#Sabrina De La Hoz

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[etakeh]

The opening is like a rerun of a rerun of politics as usual in "third world" countries. A lot of the things that happen are "of course", but it sets up the rest.

I think the end was maybe a little too...chill. Appropriate, but maybe not as much build to drama as it could have been. A little too much setup and not enough middle.

But overall, point well taken.

[omnivorouscinephilia]

La Llorona: A Unique and Timely Guatemalan Ghost Story

This review was originally published on HorrOrigins.com on 8/21/2020 It might be an insulting understatement to say that 2020 has been a particularly tumultuous year, especially in political terms. As a reaction to the general creep of far-right politics, tensions mounting due to a pandemic, and continued deaths of marginalized folks via unlawful force by the police, we have seen perhaps the…

[fashionbooksmilano]

Audrey e la moda

A Fashion Love Affair

Cindy de la Hoz

Mondadori Electa, Milano 2016, 176 pagine, 18,5x24,3cm, ISBN 9788891810373

euro 19,90

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

Era incredibilmente inconsapevole del suo fascino e così diversa dalle dive hollywoodiane: né bionda e prosperosa come Marilyn, né capricciosa e seduttiva come Elizabeth Taylor. Eppure con il suo fisico esile, vagamente androgino, Audrey Hepburn ha conquistato il pubblico fin dal primo film nel 1953. A Parigi Audrey incontra, appena finite le riprese di "Vacanze romane", un promettente stilista parigino, Hubert de Givenchy, che rimane folgorato dalla sua bellezza, dalla sua aria sbarazzina: occhi da cerbiatto, capelli corti, pantaloni a sigaretta e paglietta da gondoliere. Quell'incontro è determinante per Audrey. Da quel giorno, grazie al suo "maestro di eleganza", elabora uno stile tutto suo, inconfondibile. In "Vacanze romane", "Sabrina", "Cenerentola a Parigi", "Colazione da Tiffany", Audrey spiazza i costumisti di Hollywood e impone il suo look, che diventerà leggenda. La raccolta di immagini di questo libro, in cui Audrey compare dentro e fuori dal set a fianco di Humphrey Bogart e Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper e Peter O'Toole, proietta il lettore nelle fascinose atmosfere degli anni '50 e '60.

13/11/23

[saturdaynightmatinee]

CALIFICACIÓN PERSONAL: 6 / 10

Título Original: La llorona

Año: 2019

Duración: 97 min

País: Guatemala

Dirección: Jayro Bustamante

Guion: Jayro Bustamante, Lisandro Sánchez. Idea: Jayro Bustamante

Música: Pascual Reyes

Fotografía: Nicolas Wong

Reparto: Sabrina De La Hoz, Margarita Kénefic, María Mercedes Coroy, Julio Diaz, etc

Productora: Coproducción Guatemala-Francia; La Casa de Producción, Les Films du Volcan, Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes de Guatemala

Género: Horror; Thriller; War

TRAILER:

[addictivecontradiction]

La llorona, 2019

[randomrichards]

LA LLORONA:

Tyrant General

Family faces his sins

A maid or spirit?

[movie--posters]

[moviemosaics]

La Llorona

directed by Jayro Bustamante, 2019

[brokehorrorfan]

La Llorona will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 18 via The Criterion Collection. Joao Ruas designed the new cover art for the 2019 Guatemalan horror-drama, also known as The Weeping Woman.

La Llorona is directed by Jayro Bustamante from a script co-written with Lisandro Sanchez. María Mercedes Coroy stars with Margarita Kenéfic, Sabrina De La Hoz, Julio Diaz, María Telón, Ayla-Elea Hurtado, and Juan Pablo Olyslager.

La Llorona has been mastered in 2K, approved by Bustamante, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio. Special features are listed below.

Special features:

Interview with writer-director Jayro Bustamante

Making-of documentary with cast and crew

Trailer

Booklet with an essay by journalist/author Francisco Goldman

A country’s bloody history stains the present in the Guatemalan auteur Jayro Bustamante’s transfixing fusion of folk horror and searing political commentary, inspired by the real-life indictment of the authoritarian Efraín Ríos Montt for crimes against humanity. A notorious, now aging former military dictator stands trial for atrocities committed against Guatemala’s Mayan communities. While battling legal repercussions and the people’s demands for justice, he and his family are plagued by a series of increasingly strange and disturbing occurrences, seemingly brought on by an enigmatic new housekeeper (María Mercedes Coroy). With a restraint that renders the film’s shocks all the more potent, Bustamante crafts a chilling vision of a nation reckoning with collective harms and the restless ghosts of a past that refuses to die.

