Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3025, 19–23 Nov 2025

 

Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3025, 19-23 Nov 2025 poster. Central figure from: Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani: Reflet dans un diamant mort / Reflection in a Dead Diamond (BE/LU/IT/FR 2025) with Manon Beuchot as Serpentik. Flanked by Stephen King figures from cat and dog films directed by Lewis Teague: Cat's Eye (US/NL 1985) and Cujo (US 1983).

OFFICIAL PRESENTATION: NIGHT VISIONS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Night Visions International Film Festival is the biggest and the oldest festival in Finland to focus on fantasy, horror, science fiction and action cinema. In addition to fictional features, every festival lineup includes a selection of edgy documentaries and short films. With its two annual editions, Night Visions International Film Festival is also the biggest genre film festival in Scandinavia.

FACTS AND FIGURES

Founded in 1997

Total number of features in the lineup each year: 75-80

Total number of admissions per year: over 14 000

International focus in the lineup: in 2018 the Night Visions selection featured works from 29 different countries on 5 continents

Winner of The Cultural Achievement of the Year Award from the City of Helsinki in January 2013

THE 2025 LINEUP:

Alley Cat / Victor Ordoñez, Al Valletta, Edward Victor

Bone Lake / Mercedes Bryce Morgan

Bulk / Ben Wheatley

Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt / Tom Stern

Cat’s Eye / Lewis Teague

Cujo / Lewis Teague

Cult of Euphoria 2025 Short Films / Various directors

Flush / Grégory Morin

Good Boy / Ben Leonberg

Holofiction / Michal Kosakowski

How Dark My Love / Scott Gracheff

Il Capitano – Nuori kapinallinen / Jan Troell

Incomplete Chairs / Kenichi Ugana

Influencers / Kurtis David Harder

Junk World / Takahide Hori

Karmadonna / Aleksandar Radivojevic

Keep Quiet / Vincent Grashaw

Kill List 4k / Ben Wheatley

Kim Novak’s Vertigo / Alexandre O. Philippe

Love Is the Monster / Alex Noyer

Luc Besson’s Dracula / Luc Besson

Mag Mag / Yuriyan Retriever

Mermaid / Tyler Cornack

Navy SEALS / Lewis Teague

The Jewel of the Nile / Lewis Teague

Our Hero, Balthazar / Oscar Boyson

Pater Noster and the Mission of Light / Christopher Bickel

Primate / Johannes Roberts

Quiet Cool / Clay Borris

Redux Redux / Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus

Reflet dans un diamant mort / Reflection in a Dead Diamond / Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani

Roofman / Derek Cianfrance

The Stabilizer / Arizal

The Surfer / Lorcan Finnegan

La Tour de glace / The Ice Tower / Lucile Hadzihalilovic

The Turkish Coffee Table / Can Evrenol

Vi dör i natt / We Die Tonight / Richard Holm

La virgen de la tosquera / The Virgin of the Quarry Lake / Laura Casabé

Yndige mennesker / Adorable Humans / Anders Jon, Kasper Juhl, Michael Kunov, Michael Panduro

AA: "Elevated horror" belonged to the topics of this year's edition of Night Visions Maximum Halloween. The festival distances itself from such terminology, and the expression does not make sense to me, either. Horror film has been elevated since F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu.

Probably what is meant that non-genre cinema can be powered with a genre approach, even horror.

Horror is a Romantic genre. In 1816, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and John William Polidori launched subjects and characters that still resonate with us in Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein (US 2025) and Luc Besson's Dracula (FR 2025). Bram Stoker created Dracula in 1897 but his inspiration dated back to Polidori.

Romanticism emerged as a reaction against Classicism, which is why I avoid the term "horror classics" and prefer expressions like "landmarks", "masterpieces" or "highlights". Horror is a genre of excess.

For me, horror is a profound genre, and I subscribe to Stephen King's view that fundamentally horror is about coming to terms with death and madness – universal experiences that transcend the limitations of our understanding.

In this year's edition of Night Visions Maximum Halloween my favourites were Ben Wheatley's Kill List, one of the greatest British horror films ever, and Richard Holm's Vi dör i natt, the best Nordic horror film I have seen. Both are engrossing tales about a desperate battle of survival, and both move ahead on a tremendous current of energy.

Lewis Teague was a guest of honour, and in the programme was Cujo (US 1983), based on the horror novel by Stephen King, a tale of a mother's unfathomable love of her young son. Simple and unforgettable, with an extraordinary charge of emotion like Kill List and Vi dör i natt. It is Lewis Teague's favourite among his films and Stephen King's favourite among his film adaptations. I included it in my MMM Film Guide (1995 / 2005) of the 1000 / 1100 best films of the world.

The Stabilizer (ID 1986)

 

Arizal: The Stabilizer (ID 1986). Peter O'Brian, "the Rambo of Indonesia" as Peter Goldson The Stabilizer.

