors but i didn't love the acting here. Definitely not bad though. Chai Fonacier steals the show, she was amazing. Furthermore, this is a forgettable movie, not exactly formulaic and predictable but definitely not groundbreaking and original either. In any case, I believe it's better than the average movie of this genre.

4) So, if you wanna watch a good psychological-drama horror movie, watch NOCEBO. Not scary, not mindless fun, but a nice movie to spent 96 minutes. I would even call it daring for an American movie, due to its script.

In Nocebo, everything deserves praise. The story and the themes and ideas it deals with, performances of the cast, soundtrack, direction, screenplay, creepy and tense atmosphere, horror elements, cinematography, and ending all deserve all praise without any exception.

Regarding the flaws, the only flaw that I saw in the movie was some horror scenes which were, from my point of view, unnecessary and a little bit disgusting. Rather than that, everything else was perfect.

I liked Nocebo so much, and I wish that they make more psychological movies which are even deeper in the future. That is why when it comes to score, I gladly give Nocebo 9 out of 10.