Polish genre film is certainly having one hell of a year. From the archetypically murderous mermaid musical THE LURE to the true-crime character study I, OLGA HEPNAROVÁ to the widely released dybbuk drama DEMON, there have been plenty of choices for horror fans to sample from Poland. Add to those Bartosz M. Kowalski’s PLAYGROUND.
A few years back, a marvelously atmospheric horror short called FOXES played the festival circuit, showcasing a pair of burgeoning talents in Irish director Lorcan Finnegan and writer Garret Shanley. That promise pays off in the duo’s feature debut, WITHOUT NAME, which made its U.S. premiere and took four awards (including Best Feature and Best Director) over the weekend at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.
A scary and imaginative take on seeing dead people.
It’s like Korea’s WORLD WAR Z, and it knocks the American one on its ass.
If you see only one horror/fantasy/romance/musical/mermaid movie this year… But seriously, the achievement of THE LURE is that it manages to meld all those disparate genres together into a movie in which they coexist naturally—where upbeat musical numbers alternate with graphic gore, and it doesn’t seem jarring.