The Stabilizer kostaja

Country and year: Indonesia 1986

Producer(s): Dhamoo Punjabi, Gobind Punjabi, Raam Punjabi

Director: Arizal

Writer: Deddy Armand, John Rust

Cinematographer: Bambang Trimakno - Academy

Music: Wayne O. Holmes, Elliot Solomon

Cast: Peter O’Brian (Peter Goldson, The Stabilizer), Dana Christina (Christina Provost), Craig Gavin (Greg Rainmaker), Gillie Beanz (Sylvia Nash), Harry Capri / Harry Capry (Captain Johnny), Mark Sungkar (Victor), Yenny Farida / Yenny Faridna (Nora)

Duration: 87 min

Language: Tagalog, English

Subtitles: No subtitles

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

Closing Film event with prizes hosted by Mikko Aromaa. The prizes were given to the audience.

English version viewed at Kinopalatsi 5, Helsinki, 23 Nov 2025

According to the IMDb, this film's Indonesian name is Segi Tima Emas, but Segi Tima Emas has also been registered as a film of its own from the same year.

NV 2025: "Useimmiten terveen järjen rajoja koetteleviin audiovisuaalisiin erikoisuuksiin fokusoivalla festivaalin päätöselokuvapaikalla tarjoillaan nyt harvinaista toimintamannaa Indonesiasta.

The Stabilizer täräyttää katsojalta luulot pois jo ensi sekunneilla, kun motocross-pyörä syöksyy ikkunasta sisään. Seuraavan puolentoista tunnin aikana paukutetaan, tykitetään ja rynkytetään niin herkeämättä, että viimeisetkin unihiekan murut karisevat myös koko yön leffamaratonista nauttineiden silmäkulmista.

Pääroolin vetää Jakartan-lomamatkaltaan toimintatähdeksi rekrytoitu uusiseelantilainen, runsashiuksinen äidinkielenopettaja Peter O’Brian. Hän on erikoisagentti Peter ”The Stabilizer” Goldson, joka laskeutuu Indonesiaan piikkikenkäisen huumeparonin Graig Rainmakerin (Craig Gavin) jäljillä.

Miehen mielessä on henkilökohtainen kosto, mutta suunnitelmat mutkistuvat Huumetunnistimeksi nimetyn mystisen aparaatin ja sen keksijän kadotessa. Herrasmies kun on, Goldson ojentaa piukeaan t-paitaan verhotun auttavan kätensä hävinneen tiedemiehen taistelulajitaitoiselle tyttärelle (Dana Christina, The Warrior). Ilmassa väreilee myös aavistus romantiikkaa, lähinnä Hard Ticket to Hawaiin hienovaraisessa tyylirekisterissä.

Pyörryttävän vinhaliikkeinen ja runsaskäänteinen jäljitysoperaatio paljastaa ainakin sen, että kaakkoisaasialaisen stunt-miehen henki on ollut halpa vielä 1980-luvulla. Toimintatemput ovat Hollywood-kaliiberia, aina tuolilla selkään paiskomisista liekinheitinpyrotekniikkaan ja tietenkin takaa-ajoihin, joissa moottoriajoneuvot heittävät voltteja pitkin Indonesian maanteitä." NV 2025

NV 2025 quotation mix:

”A film which, put simply, has everything”

– Chris Purdie / Mondo Exploito

”There’s certainly never a dull moment here”

– Jim McLennan / Film Blitz

”Indonesian director Arizal gives the world a defining over-the-top action film”

– Todd Stadtman / Teleport City

”After his fiancé is brutally murdered, Peter Goldson aka The Stabilizer goes on a rampage of violent vengeance. Hot on the trail of a drug-smuggling killer, The Stabilizer (complete with his signature curly mullet and mesh muscle shirts) travels to Indonesia, where the only way to fight is to fight dirty. Watch out for the motorcycle head-butt! Don’t miss the Mr. T lookalike boss! Directed by infamous Indonesian trash-action warlock Arizal and starring Peter O’Brian, the ”Indonesian Rambo,” The Stabilizer is a non-stop sensory overload that gives Samurai Cop a run for its money.”

– American Genre Film Archive - NV 2025 quotation mix

AA: Arizal's The Stabilizer was the closing film for all and especially for those who joined the all night marathon of the Night Visions festival.

It is a furious crime, chase, revenge and action film. The story about drug-smuggling in Indonesia is merely an excuse for non stop jaw-dropping stunt action, pyrotechnics and fight choreography.

Actors are wooden, the dialogue monotonously post-synchronized into English, and psychology is missing. Performances border on puppet animation.

The female characters appear at first sight as prize women and token women. Sexual harassment and worse is a key subject. The females surprise us by growing into agency and turn out to be superb karate masters and stunt motorcyclists able to beat the badmen. Is the ample nudity a case of exploitation or liberation? Maybe a bit of both.

The film is primitive and infantile, and that is a clue to this kind of film's origins in early cinema. We have seen an approach like this since Georges Méliès and his Voyage à travers l'impossible (FR 1904). A delight in the absurd, the cinema of attractions, and mind-boggling surprises.

There is a refreshing local flavour, from the lush presence of nature to the "attractions inside the attractions": at a local carneval we meet a lizard-eating performer as well as a fakir rolling almost naked on glass shards.

