Enys Men

This is mostly a response to these depressing reviews. Have you never watched a moody film before?

You should already know from Bait that Jenkin is an experimental filmmaker. It's an unconventional film which is about experiencing a mood and atmosphere. The film won't spoon feed you the same storytelling tropes you've already seen a million times before, so if that makes a film "bad" to you then stay away. Don't try to understand it, just watch it.

I much preferred this to Bait. I liked the sound design, the blurring of nightmare and reality and the body horror elements.

What's he got against lichen, though?

I watched this in a quite full small cinema in Blaenau Ffestiniog. I live horror, love independent cinema and really love independent British cinema.

However my goodwill can't detract from this one being a bit of a pretentious stinker. As an aside I hope 'Bait' isn't like 'Enys Men'.

I just could not get into it. This might have something to do with having to sit through half an hours worth of abstract art-film beforehand. But regardless, the story, the motivation of 'Enys Men' is completely shrouded in unnecessary mystery. Yes, to give it its due the viewing was incredibly intense, almost unbearable but without any payoff. The ending doesn't tie up the loose ends, which I quite like as a narratorial device but frustrated me on this occasion.

An infuriatingly dull and frustrating watch which seems to hint at lots of interesting ideas that don't develop in any way. I loved bait and while this uses a similar aesthetic it lacks anything approaching a story, character development or depth. It's also mind numbingly repetitive.

I see other reviews saying that people might not "get" what this film is really about or saying. If that's the case then gods sake please enlighten us on what there is to understand rather than smugly pontificating. I feel like in reality it's not a lot. And if it requires some prior understanding of 'Cornish culture' to understand what's going on then sorry, I don't realise I had to revise before I watched it.

Seems most people either love it or dislike/hate it... I liked it but probably won't watch it again anytime soon. I don't have a clue about the regional legends, folktales or cultural markers the movie is said to reference.

What I do have is a lot of patience and quite a bit of imagination. It also helped that it was screened at a folk horror event so I had some context for it. Thus the film did keep my interest as I tried to piece together WTH was going on, and creating a story within my head as the movie went on. The atmosphere is eerie and the movie overall is experimentally interesting so I think the director is on to something, I'd just hope his next effort would be something where I don't have to create most of the story for myself.

Go see if you're ok with experimental, slow-paced stuff that doesn't offer you much answers.

Avoid if you want your horror with action and explanations, and have a low threshold for experimental stuff.

This is an almost entirely single-handed, dialogue free, story of a woman who is taking (very basic) climate and wildlife data on an otherwise uninhabited island off the Cornish Coast. Clearly this has been a mining island in days gone by, with ruins and mine-workings strewn around the place and those exude a sort of creepiness that is only augmented by the constant wind and the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks. Her days are routine, to say the least, but gradually we start to realise that the island has been touched by tragedy - as has the woman (Mary Woodvine) herself. Auteur Mark Jenkin doesn't rush with this, but rather takes his time to slowly but surely allow us to put together some of the pieces of just what drew this woman to this isolated and lonely spot. It's that repetitive pacelessness that I struggled with. We see the same shots over and over again, the same procedures and scenarios and though there is a very incremental development of the plot, the whole thing just doesn't really move. It has the hallmarks of an original "Poldark" episode married with the "Dr. Who - Stones of Blood" series from 1978. To be fair, it has a very authentic 1973 feel to it, and the audio mixing coupled with some sparingly used visual effects do help create a very slight air of mystery and tragedy, but I found it all just a bit lacking. Worth a watch though, but I'm not sure I will watch it again.