Stoker (2013)

Last time I was complaining that the movie fails as horror, the supposed-to-be genre. Well, the wheel turned (sort of speaking) and this time I stumbled into a much more darker thriller than I was expecting. Actually, sufficiently uneasy that half an hour ago I seriously considered to find another movie as topic, because I didn't have the mood to write about "Stoker". Unfortunately the memory doesn't help me to find something else about which to have something to say now, so ...

Very briefly, the plot starts with the death of Richard Stoker in a hard to explain accident (carbonized in his own car), event that is followed by the unexpected appearance at the funeral of Charlie Stoker, the brother who no one saw before. A guy who decides to remain for a while in the house of the deceased, keeping company to his widow - a woman seeming often under the effect of a Xanax and vodka combination, along her daughter India - a mix between a far relative of the Addams family, Stephen King's Carrie and the living sister from "A Tale of Two Sisters"/"The Uninvited" (as light spoiler for who has seen one of the two versions, this movie might generate relatively close interpretations). Further, in the first half we have slow run, in a very "hitchcockian" style, targeting mostly the build-up of a malefic aura surrounding the freshly arrived uncle (who some say he was in Europe before and some others in Asia, but nobody knows what he was doing there). In the second half of the movie you get a sort of "mystery solving", and I'll resume just on saying that the transition to this part is done quite abruptly and .. how to put it .. pretty sick, even for my level of tolerance.

For who has seen something directed by Park Chan-wook ("Thirst", "Oldboy", "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance", "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance") it shouldn't be a surprise that this is not an easily digestible production. The movies get sometimes to the darkest corners of the human behavior. All in all the impact and the story "solution" which is quite tangled sometimes, puts the productions somewhere at the top of the Asian cinema of the last 15 years ("Oldboy" got an award at Cannes too). "Stoker" is his first movie in the States, and I also think the the first of the mentioned where he didn't write the script. The result is that despite of the above, what we have here proves to be the lightest Park production. Objectively speaking ...

Subjectively I prefer not to comment too much, and limit myself to a personal opinion that every human being on this planet has a degree of insanity, many times latent, about whose level and development degree potential unfortunately not everybody is aware, and capable to hold it, at least in regard to the ones around. And when it "escapes" it becomes quite hard to control ... But it's just a personal opinion, and we're not on a philosophy blog ;) Unfortunately the movie left me with a pretty bad state, bad enough to influence my rating sufficiently to have no idea idea how I would give if I would be objective. I'm sorry but I'll spoil a bit too much. The movie doesn't have a happy-end (don't worry, I didn't say everything). Stuff that normally doesn't bother me, but here I would have liked a positive ending (although more unrealistic). I didn't like it but this doesn't really matter .. (I gave it a 5 on IMDb and I'll leave it like this).

To end though in a recommendation note, I have to give a major plus as artistic product which is absolutely memorable. Everything, cinematography, score, sound effects, acting are so well done in respect to hold on with the subject that I think they reach the level of the best moments of mystery construction in Hitchcock's movies and of the tension build-up in David Lynch's productions. If I would do a atmospheric characterization the result is somewhere between "Psycho" and "Mulholland Drive". Even so, concerning my private opinion ...

Rating: 3 out of 5