High voltage energy powers the movie, climaxing in Greg Rainmaker's final escape in a helicopter. The Stabilizer jumps from his speeding motorcycle to grab the landing skids. When pushed down by Rainmaker, the Stabilizer opens machine gun fire, causing the helicopter to crash and falling himself safely into the ocean.

The most impressive feature is the fight choreography. Abandoning plausibility, it grows into a fantastic action ballet. The all-out demolition derbies on Indonesian highways look genuinely dangerous. Female heroes excel equally with males.

The visual quality is merely serviceable, perhaps from 16 mm origins, and the definition is on the soft side.

Vi dör i natt / We Die Tonight

 

Richard Holm: Vi dör i natt / We Die Tonight (SE 2025). The commando unit of a drug cartel.

Country and year: Sweden 2025

Producer(s): Christian Magdu

Director: Richard Holm

Writer: Robin Sherlock Holm, Christin Magdu

Cinematographer: Andreas Wessberg

Music: Anders Herrlin, Jennie Löfgren

Soundtrack: Gyllene Tider: "När vi två blir en" ("Jag vill känna din kropp emot min") (Per Gessle) (1980).

Cast: Amada Lindh, Christian Magdu, Kristoffer Joner, Emilia Roosmann, Clara C. Drake, Jonathan Fredriksson, Ia Langhammer, Kardo Razzazzi

Loc: butiken Nisses i Rockhammar (Västmanland) utanför Örebro.

Duration: 90 min

Language: Swedish

Subtitles: English

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 9, Helsinki, 23 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Uunituore We Die Tonight on armoton kauhutrillerivyörytys, joka tuo home invasion -teeman tavaratalomiljööseen ruotsalaisen kansankodin maaseudulla. Viimeksi lähes kymmenen miljoonan euron katastrofitrilleri Kiirunan (2023) ohjannut Richard Holm tekee elokuvia, jollaisia länsinaapurista ei ole totuttu näkemään.

Hämärtyvä ilta syrjäisessä automarketissa saa pahaenteisen käänteen, kun vakavasti haavoittunut mies rojahtaa kyljelleen kaupan lattialle. Hänen mukanaan sisään sysännyt hysteerinen nainen vaatii henkilökuntaa lukitsemaan ovet välittömästi. Kaksikolla on kuulemma kannoillaan rikollisjoukko, joka aikoo saada haluamansa.

Ollaan kaukana kaikesta, joten poliisin ja ambulanssin saapumista saadaan odotella. Myymälään telkeytyneiden työntekijöiden ja asiakkaiden neuvokkuus ja keskinäinen dynamiikka joutuvat koetukselle, kun maskimiehet piirittävät rakennuksen.

Yksi Holmin esikuvista on eittämättä John Carpenterin pienten puitteiden klassikko Hyökkäys poliisiasemalle (1976). Intensiivinen tykittely yltyy välillä niin reippaaksi ja graafiseksi, että mieleen tulee pikemminkin öisen varastohallin kauhuista ammentanut amerikkalaistylytys Hunt Her, Kill Her (NV kevät 2023).

Oivalliseen roolituksen tutuin kasvo on The Wave -katastrofispektaakkelin norjalainen pääosatähti Kristoffer Joner, joka tekee mieleenpainuvaa työtä sankarin sisältään löytävänä alkoholistina. Hallitusti rytmitetty, välillä ihokarvat aidosti pystyyn pakottava kokonaisuus on joidenkin paikalliskriitikoiden mukaan myös ”eräs kaikkien aikojen verisimmistä Ruotsissa tehdyistä elokuvista”." (NV 2025)

NV 2025 QUOTATION COCKTAIL:

”Intense, dark and unexpectedly funny — Certainly stands out in the Swedish film landscape”

– Alexander Svensson / MovieZine

”An intense, claustrophobic action thriller”

– Tommy Pedersen / Filmparadiset

”[Director] Richard Holm really knows his way when it comes to ultra violence and splatter — The highly professional effects are well-made and realistic”

– Pidde Andersson / Topraffel!

”In a quiet town, a routine day turns into a siege when store employees and customers barricade themselves to protect a wounded man fleeing a brutal gang. Francki, new to the job and secretly in love with the employee Ellie, takes the desperate step of locking the doors, sealing their fate as the gang surrounds the building. With no way out, the group faces a brutal decision: hand the wounded man over or risk everything to protect a person they barely know. As the night deepens, violence erupts, trust fractures, and morality crumbles. Everyone is forced to confront the darkest parts of themselves in order to survive.”

– Production notes – NV 2025 QUOTATION COCKTAIL

AA: Richard Holm's Vi dör i natt belongs to a noble lineage of cinema, including Rio Bravo, The Night of the Living Dead and Assault on Precinct 13. From a wider perspective, it has been said that The Iliad and The Odyssey are blueprints for much of all fiction. Vi dör i natt belongs to The Iliad legacy. It is a siege story.

Conscious of genre tradition, Richard Holm uses it as a framework for something special. The location is a supermarket, but unlike George A. Romero in his shopping mall saga Dawn of the Dead, Holm is not making a satire of consumer society. On the contrary, he paints a portrait of the supermarket as a heart of a community where most people know each other, and salesperople know the customers' preferences. Holm introduces interesting glimpses into management and control methods and the practice of confiscating the personnel's mobile phones into a safe deposit box.

