Lar dos Esquecidos

This German horror-thriller starts promising enough and I think it aims for some kind of social commentary on how inhumane we many times treat our elderly (putting them into homes and forgetting about them).

However, this movie totally misses the mark. For one thing, the elderly kill people indiscriminately, good or bad, hence making them rather a unsympathetic lot.

And the home for the elderly is made too depressing, it almost feels like an open concentration camp, hence exaggerating the premise of the movie into almost a caricature, lessening the impact of any kind of message they want to put forth.

And the direction is extremely anonymous. It's very easy to see that the director has worked a lot in television because the whole movie has the look of a tv-movie with added gore.

There are some interesting bits here and there and also a few neat ideas, but basically this is an "old people-zombies movie" with a lot of borrowings from much better movies (primarily the zombie -movies by George A Romero) that feels a lot longer than it is.

It is obvious that this movie is not the common horror flick where old people replace zombies. Hell no, it is horror only on form, but certainly not on the meaning. It is a prophecy scheme, a warning message towards young and middle aged generations about the elders; there are more and more, not living, but surviving and waiting for the ultimate deliverance. In the past we had some horror films where it was question of killer kids, for instance a Spanish movie from the late seventies; Spanish cinema and its obsession for kids in horror films. I am sure we will see more features like this one in the future. But this topic could have been written in a different way, not necessarily in a more or less Hollywood style.

Surprisingly this was a pretty good horror slash thriller film. I think it deserves a little higher of a rating then it has been given here. It was an enjoyable movie when it comes down to it. Sure its really quite violent and gory but you do expect that from a horror type film. It was also pretty darn sad when you think of it and what drove these old people to murder was because basically they have lost all hope in life of someone taking care of them. The acting was ok in this and i felt especailly the daughter held her own and was very brave. The direction worked well but i will say the script could be improved in areas. Apart from that though not a bad nextflix horror film.

Yes, of course it could have been better and i rly wish there had been some other choices.

BUT at least this has a decent plot and the premise is relevant.

I am german and seldom watch media content made from "home", i just dont relate to the way actors tend to speak in movies and shows... so if find myself NOT beeing turned off by that, then it has to be sth. About it thst grabs me.

Surprisingly this did.

And i enjoyed this a lot more than 90%of the horror ive seen this year (and i watched over 120flicks). Eg i watched hellraiser22 right before this and though it has much cooler shots and overall set... the budget was huge and that made for great visuals... but that was all i liked about it.

At least this movie has something u may think about at the end.... if u choose to think, that is....

Well no pun intended and I won't say the word, because you probably know anyway which one it is. It starts off with a quite gruesome scene - and then gets brutal. Yes you can say this was another pun. Old people in our society have it quite bad to say the least. Generally speaking that is - the director somehow made some observation of that, while being out in town. I guess he saw how alone they are - or he felt they looked that way.

There are some real worries and problems he integrated in the movie. I know that many at the festival I watched this had issues with the performances. I actually liked most of it. Yes you do have cliche scenes ... like the one about love and being eternal or not. Of course this also plays into the aging theme ... but could have been handled better.

This points at an issue our society has - one that will not end up the way it is portrayed here.