Simply Perfect

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Eduardo Sanchez is a name you may or may not know, but title the title of the film which put him on the map you will most definitely remember. The Blair Witch Project was the little horror indie that caught the snowball effect and went on to become one of the most legendary fright flicks ever made, as well as unfortunately spawning the found footage sub genre. So the question was, how would a filmmaker who accidentally captured lightning in a bottle top such an achievement? Well, by not trying to recreate said lightning, that's how. By branching off, by breaking new ground, and by giving us a terrifying little character study of a horror like Lovely Molly, which has unsettled me like no other in the past couple years since I've seen it. It's a character study in the sense that the horror comes mostly from a psychological place, with the slightest suggestion of external and paranormal torment, a subtlety that goes a long way in scaring the pants off us. The story focuses on Molly (Gretchen Lodge, superb), and her husband Tim (Johnny Lewis, or halfsack for anyone who watches Sons Of Anarchy). They are a young newlywed couple just starting life together, until some restless demons from Molly's past come back to haunt her. Tim is gone for extended periods of time with his trucking job, leaving Molly alone in their secluded house, a sitting duck for supernatural and psychological forces to hunt her. Raw, disconcerting terror sets in as we witness a tragic downward spiral of disturbing sexual behaviour, unseen phantoms and unending torment befall the poor girl. Scarier still is Sanchez's blatant refusal to spell out in bold fonts just exactly what is happening to her. Is this just extreme mental illness cauded by residual trauma leftover from an abusive childhood that is hinted at? Are there actually percievable paranormal entities at work? It's the murky deliberation to not draw lines or give solid answers that makes the film work so well, right up until a climax from darkest nightmares. Lodge is beyond capable with the role, taking Molly's mania and sickness to levels beyond comprehension or reprieve, truly gone to a place of boiling internal horror. This is a different kind of horror for Sanchez, and he proves to be just as adept with the slow cooker style as he was in frenzied found footage. Don't go expecting any clear cut answers here though, this is the realm of feverish ambiguity. Some people take issue with that and need a breadcrumb trail laid out for them. I for one love not knowing, just increases the intrigue and the creep factor. A horror gem.

In a video recording dated 10.16.2011, Molly (Gretchen Lodge) is suicidal but can't kill herself. She says, "It won't let me do it." A year earlier, she is getting married to Tim (Johnny Lewis). They move into her childhood home assisted by her sister Hannah (Alexandra Holden). Molly is alone while Tim is away. She starts to deteriorate.It's not anything terribly new. Director Eduardo Sánchez of Blair Witch fame brings a mix of found footage and indie horror. It does have a disjointed feel. It can be confused. Gretchen Lodge has a nice disaffected performance. It's a middling horror that doesn't excel but it does have its moments.

Sad and bleak best describes Lovely Molly. About half way through I realised there was not going to be a happy ending here, and I was right. The music is especially melancholic, painfully so, and perfectly pitched to what's happening on screen.Does the bleakness ruin the movie? Not at all. For me, Lovely Molly was about the damage abuse does to children. It should be sad and bleak.Lovely Molly isn't particularly scary, although it probably still classifies as a horror film, given the ending. It reminds me a lot of The Babadook, which also has a female lead who is undergoing massive psychological stress. (Both films have fantastic female leads too.) The Babadook is much scarier, but Lovely Molly will linger far longer because of its tragic back story.Incidentally, there's a lot of nudity in this film. One could perceive this as gratuitous, but the heavy context around it (i.e. child abuse) makes it difficult to view it in an erotic way. Maybe this is the point.

LOVELY MOLLY is a BLAIR WITCH follow-up from director Eduardo Sanchez. In it, a newly wed couple movie back to the childhood home of the wife, only for her to start experiencing flashbacks and hallucinations as dark secrets from her past are dug back up again.This is a slow burning, atmospheric horror film that unfortunately misses the mark too often for me. It doesn't help that the characters, particularly the protagonist, are too unlikeable for me to enjoy the movie. Everything about this is greyed out and downbeat, and the segments filmed found footage style are intrusive; with found footage it's all or nothing. The opening scene with the burglar alarm going off is the only one which is truly menacing.The whole mysterious "secrets from the past" aspect of the storyline is an all-too-familiar one from a lot of modern horror movies and there's just too little incident here to attract my attention. Even worse, some of the stylistic choices are annoying in the extreme, such as the constant tinnitus-inducing ringing on the soundtrack. I appreciate what Sanchez was trying to do here but for me, it's a failure.