A drug cartel is extending its tentacles inside the folkhemmet ("the people's home"). One of its operators is on the run, and he is the sole possessor of a fatal crypto code (the MacGuffin of the film). The criminal organization has a remarkable, well-armed and ruthless commando unit. Some plot turns remind us of the preposterous ideas of Stieg Larsson.

Vi dör i natt is an excellent action movie, but it is also psychologically complex and intriguing. Baked in is also a one-sided love affair. Francki (Christian Magdu) is a middle-aged bachelor, a nerd who has taken a job at Nisses just to be in the vicinity of Ellie (Amanda Lindh). Francki is bullied by his workmates, and Ellie finds him a bit creepy. During the course of the the saga, Francki grows into a true gallant knight and earns Ellie's respect, if nothing else.

Ellie is the one who finds Isa (Emilia Roosmann) buried underground, and on her trail Dominic (Kamjar Rezaei) finds his way to Nisses - followed by the whole masked paramilitary unit of the drug cartel (see photo above).

Vi dör i natt, like Ben Wheatley's Kill List which I saw two days ago, is a crime film that turns into a horror movie because of the extreme level of the violence.

Richard Holm channels contemporary concerns, such as the threat to the Nordic welfare society posed by international drug crime, and the geopolitical change which means that Nordic peoples must be militarily prepared like never since WWII.

Above all, Vi dör i natt impresses as pure cinema. During Kill List I was thinking that cinema must have energy above all. Likewise, Vi dör i natt has an extraordinary power charge. 

It is the best Nordic horror film that I have seen.

La virgen de la tosquera / The Virgin of the Quarry Lake (AR/ES 2025)

 

Laura Casabé: La virgen de la tosquera / The Virgin of the Quarry Lake (AR/ES 2025)

Country and year: Argentina / Spain 2025

Producer(s): Valería Bistagnino, Ángeles Hernández, Livi Herrera, Alejandro Israel, Diego Martínez Ulanosky, David Matamoros, Tomás Eloy Muñoz

Director: Laura Casabé

Writer: Benjamin Naishtat, based on a the short stories "El carrito" and "La virgen de la tosquera" in the story collection Los peligros de fumar en la cama (2021) by Mariana Enriquez - in Finnish: Mitä liekit meiltä veivät (translated by Sari Selander, WSOY 2021).

Cinematographer: Diego Tenorio

Music: Pedro Onetto

Cast: Dolores Oliverio, Isabel Bracamonte, Candela Flores, Fernanda Echevarría, Agustín Sosa, Luisa Merelas, Dady Brieva

Duration: 93 min

Language: Spanish

Subtitles: English

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 9, Helsinki, 22 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Stephen Kingin Carrie kohtaa maagisen realismin Laura Casabén ohjauksessa, joka kylpee Argentiinan kesähelteessä. Tulos on kuin eteerinen versio Julia Ducournaun tykkidebyytistä Raw. 2020-luvulla yhä suositummaksi muuttunut tapa piristää laatudraamaa genre-elementeillä resonoi laajasti: maailmanensi-iltansa The Virgin of the Quarry Lake sai Yhdysvaltain tärkeimmällä festivaalilla Sundancessä."

"Kesällä 2001 Argentiinan talous on kaaoksessa, ja arkea suunnitellaan päivä kerrallaan. Buenos Airesin laitamilla asuvalla 16-vuotiaalla Natilla (Dolores Oliviero) on muita huolia. Lapsesta asti tuttu Diego (Agustín Sosa) ei näytä ymmärtävän teinissä heränneitä ei-platonisia tunteita. Myös sydänystävät Josefina (Isabel Bracamonte) ja Mariela (Candela Flores) tarkkailevat porukan ainoaa poikaa kaihoisalla naiskatseella."

"Kun Diego tuo näytille rock-keikalla tapaamansa parikymppisen Silvian (Fernanda Echeverría), konflikti on valmis."

"Yhdysvaltalainen kasvukipukauhu kärjistyy usein yliampuvaksi väkivallaksi. Casabén käsittelytapa on toisenlainen. The Virgin of the Quarry Lake on tarkkasilmäinen kaveriporukan dynamiikan kuvaus, jota ei vesitetä irrallisilla tehokeinoilla. Päärooleihin on otettu ensikertalaisia, joiden vilpittömyyden kamera säilöö ilman lisäaineita."

