It's not a horror film. It's hard to say what it is. I kept
waiting for something to gel; a story, a theme, a point ...
something. But nothing!
The events (it's hard to call this a story) concern two young
women living alone in a mansion. Their father was an alchemist.
They allude to a "plan," which seems to involve finding a young
man to mate with, so they can have a baby.
Well, one of the sisters picks up this drifter in a bar and takes him
home. Then ... nothing much. Lots of talk, and flashbacks, and
superimposed images. I mean lots of superimposed images, all
throughout the film. But to no clear purpose.
We see images of the young women as children, superimposed all
over the place. At one point, the man is asleep. Then he's woken
by one of the women who is in the form of a child. But it means nothing.
Is it a
dream? A flashback? An imagining? Alchemical magic? Does it occur
in the future? The past? Another dimension?
"Who is beside you?" the man asks without moving his lips.
"No one is beside me," the child answers.
"You're just a child," the man says.
"I am eternally a child," the child replies.
Uhm, okay.
These images (of the women, their parents, the young man) are
constantly superimposed onto events, along with unrelated sounds
and voices. Lots of magical-poetic
gibberish, with no clear rhyme or reason.
The film seems to borrow a bit from D.H. Lawrence's
The
Fox in
that these two women become jealous over the man.
All in all, a confusing mish-mash. Beautiful sets, photography,
sepia colors, but so boring as it's all for naught. Just
gibberish, and superimposed images, and wanderings in the snow, and
sheer nothing.
Yes, there's an ending. Or rather, the film ends. Don't ask me to
explain it. There's a fire. Or was there? It seemed a big fire,
but then the house seems unaffected. The man seems to have died,
but later we see him superimposed beside one of the women. One
seems to have lost her baby in childbirth (or did she?) while the
other woman is pregnant. Was it all a dream? A magical
alter-reality? Who knows!
I'm sure some people will be bowled over with stupefied
admiration, but I like a story to go with all that pretty
photography.
An artsy-fartsy, none-horror, sorta Jane Austin type
Gothic
suspense thriller (the women watch an Austin movie on TV), but
really, what is it?
"Communist Vampires" and "CommunistVampires.com" trademarks are currently unregistered, but pending registration upon need for protection against improper use. The idea of marketing these terms as a commodity is a protected idea under the Lanham Act. 15 U.S.C. s 1114(1) (1994) (defining a trademark infringement claim when the plaintiff has a registered mark); 15 U.S.C. s 1125(a) (1994) (defining an action for unfair competition in the context of trademark infringement when the plaintiff holds an unregistered mark).font>
I wanted to like this film. I was rooting for it. I love artsy
sepia-toned horror films like