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[popsixsquishcicerolipschitz]

La Llorona - Official Trailer [HD] | A Shudder Original

Shudder

Winner — Venice Days 2019. Official Selection TIFF 2019, Sundance 2020.

Indignant retired general Enrique finally faces trial for the genocidal massacre of thousands of Mayans decades ago. As a horde of angry protestors threatens to invade their opulent home, the women of the house—his haughty wife, conflicted daughter, and precocious granddaughter—weigh their responsibility to shield the erratic, senile Enrique against the devastating truths being publicly revealed and the increasing sense that a wrathful supernatural force is targeting them for his crimes. Meanwhile, much of the family’s domestic staff flees, leaving only loyal housekeeper Valeriana until a mysterious young Indigenous maid arrives. 

A tale of horror and magical realism, the film reimagines the iconic Latin American fable as an urgent metaphor of Guatemala’s recent history and tears open the country’s unhealed political wounds to grieve a seldom discussed crime against humanity. LA LLORONA marks Bustamante’s third feature and demonstrates his continued efforts to highlight social inequality in his native Guatemala following his previous titles TEMBLORES (2019) and IXCANUL (2016). 

Cast: Maria Mercedes Coroy (Ixcanul), Margarita Kenefic, Sabrina de la Hoz, Julio Diaz. 

Co-written and directed by Jayro Bustamante 

Premieres August 6 only on Shudder

[transtranscendence]

2019 - We will not be silenced. We must fight back against transphobia.

For the unknown person murdered on January 1, 2019 in Selangor, Malaysia.

For S. Biswas, who committed suicide on January 1, 2019 West Bengal, India.

For Devora Montolio, murdered on January 1, 2019 in Maimón, Dominican Republic.

For Laura Muñoz Arcila, murdered in January 3, 2019 in Valle De Cauca.

For Alka, who was murdered On January 16, in Tapani, India.

For the unknown person murdered on January 24, 2019 in Chihuahua, Mexico.

For Ellie Marie Washtock, murdered in January 31, 2019 in Florida, USA.