"Goottikauhukirjailija Mariana Enriquezin novelleista sovitettu tarina seuraa, kun yhteiskunta ja yksityiset haaveet rapistuvat rinnakkain kiduttavassa auringonpaahteessa. Sisäisen ja ulkoisen maailman raja hämärtyy, mutta kerronta väistää kuluneet troopit ja painelee kartoittamattomalle vyöhykkeelle. Siellä odottaa arvaamattomia ja vaarallisia asioita." (NV 2025)

NV 2025 MONTAGE OF QUOTATIONS:

★★★★

”Coming-of-age meets coming-of-rage”

– Amber Wilkinson / Eye For Film

★★★★

”A more grounded, tragic version of The Craft”

– Chad Collins / Dread Central

”Mixes elements from Y Tu Mamá También and Carrie into an original, and stylishly low-key pressure cooker”

– Kurt Halfyard / Screen Anarchy

”Reimagines Mariana Enríquez’s gothic tales as a blend of folk horror, social drama and a dark exploration of adolescence”

– Martin Kudláč / Cineuropa

”Unusual, genre-fusing film: a would-be summer romance that is repeatedly shaken from its languid, lovestruck daze by stark, uncanny surges of violence.”

– Guy Lodge / Variety

★★★★

”A lot like two other festival favorites morphed into one uncomfortable, horror-adjacent package. The Virgin [of the Quarry Lake] has the oppressive and bleak rurality of Carlota Pereda’s 2022 festival favorite (and eventual Goya Award winner) Piggy alongside the subtle yet insidious sexual pressure of Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex — [It] is as harrowing as it is horrifying. —

Contextually, The Virgin of the Quarry Lake is folkloric coming of age rendered terrifying, with pin-point craftsmanship, especially from the director of photography Diego Tenorio Hernández, whose sweeping summer vistas are at once inviting yet tyrannical.”

– Chard Collins / Dread Central – NV 2025 MONTAGE OF QUOTATIONS

AA: Laura Casabé in La virgen de la tosquera, based on short stories by Mariana Enriquez, creates a languid ambience with volatile and explosive undercurrents. There is something bleak in the colour world, as if the world has lost its radiance. This is a story of four young girls on the verge of womanhood and one young man who is the object of their desire. Whatever the man, Diego, does, will hurt the others' feelings. This is a physical movie with a feeling for sport such as swimming, and the corporeal side of love.

The powerful central location is a quarry lake, famous for its crystal clear water. Development there has been discontinued because of Argentine's economic crisis. A perfect place for young people to meet. In the vicinity is a cave, a site of pagan worship. Evil spells are a running motif. The blood-red Pagan Madonna discovered in the cave seems to unleash the ultimate spell. In the finale the film redeems its promise as a gruesome splatter horror movie.

I felt lost in the finale. There is no point of connection, neither in the characters nor in the film director's sensibility. Only a void remains.

Keep Quiet (in person: Vincent Grashaw)

 

Vincent Grashaw: Keep Quiet (US 2025). The police duo: Sandra (Dana Nemerode) and Teddy (Lou Diamond Phillips). 

Vincent Grashaw in person introducing Keep Quiet at the Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3025 festival, 22 Nov 2025. Photo: Juha Liukkonen / Night Visions.

Country and year: USA 2025

Producer(s): Angelia Adzic, Vincent Grashaw, Ran Namerode, Cole Payne

Director: Vincent Grashaw

Writer: Zach Montague

Cinematographer: Brandon Waddell

Music: James Wakefield

Cast: Lou Diamond Phillips, Nick Stahl, Dana Namerode, Elisha Pratt, Irene Bedard, Lane Factor, Kimberly Guerrero

Duration: 104 min

Language: English

Subtitles: No subtitles

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

In person: Vincent Grashaw, hosted by Mikko Aromaa.

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 1, Helsinki, 22 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Mestarillisesti kouraiseva jännitysdraama Keep Quiet paiskaa katsojan keskelle Pohjois-Amerikan alkuperäiskansojen maita. Ohjaaja Vincent Grashaw’n (What Josiah Saw, 2021, Bang Bang, 2024) tunnistettava kädenjälki on hioutunut huippuunsa. Tekijä tarkastelee maailmaa yhä kiehtovan synkän prisman läpi, poikkeuksellisen tarkkanäköisesti ja nyanssirikkaasti."

"Reservaattipoliisina kaiken nähnyt Teddy (Lou Diamond Phillips) saa uudeksi työparikseen nuoren Sandran (Dana Namerode), jolle moniongelmaisen yhteisön pelisäännöt on tehtävä selväksi kädestä pitäen. Toimiviksi osoittautuneet lainvalvontakeinot eivät aina kestä päivänvaloa."

"Metodit joutuvat happotestiin, kun vankilasta vapautunut Richie (Elisha Pratt) palaa reservaattiin. Myrkyllinen kiusanhenki tuo mukanaan välittömän väkivallan uhan ja nostaa haudatut salaisuudet pintaan. Tilanne eskaloituu lohduttomaksi kilpajuoksuksi, jonka polttoaineena toimivat sukupolvet ylittävä väkivallan kierre ja eristäytyneen yhteisön halki tunkeva, vaikenemisen kulttuuria ruokkiva täydellinen näköalattomuus."

