The Case for Quenching

The Judgements are going to come thick and fast, now that I am in full Film Festival flight.

Last night’s taste of international film was a Korean meal, with the meat done very rare indeed. The idea of going to see a horror film is not usually the first thing that pops into my head, but I was lured by the welcoming invite of friends, so a bit warily, I headed around keen to experience something new. But in the end, we were all a bit surprised by what we saw.

Thirst is a vampire flick with a difference, in that it takes ages to get anywhere, and there is actually a very small body count. Instead of brutal slayings and dismemberment, most of the film is actually spent showing missionary scenes not seen since The Thorn Birds. Actually, even then, I think that there was a lot less suckling of toes and licking of armpits.

It was all very… bizarre, and instead of being a quivering yellow chicken, I ended up watching almost entirely the whole thing. I ended up looking at the actors and wondering how completely unerotic it actually was. The lead characters were almost completely charmless – it is rare that murdering psychotics get my empathy – their coupling scenes looked painful more than passionate, and I got completely bamboozled as things progressed, uncertain who was alive, who was dead, and who was undead.

However, if one ignores the plot, the film itself is absolutely stunning, with amazing visual effects and an incredibly beautiful and amusing ending. Its not quite enough to make up for the two and half hours I sat sitting there, marginally uncomfortable by the direction given to the actors at certain times, but then a lot of people caught the “spontaneous applause” bug that tends to afflict festival goers, especially at the Embassy cinema, so I suppose my own opinion was probably in the minority.

Verdict: Thirst was not really a horror, not really erotic, not really a thriller, and only occasionally funny. More often than not, it was just a bit disturbing. But it was definitely a beautiful sight to behold – though I would rather it not have taken so long in the beholding. 10 pints of blood out of 20.



Oh, and let me just plug the blog of MovieSvend, which covers far more of the festival films that I ever would, and very well as well, I might add.