For Joha González Leal, murdered on February 2, 2019 in Zulia, Venezuela

For V. Barbosa de Aquino, murdered on February 21, 2019 in Tocantins, Brazil

For the unknown person murdered on February 24, 2019 in Valencia, Spain

For Thais, murdered on February 26, 2019 in São Paulo

For the unknown person murdered on February 26, 2019 in Ceará, Brazil

For Pamela Arenceli, murdered on February 28, 2019 in Partido, Argentina

For Maxim Brizuela, murdered on February 28, 2019 in Partido, Argentina

For Laura Gentle Argueta, murdered on March 2, 2019 in Roatán, Honduras

For Pamela, murdered on March 5, 2019 in Santa Luzia do Pará, Brazil

For Marisol Montenegro, murdered on March 7, 2019 in Los Lago, Chile

For Perla, murdered on March 8, 2019 in São Paulo, Brazil

For the unknown person murdered on March 10, Morelos, Mexico

For Nazab Abid Shaikh, murdered on March 11, 2019 in Maharashtra, Indi

For the unknown person murdered on March 15, in Cuidad de Mexico, Mexico

For B.J.P. murdered on March 16, 2019 in Canún, Mexico

For Alessandra, murdered on March 17, 2019 in Rondônia, Brazil

For Lara, murdered in March 23, 2019 in Pará, Brazil

For Celaya Méndez Zelada, murdered on March 24, 2019 in Veracruz, Mexico

For Amma Haijani, murdered on March 26, 2019 in Korangi, Pakistan

For Victoria, who died on March 30, 2019 in Lazio, Italy

For Bárbara, murdered on April 3, 209 in Bahia, Brazil

For the unknown person murdered on April 7, 2019 in São Paulo

For Juliane de Fonseca, murdered in April 12, 2019 in Mato, Grosso

For Sabrina, murdered on April 13, 2019 in Paraíba, Brazil

For the unknown person murdered on April 18, 2019 in Ceará, Brazil

For the unknown person murdered on April 19, 2019 in Ceará, Brazil

For Natalia Delgado Rubio, murdered on April 21, 2019 in Guanajuato, Mexico

For Jèssica Gomez Rùa, murdered on April 21, 2019 in Santander, Colombia

For El Choco, murdered on May 2, 2019 in Chihuahua, Mexico

For Luana de Andrade, murdered on May 11, 2019 in Balsas, Maranhāo, Brazil

For Taila Silveira Pacheco Santos, murdered on May 12, 2019 in Minas, Gerais, Brazil

For Natalia, murdered on May 13, 2019 in Distrito Federal, Mexico

For Dulce, murdered on May 14, 2019 in Cuidad De Mexico

For Bibiu de Lima Pires, murdered on May 15, 2019 in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil

For Rekha Desai, murdered on May 17, 2019 in Kaylan, India

For Angela Paola Fijardo, murdered on May 18, 2019 in Guatemala City, Guatemala

For Techi, who died in a possible suicide on May 29, 2019 in Arequipa, Peru

For Shakira (“La Moy”), murdered on June 8, 2019, in Choloma, Cortés, Honduras.

For Pamela, murdered on June 8, 2019, in Maringá, Paraná, Brazil.

For Jony Sosa Sanchez, murdered on June 14, 2019, in Coatzintla, Veracruz, Mexico.

For Gabriella Rice, who took her own life on June 21, 2019, in Augusta, Maine, USA.

For J.P. Moreno, murdered on June 25, 2019, in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico.

For the 2 unknown people murdered on June 28, 2019, in Multan, Punjab, Pakistan.

For Romy, who took her own life on July 6, 2019, in Bordeaux, Gironde, France.

For Shakira Fernández de la Hoz, murdered on July 7, 2019, in Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia.

For the unknown person murdered on July 12, 2019, in Xochimilco, Ciudad de Mexico, Estado de México, Mexico

For Gurpreet, who took their own life on July 13, 2019, in Mohali, Punjab, India.

For Angie Digiacomo, murdered on July 17, 2019, in Moreno, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

For S. Medina, murdered on July 18, 2019, in Salta, Argentina.

For the unknown person murdered on July 19, 2019, in San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

For Sandy Carrillo Bello, murdered on July 24, 2019, in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Mexico.

For Nadia, murdered on July 27, 2019, in Harappa, Sahiwal, Punjab, Pakistan.

For Muskan, murdered on July 27, 2019, in Harappa, Sahiwal, Punjab, Pakistan.

For Rosalinda Pérez Berigüete, murdered on August 3, 2019, in Chalona, San Juan de la Maguana, Dominican Republic.

For the unknown person murdered on August 6, 2019, in Tecomán, Colima, Mexico.

For J.A. Cermeño Medina, murdered on August 7, 2019, in Maracay, Aragua, Venezuela.

For W. Félix de Oliveira, murdered on August 11, 2019, in Maracanaú, Ceará, Brazil.

For the unknown person murdered on August 12, 2019, in Frutal, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

For Abril Navarro Salazar, murdered on August 13, 2019, in Ciudad de Mexico, Estado de México, Mexico.

For Nathacha Ruby Flores (“Samantha”), murdered on August 17, 2019, in Quito, Ecuador.

For the unknown person murdered on August 19, 2019, in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.

For Daniela Martinez, murdered on August 22, 2019, in Cicuco, Bolivar, Colombia.

For the unknown person murdered on August 23, 2019, in Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico.

For the unknown person murdered on August 31, 2019, in Santiago, Chile.

For Yuri Gabriel Castro Farias, murdered on September 6, 2019, in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil.

For Ana Paula, murdered on September 6, 2019, in Jiutepec, Morelos, Mexico.

For the 2 unknown people murdered on September 7, 2019, in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.

For the unknown person murdered on September 10, 2019, in Cartagena, Bolivar, Colombia.

For the unknown person murdered on September 10, 2019, in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.s

For Shokir Shavkatov, murdered on September 13, 2019, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

For Luana Piovani, murdered on September 15, 2019, in Senador Elói de Souza, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.