"Grashaw’n viides pitkä ohjaus on läpeensä harkittu, pakahduttava kokonaisuus, joka kohottaa miehen englanninkielisen maailman kiinnostavimpien nykyelokuvantekijöiden kärkikastiin. Hän osoittaa jälleen vahvuutensa myös henkilöohjauksessa: vaikka konkari Lou Diamond Phillips tekee Keep Quietissa elämänsä roolin, hänen rinnallaan tilaa loistaa löytyy myös Grashaw’n vakiokasvoille Dana Namerodelle ja Nick Stahlille." NV 2025

NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE:

★★★★½

”Pulls no punches — [Director Vincent] Grashaw refuses to play it safe”

– Sergio Pereira / Fortress of Solitude

”[Lou Diamond Phillips] delivers the sort of lived-in performance that garners awards”

– Frank Scheck / The Hollywood Reporter

”Maintains an entertainingly fast pace”

– Elizabeth Lim / Montage Review

”Keep Quiet is a potent and atmospheric thriller, anchored by a superb performance from Lou Diamond Phillips. Director Vincent Grashaw crafts a world of sustained dread, using the bleak landscape of the Thunderstone reservation to explore deep-seated cycles of trauma. While its procedural elements are familiar, the film’s unflinching realism and emotional authenticity make it a powerful and memorable neo-western. It is a somber, gripping examination of a community in crisis.”

– Shahrbanoo Golmohamadi / Gazettely – NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE

AA: Vincent Grashaw's Keep Quiet is a realistic police tragedy shot on location at the Thunderstone reservation in co-operation with the Cheyenne and Arapaho communities.

The protagonist, the veteran police officer, is played with authority and charisma by Lou Diamond Phillips, who enjoys the confidence of Native American peoples.

Keep Quiet is not idealized. It exposes transgenerational abuse and despair as well as stamina and willpower to overcome hardship.

This is a young policewoman's Bildungsroman. Dana Nemerode plays the part well. In the final bloodbath she is the last police survivor to confront the desperado fugitive Richie. But he meets his end by a bullet shot by his own mother.

The film has been shot in terms of a realistic time flow rather than dramatic emphasis. The visual world is dominated by shadows and darkness, not with expressionist stylization but in a quasi documentary fashion.

A touch of the sublime is introduced by the presence of a magnificent buffalo herd which evokes both the past of the Wild West which is long gone and its spirit which is eternal.

Roofman

 

Derek Cianfrance: Roofman (US 2025). Channing Tatum (Jeffrey Manchester), Kirsten Dunst (Leigh Wainscott).

Roofman – kattokeikkailija

Country and year: USA 2025

Producer(s): Lynette Howell Taylor, Duncan Montgomery, Alex Orlovsky, Jamie Patricof, Dylan Sellers

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Writer: Derek Cianfrance, Kirt Gunn

Cinematographer: Andrij Parekh

Music: Christopher Bear

Cast: Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, LaKeith Stanfield, Juno Temple, Peter Dinklage, Melonie Diaz, Uzo Aduba

Duration: 126 min

Language: English

Subtitles: Finnish, Swedish

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 1, Helsinki, 22 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Trendaavat tosirikostarinat keskittyvät harvemmin muuhun kuin kuluttajiensa tirkistelynhalun ruokkimiseen shokkitehoilla. Roofman on siksi ilahduttava poikkeus. Derek Gianfrancen sovitus Jeffrey ”Roofman” Manchesterin tositarinasta ei silti kalpene häkellyttävyydessään verrokkiensa lähdemateriaalille. Pikemminkin päin vastoin.

Saatuaan armeijasta kenkää Manchester alkoi elättää perhettään murtautumalla McDonald’seihin. Liikanimi juontaa metodista: hän hankkiutui ravintoloihin pimeän turvin katon kautta ja ryösti rahat kassasta, kun henkilökunta tuli töihin.

Väistämätön vankilatuomio katkesi pakoon, joka huipentui Manchesterin salamajoittumiseen Toys ’R’ Us -lelukauppaan kymmenen kuukauden ajaksi. Elämän helppous hyllyjen välissä yllätti miehen itsensäkin niin, että hän uskaltautui suhteeseen yksinhuoltajaäiti Leigh Weinscottin kanssa.

Melankoliaan taipuvainen ohjaaja-käsikirjoittaja Gianfrance (Blue Valentine, 2010, The Place Beyond the Pines, 2012) ei tee nytkään kreisikomediaa vaan piirtää kummallisesta päähenkilöstään monitahoisen, osin myös traagisen kuvan. Channing Tatum omaksuu pääosan nyanssit täydellisesti ja pelaa saumattomasti yhteen uutta mielitiettyään esittävän Kirsten Dunstin kanssa. Peter Dinklage tekee riemastuttavan sivuosan despoottina lelukauppapomona." (NV 2025)

NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE:

★★★★★

”Channing Tatum is Oscar-worthy”

– Tim Robey / The Telegraph

★★★★

”Has hidden depths”

– Kevin Maher / The Sunday Times

★★★★

”Isn’t quite the film it seems to be, even if it embraces the lighter touches of oddball, American true crime”

– Clarisse Loughrey / The Independent

”Just give in to it.”

