Movies
[Sundance Review] ‘You Won’t Be Alone’ Is a Sensory Examination of Humanity Through Witchy Folk Horror
Australian-Macedonian writer/director Goran Stolevski weaves a complex emotional tapestry of humanity in his period folk tale that wields horror as a vehicle. You Won’t Be Alone reframes life and its stages through the lens of a witch, creating a sensory experience that’s artful, languid meditation with a helping of blood and entrails.
In an isolated Macedonian mountain village in the 19th century, a woman goes about her daily chores until she discovers an old witch (Annamaria Marinca) standing over her baby. After pleading and a blood exchange, a bargain is struck, though the woman soon after attempts to hide the baby until she’s sixteen. The witch eventually returns to claim the sheltered teen Nevena (Sara Klimoska), transforming then abandoning her. The feral girl soon finds herself borrowing the skins of others, assuming their lives, and observing human behavior.
Almost like a series of vignettes that skip through some of life’s most important milestones, You Won’t Be Alone is a heady mood piece that can get a bit unwieldy in its most prolonged, quietest stretches. And there are many. Stolevski favors aesthetics over dialogue and a conventional narrative. Nevena grew up in a cave before being tossed old coldly into the world like a newborn. Her savage curiosity leads to harsh and primal lessons on life and death, as well as the cruel, superstitious world that created an ancient witch shaped in the first place.
Actors Noomi Rapace, Alice Englert, and Carloto Cotta stand out as borrowed skins for the young witch to observe humanity firsthand. They provide emotion and introspection, a contrast to Nevena’s blank slate. They offer near silent contemplations on the tangible world around them. Nevena’s curiosity is insatiable; she explores childhood, sexuality, all genders, and ages. It’s often without purpose; Nevena’s explorations are impulsive and aimless.
Stolevski successfully creates a stunning mood piece that makes its profound emotions felt and the world tactile and textured. He captures the beauty without shying away from the harsh and ugly. It’s an impressive debut with a firm grasp on visuals and tone, but it’s also glacial in pacing and without easy footholds into Nevena’s journey.
You Won’t Be Alone makes for a strange, almost otherworldly folk tale. There’s no real narrative to anchor audiences; it’s a listless drift through lives and moments. Its enchanting spell ebbs and flows, depending on the skin Nevena claws for herself, sometimes by complete accident. All of it makes for a poignant and immersive sensory experience, but one that’s incohesive and unhurried. Stolevski doesn’t quite stick the landing of his circle of life metaphor, but there’s enough artistic merit and splendor to impress those with more avant-garde and adventurous tastes.
You Won’t Be Alone releases in theaters on April 1, 2022.
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At the Abigail premiere, Dan Stevens listed Norway among his four favorite vampire movies. “I just saw a great movie recently that I’d never heard of,” he told Letterboxd. “A Greek film called Norway, about a vampire who basically exists in the underground disco scene in ’80s Athens, and he can’t stop dancing ’cause he’s worried his heart will stop. And it’s lovely. It’s great.”
You won’t find a better endorsement than that, but allow me to elaborate. Imagine Only Lovers Left Alive meets What We Do in the Shadows by way of Yorgos Lanthimos. The quirky 2014 effort follows a vampire vagabond (Vangelis Mourikis) navigating Greek’s sordid nightlife circa 1984 as he dances to stay alive. Not as campy as it sounds, its idiosyncrasies land more in the art-house realm. Stylized visuals, colorful bloodshed, pulsating dance music, and an absurd third-act reveal help the existentialism go down in a mere 74 minutes.
With the recent solar eclipse renewing public interest in the astrological event, Bloody Birthday is ripe for rediscovery. Three children born during an eclipse – Curtis Taylor (Billy Jayne, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose), Debbie Brody (Elizabeth Hoy), and Steven Seton (Andrew Freeman) – begin committing murders on their 10th birthday. Brother and sister duo Joyce (Lori Lethin, Return to Horror High) and Timmy Russell (K.C. Martel, The Amityville Horror) are the only ones privy to their heinous acts.
Bloody Birthday opened in 1981 mere weeks before the release of another attempt to claim the birthday slot on the slasher calendar, Happy Birthday to Me. Director Ed Hunt (The Brain) combines creepy kid tropes that date back to The Bad Seed with slasher conventions recently established by Halloween and Friday the 13th – with a little bit of the former’s suspense and plenty of the latter’s gratuity. The unconventional set up helps it to stand out among a subgenre plagued by banality.
Starting in the late ’70s and throughout the ’80s, Italy built an enterprise out of shameless rip-offs of hit American movies. While not a blatant mockbuster like Cruel Jaws or Beyond the Door, 1989’s Alien from the Abyss (also known as Alien from the Deep) was inspired by – as you may have guessed from its title – Alien, Aliens, and The Abyss.
After a pair of Greenpeace activists attempt to expose an evil corporation that’s dumping contaminated waste into an active volcano, the environment takes a backseat to survival when an extraterrestrial monster attacks. Character actor Charles Napier (The Silence of the Lambs) co-stars as a callous colonel overseeing the illicit activities.
Director Antonio Margheriti (Yor: The Hunter from the Future, Cannibal Apocalypse) and writer Tito Carpi (Tentacles, Last Cannibal World) take far too long to get to the alien, but once it shows up, it’s non-stop excitement. The creature is largely represented by a Gigeresque pincer claw that reaches into the frame, giving the picture a ’50s creature feature charm, but nothing can prepare you for its full reveal in the finale.
Set against the backdrop of displaced Syrian and Palestinian refugees, What Is Buried Must Remain is a timely found footage hybrid from Lebanon. It centers on a trio of young filmmakers as they make a documentary in a decrepit mansion alleged to be haunted on the outskirts of a refugee camp. Inside, they find the spirits of those who died there, both benevolent and malicious.
It plays like Blair Witch meets The Shining through a cultural lens not often seen in the genre. The first half is presented as found footage (with above-average cinematography) before abruptly weaving in more traditional film coverage. While the tropes are familiar, the film possesses a unique ethos by addressing the Middle East’s plights of the past and the present alike.
Cathy’s Curse is, to borrow a phrase from its titular creepy kid, an “extra rare piece of shit.” The Exorcist, The Omen, and Carrie spawned countless low-budget knock-offs, but none are as uniquely inept as this 1977 Canuxploitation outing. Falling squarely in the so-bad-it’s-good camp, it’s far more entertaining than The Exorcist: Believer.
To try to make sense of the plot would be futile, but in a nutshell, a young girl named Candy (Randi Allen, in her only acting role) becomes possessed by the vengeful, foul-mouthed spirit of her aunt, destroying the lives of anyone who crosses her path. What ensues is a madcap mélange of possession, telekinesis, teleportation, animal attacks, abandoned plot points, and unhinged filmmaking that must be seen to be believed.
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