For Reena, murdered on September 16, 2019, in Bayanpur, Sonipat, Haryana, India.

For the unknown person murdered on September 17, 2019, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

For Leandro Parra Hermosilla, murdered on September 19, 2019, in Coyhaique, Chile.

For the unknown person murdered on September 23, 2019, in Jujuy, Argentina.

For the unknown person murdered on September 28, 2019, in Registro, São Paulo, Brazil.

For Chhaya, murdered on September 29, 2019, in Durg, Chattisgarh, India.

For the unknown person murdered on October 4, 2019, in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico.

For Maninha, murdered on October 4, 2019, in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil.

For La Diva, murdered on October 10, 2019, in Guaduas, Cudinamarca, Colombia.

For I. Dias da Silva, murdered on October 25, 2019, in Petrolina, Pernambuco, Brazil.

For the unknown person murdered on October 26, 2019, in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.

For Edu, who took her own life on October 30, 2019, in Llíria, Valencia, Spain.

For the unknown person murdered on November 3, 2019, in Jacona, Michoacán, Mexico.

For the unknown person murdered on November 4, 2019, in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

For the unknown person murdered on November 4, 2019, in Chihuahua, Mexico.

For Alejandra, murdered on November 10, 2019, in Jacona, Michoacán, Mexico.

For Daphine Kauane, murdered on November 11, 2019, in Jordão, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil.

For Michelle, murdered on November 12, 2019, in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico.

For Sarita Sudario da Silva, murdered on November 18, 2019, in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil.

For Coral, murdered on November 21, 2019, in Iztapalapa, Ciudad de Mexico, Estado de México, Mexico.

For Rafaela de Salles, murdered on November 22, 2019, in Linhares, Espirito Santo, Brazil.

For Monica Coelho, murdered on November 26, 2019, in Vilhena, Rondônia, Brazil.

For the unknown person murdered on November 30, 2019, in Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico.

For the unknown person murdered on December 2, 2019, in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, Mexico.

For Nicole Pinto, murdered on December 6, 2019, in Toledo, Paraná, Brazil.

For Marisol Chacon Vilcacuri, murdered on December 6, 2019, in Verona, Veneto, Italy.

For the 2 unknown people murdered on December 13, 2019, in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

For the unknown person murdered on December 18, 2019, in Villa de Álvarez, Colima, Mexico.

For the unknown person murdered on December 21, 2019, in Montreal, Québec, Canada.

For all the other trans siblings who were murdered or went missing.

[thefilmstage]

Ever since Hannah Arendt coined the term “the banality of evil” in her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, it’s been a phrase oft-used in an attempt to describe how seemingly rational humans can do truly awful things. One recalls Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary The Act of Killing or Chris Weitz’s Operation Finale in recent years. Director Jayro Bustamante wades in these same waters with La Llorona, an effective slow-burn that uses thriller tropes to explore the lingering scars of the Guatemalan Civil War.

An elderly general named Enrique (Julio Diaz) is put on trial for brutal war crimes decades earlier. After he is acquitted on a technicality, his family barricade themselves together in their home, under siege by protestors seeking proper justice. While his wife (Margarita Kénefic) and daughter (Sabrina De La Hoz) debate the legitimacy of the victims’ testimony, the members of the staff begin to resign. Enrique is suffering from dementia and increasingly unsafe to be around. At night, he hears the crying of a woman throughout the sleeping house. This growing paranoia and stress within the under-staffed home allows for the introduction of a mysterious young housekeeper named Alma (María Mercedes Coroy), befriending the general’s young granddaughter.

Continue reading our Sundance review of La Llorona.

[fearsmagazine]

LA LLORONA  Golden Globe® Nominee - Available on Digital HD March 2, 2021 

RLJE Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, has picked up select rights to LA LLORONA from Shudder, AMC Networks’ streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural. LA LLORONA was recently nominated for Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language and is Guatemala’s Official Entry for 2021 Academy Award® consideration for Best International Feature Film. LA LLORONA will be released on Digital HD on March 2, 2021.