– David Rooney / The Hollywood Reporter

”Director Derek Cianfrance brings a cool ’70s-movie vibe to the all-but-unbelievable true-crime story from the early 2000s”

– Peter Debruge / Variety

★★★★

”Stranger than fiction. That’s the phrase that springs to mind when thinking of the true story behind Derek Cianfrance’s Roofman — that of army veteran Jeffrey Manchester (played by Channing Tatum), who committed a spree of robberies through the late ’90s and early ’00s by hacking into the roofs of over 40 McDonald’s restaurants, went to prison, escaped by stowing under a truck, and hid in a North Carolina Toys R Us store for months. An unbelievable crime caper with a compelling central character, it provides fertile ground for a gritty but heartfelt big-screen adventure.”

– Sophie Butcher / Empire Magazine (NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE)

AA: Like Ben Wheatley's Kill List, which we saw yesterday, Roofman is the story of an army veteran's troubled return to civilian life. Both tales are about male dysfunction. In the new world, women may be better off without men, at least without nervous wrecks like these. In Kill List, the male protagonist turns into an assassin for hire. The Roofman is a robber genius who avoids violence and treats everybody with humanity.

Channing Tatum excels as the criminal with a heart of gold. Kirsten Dunst is molto simpatico as the  struggling single mother Leigh Weinscott.

This wonderful movie may become a perennial hit. There are so many great scenes that I look forward to revisiting Roofman.

Love Is the Monster (European premiere) in person: Alex Noyer, Anne-Julie Proulx, Milla Puolakanaho, Kristina Tonteri-Young and Tatu Sinisalo

Alex Noyer: Love Is the Monster (CA/FI/US 2025).

Alex Noyer: Love Is the Monster (CA/FI/US 2025).

Alex Noyer in person at the European premiere of Love Is the Monster, Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3025, Kinopalatsi, Helsinki, 18 Nov 2025. Photo: Juho Liukkonen / Night Visions.

Tatu Sinisalo (Petri), Anne-Julie Proulx (Delphine), Milla Puolakanaho (Tiina), Kristina Tonteri-Young (Blake) and Alex Noyer in person at the European premiere of Love Is the Monster, Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3025, Kinopalatsi, Helsinki, 18 Nov 2025. Photo: Juho Liukkonen / Night Visions.

Country and year: Canada / Finland / USA 2025

Producer(s): Hannu Aukia, Laurence Gendron, Alex Noyer

Director: Alex Noyer

Writer: Hannu Aukia, Blair Bathory, Alex Noyer

Cinematographer: Russ De Jong

Music: Andrew Scott Bell, Veikki Virkajärvi

Cast: Madeline Zima, Leonardo Nam, Moe Jeudy-Lamour, Kimberly-Sue Murray, Kristiina Tonteri-Young, Sheila McCarthy, Milla Puolakanaho, Tatu Sinisalo

Duration: 87 min

Language: English

Subtitles: Partly English

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

In person: Alex Noyer, Anne-Julie Proulx (Delphine), Kristina Tonteri-Young (Blake), Milla Puolakanaho (Tiina) and Tatu Sinisalo (Petri), hosted by Mikko Aromaa.

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 1, Helsinki, 21 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Love is the Monster ottaa työstettäväkseen Ari Asterin Midsommarista väkisinkin muistuttavan aihion ja tuo sen kautta suomalaisen kansanperinnetaruston nykykauhun kehykseen. Folk horror -trooppien rinnalle sovitetaan seksuaalisia jännitteitä, jotka istuvat luontevasti eräänlaisen nykyhippikommuunin kuvaukseen.

Keskiössä ovat amerikkalaiset Ana (Madeline Zima, Californication, vuoden 2017 Twin Peaks) ja Justin (Leonardo Nam, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Swamp Thing), jotka saapuvat Suomeen etsimään ihmelääkettä tulehtuneisiin väleihinsä. Sen on määrä löytyä modernin shamaanin Tiinan (Milla Puolakanaho) vetämästä retriitistä, joka on houkutellut pariskuntia eri puolilta maailmaa järvenrantahuvilalle keskiyön aurinkoon. New age -henkistä suhdeterapiaa innoittaa muinaiskansan rakkauden ja hedelmällisyyden jumala Lempo, mikä suorastaan kannustaa osallistujia eroottisen latauksen tutkiskeluun.

Kun henkilökemiat aiheuttavat säröä ja osallistuja toisensa jälkeen alkaa kyseenalaistaa Tiinan metodeja, idylli muuttuu pikku hiljaa painajaiseksi. Autiolla järvenrannalla amerikkalainenkin ymmärtää, että suomalaisessa korvessa kukaan ei kuule huutoasi.

Alex Noyerin kauhufiktiodebyytin Sound of Violencen (NV syksy 2021) tavoin Love is the Monsterin työryhmässä on vahvaa suomalaisväriä myös ohjaajan itsensä lisäksi. Puolakanahon lisäksi oleellisissa rooleissa nähdään Kristiina Tonteri-Young (Netflixin Warrior Nun) ja Tatu Sinisalo. Käsikirjoituksesta ja tuotannosta osavastuun kantaa Sound of Violencen tavoin Hannu Aukia, musiikkia on säveltänyt Veikki Virkajärvi ja äänisuunnittelua johtanut Jussi Tegelman."