LA LLORONA blends together the terror of both myth and reality into a devastating exposé of the genocidal atrocities against the Mayan community in Guatemala. Through a modern retelling of the classic Latin American legend, LA LLORONA forces a reckoning with not-so-distant crimes which should not have been forgotten. Following a premiere at the 2019 Venice Film Festival where the film won Best Film (Venice Days), LA LLORONA has had an impressive festival tour with appearances at TIFF, Sundance and BFI. The film is being celebrated as a true depiction of Latino culture.

LA LLORONA is the third feature from iconic Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante (Tremors), who co-wrote the film with Lisandro Sánchez. The film stars María Mercedes Coroy (Ixcanul), Margarita Kenéfic (Aro Tolbukhin in the Mind of a Killer), Sabrina de la Hoz (Tremors), and Julio Diaz.

In LA LLORONA, indignant retired general Enrique finally faces trial for the genocidal massacre of thousands of Mayans decades ago. As a horde of angry protestors threatens to invade their opulent home, the women of the house – his haute wife, conflicted daughter, and precocious granddaughter – weigh their responsibility to shield the erratic, senile Enrique against the devastating truths behind being publicly revealed and the increasing sense that a wrathful supernatural force is targeting them for his crimes. Meanwhile, much of the family’s domestic staff flees, leaving only loyal housekeeper Valeriana until a mysterious young indigenous maid arrives.

[sweetsmellosuccess]

Sundance 2020: Day 2

Number of Films: 5 Best Film of the Day: Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Zola: Back in 2015, a Twitter user named @zola began a long, outrageous thread concerning a wild road trip she had been on with a woman she had just met at the restaurant where she worked. The plan was for the two of them to go down to Florida for a long weekend to dance at strip clubs and make a bundle. What followed was an absolutely insane odyssey of horror, involving pimps, guns, gang bangers, and someone jumping off a balcony. Directed by Janicza Bravo, with plenty of snap, crackle and pop, the film stars Taylour Page as our long suffering narrator and Riley Keough as the brazen, hopeless Stefani, who leads her newfound friend into the depths of hell. At its root, it’s a funny, if not sporadically chilling sort of chaotic joy-ride, with Zola’s commentary peppering the proceedings, along with a bevy of social media pings and whooshes (as another critic pointed out, the tweet whistle is half the soundtrack). Bravo pulls out a creative bag of tricks and gags  —  including a propensity for Scorsese-like screen freezes, while she describes one character or other  —  all of which gives the film a zany, madcap quality that imbibes the film with plenty of zing. Riley, a trashy southern drawl in her back pocket (just hearing her call Zola “beech” endearingly never ceases to be amusing), takes to the character like James Franco took to his role in Spring Breakers (a film with which Zola shares a certain Florida-crazed DNA), and Page makes an adroit straight person, taking in the insanity all around her, but despite these amusements, it’s really only skin-deep. There’s no deeper sense of anything, which, while in league with its source material, also puts something of a cap on just what the film can achieve.

La Llorona: if the source of all horror, cinematic and otherwise, is, essentially those elements that make up the human condition, than guilt is one of the more powerful evocations from which to draw. Jayro Bustamante‘s horror film is a timely political allegory set in Guatemala, as an aged and deposed former dictator general (Julio Diaz) is being tried for genocidal war crimes, his family, wife (Margarita Kenefic), daughter (Sabrina De La Hoz), and young granddaughter (Ayla-Elea Hurtado) are all forced to huddle up in the general’s mansion, as throngs of outraged citizens hold a neverending seething protest outside. What’s more, the General, now a slightly shriveled old man, seems to be coming unglued, hearing someone sobbing in the house whom he is convinced is a Guerilla assassin. When his mainly indigenous staff catches wind of this  —  the crying female spirit  —  they quit en masse, leaving the mansion badly understaffed, until a young, new woman (Maria Mercedes Coroy) arrives, leaving the General further discombobulated, as the nightmares and visions he and his wife endure begin to coalesce into an unnerving climax. Apart from everything else, Bustamante’s film is about the searing power of empathy  —  the General’s wife starts the film as a racist, uncaring mouthpiece, but gradually gets her layers of denial stripped away from her  —  and the powerful idea that one’s actions, even if unpunished in the material world, still have dire consequences.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always: Eliza Hittman has made a trilogy of sorts with her first three films. In 2013’s It Felt Like Love, a young teen woman in Brooklyn convinces herself to pursue a callous and contemptuous boy in order to lose her virginity; Beach Rats (2017) follows the trevails of another Brooklyn-based teen, as he attempts to pursue his interest in men while continuing to maintain his bro-heteroness. In her new film, she has moved the setting to a hardscrabble town in rural Pennsylvania, but her characters remain familiar. Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), a dour-faced high schooler has discovered to her horror that she’s pregnant, and too far along to get an abortion without her parents’ cosign, something she wants to avoid at all costs. Enlisting the aid of her cousin, the feisty, resourceful Skylar (Talia Ryder), the pair head off to New York, where Autumn can get the procedure without her parents’ knowledge. With little money and no earthly clue about the city, the two young women are forced to endure a vagabond lifestyle, spending the nights on train platforms, or endlessly going from station stop to station stop, until Autumn can be properly treated. Hittman’s eye for detail and emotional complexity  —  her characters can rarely articulate anything their experiencing  —  is incredibly acute, and she pulls tremendously understated performances out of her two leads. In the film’s most searing scene, Autumn goes through an exhaustive intake interview with a sweetly caring counselor. Shot in a long single take, the back-and-forth covers the most basic details of Autumn’s life and also some of her most buried pain and trauma. The camera stays fixed on her face, as she is asked to finally unpack some of the misery she has worked so hard to tamp down, and the result is one of most devastating sequences you will see this year.

Black Bear: What to make of Lawerence Michael Levine’s meta-within-meta film in which the first half is a specific sort of indie drama in which a young couple (Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon) living up in a glorious lake house away from New York get visited by an actress-turned-director (Aubrey Plaza), there to work on a new project; and the second half is, essentially, the Noises Off-like behind the scenes riff on how the trio (now with the actresses’ roles switched) worked together to produce a variation of the film we were just watching? In part one, dubbed “The Bear in the Road,” Plaza’s character is territorial and coquettish, instantly attracted to Abbott’s lonely musician, and enticing him into disavowing his care for his pregnant partner. In Part two, “The Bear by the Boat House,” Abbott is now the film’s director, and Plaza is his wife, also the star of the film in which she is now the clingy partner, as Gadon arrives from the city on a visit. There is a lot to unpack here  —  or, alternatively, there isn’t terribly much at all, depending on how you see it  —  it being the kind of film that begs for further viewings to untangle its many layers. Whether you will want to put that sort of work into it is unclear. Still, the leads are all tremendous  —  Plaza, light-years removed from her “Parks & Rec” days  —  is a revelation of ferocious, billowing emotion, and Levine is clever enough with his structure to keep things rolling along.  

The Night House: The Midnight slate at Sundance, as with most such designations at other festivals, is by nature a roll of the dice. Some nights, you’ll find something absolutely brilliant (The Babadook, The Nightmare), many other nights, something a good deal less so. David Bruckner’s ghost story isn’t close to one of those conceptual masterpieces, but does offer some serious jumpscare thrills en route to a far too explicated finish. Rebecca Hall plays Beth, a grieving widow, whose architect husband just left their modern manse overlooking a lake to shoot himself in their wooden rowboat. Obsessed with trying to find why he might have done such a thing, Beth slowly begins to unravel his dark, secret life, even as her dreams become waking nightmares of visions, blasts of music from their downstairs stereo, and seeming visitations by either her husband or another dark force from behind the veil. With a sadistic sound design that periodically shocks your system, and a beseeching performance from Hall, who carries this film from first frame to last, Bruckner’s effort dutifully serves up enough genuine creepiness to earn your attention, even if the story slowly devolves into something out of the Final Destination franchise.

Tomorrow: Utilizing a slightly more sane pace, I start the day with Dee Rees’ Shirley; check out the much lauded doc Boys State; get my ‘80s on for The Go Go’s; and finish up with Miranda July’s long-awaited next film, Kajillionaire.

Into the frigid climes and rarefied thin air of the spectacular Utah Mountains, I've arrived in order to document some of the sense and senselessness of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Over the next week, armed with little more than a heavy parka and a bevy of blank reporter's notebooks, I'll endeavor to watch as many movies as I can and report my findings.