"Ana (Madeline Zima, Californication, 2017s Twin Peaks) and Justin (Leonardo Nam, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Swamp Thing), a couple who have been rocked by infidelity, attend an exclusive couples retreat in Finland under the golden rays of the summer’s midnight sun. They join other couples from other parts of the world to experience the transformative teachings of shaman and healer Tiina (Milla Puolakanaho), inspired by Lempo, the ancient goddess of love and fertility from Finnish mythology. But the idyllic setting soon takes a turn.

Alex Noyer returns to Night Visions with his second fictional feature, fresh off its world premiere at Screamfest in Los Angeles. Just like in his feature debut Sound of Violence (which featured Scream and Yellowjackets star Jasmin Savoy Brown In her first feature film lead), there’s substantial amount of Finnish talent involved here in addition to Noyer himself. Hannu Aukia has credits as one of the writers, as one of the producers and as the post production supervisor, Veikki Virkajärvi has been involved in composing the score, and Jussi Tegelman supervising the sound design. Finnish acting talent of Puolakanaho, Kristiina Tonteri-Young (Netflix’s Warrior Nun) and Tatu Sinisalo provides the icing on the cake." (NV 2025)

AA: Alex Noyer's Love Is the Monster suffers from being shown after Ben Wheatley's Kill List. Both films channel folk horror. I was impressed by the tremendous cinematic energy in Wheatley's movie. He taps deep undercurrents in dream imagery. Unfortunately, energy and a dream-like quality are missing in Love Is the Monster.

I had great expectations, because Love Is the Monster draws from ancient Finnish mythology. Lempo is an ambivalent being: originally perhaps an incarnation of love ("lempi" is still a synonym for love), later a demon ("lempo" is still a curse). Love, an irrational, uncontrollable force, could lead to madness and perdition. On the other hand, "lemmennostatussanat" ("love arousal spells") were in demand for fertility. Ancient magic rituals for love arousal are still in use, now in a playful mode.

In the commercial Lempo business, ancient spells are mixed with New Age mumbo-jumbo. In Noyer's vision, Lempo leads to a liberation of desires - and from clothes (in the sauna of course) - to sexual abandon - and then horror. In reality, Nordic midsummer is a gentle and benevolent celebration of relaxation, love, family and companionship. Noyer's turn to horror feels ridiculous.

There are scenes of greatness. I was impressed by the shaman Tiina's underwater resurrection and the battle of cosmic wills between her and Anna. The electricity bears comparison with the confrontations of Dracula and Van Helsing.

Kill List (2025 restoration in 4K) in person: Ben Wheatley, Andy Starke

Ben Wheatley: Kill List (GB/DE/SE/AU 2011). Neil Maskell (Jay).

Ben Wheatley: Kill List (GB/DE/SE/AU 2011). Neil Maskell (Jay).

Ben Wheatley and Andy Starke at Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3025, 20 Nov 2025, Kinopalatsi, Helsinki. Photo: Juho Liukkonen.

Country and year: UK / Germany / Sweden / Australia 2011

Producer(s): Claire Jones, Andy Starke

Director: Ben Wheatley

Writer: Amy Jump, Ben Wheatley

Cinematographer: Laurie Rose

Music: Jim Williams

Cast: Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley, MyAnna Buring, Emma Fryer, Harry Simpson, Stuart Rodger, Ben Crompton

Duration: 94 min

Language: English

Subtitles: English

Format: 4k DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

In person: Ben Wheatley, Andy Starke, hosted by Matti Rämö.

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 1, Helsinki, 21 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Nyt ensi kertaa Suomessa tuliteränä 4k-restaurointina nähtävä Kill List on brittimestari Ben Wheatleyn kansainvälinen läpimurto ja käyntikortti, joka lopulta raotti visionäärille ovia myös Hollywoodissa. Se on mykistävän kekseliäs lajityyppien risteytys, joka asemoituu viime vuosikymmenen uskaliaimpien ja omintakeisimpien euroelokuvien kapeaan kärkijoukkoon."

"Entinen sotilas Jay (Neil Maskell) listii työtoverinsa Galin (Michael Smiley) kanssa epäilyttäviä henkilöitä rahaa vastaan. Tuoreimmalle listalle on päätynyt tunteita herättävä hahmokaarti, kuten pedofiliasta epäilty pappi ja epäilyttäviin kuvioihin sotkeutunut kirjastonhoitaja. Keikka etenee kaikkea muuta kuin hallitusti."

"Ohjaaja-käsikirjoittaja Wheatleyn otteet osoittavat tyylikirjon täydellisen hallinnan. Verkkainen alku harhauttaa mielikuvalla askeettisesta kitchen sink -draamasta. Pian tiskirättikuvista sukelletaan sulavasti makaaberiin, koomiseen ja lopulta okkulttiin, pikimustan sielunmaiseman syövereihin. Samalla kumarretaan syvään brittikauhun suurimpien klassikoiden suuntaan."

"Kunkin aikakauden genre-elokuvien parhaimmiston tavoin Kill List ammentaa yhteiskunnallisen liikehdinnän orastavista siemenistä. Eskalaattoreina toimivat hoitamattomat väkivallan traumat, tyytymättömyys rakenteisiin ja esikaupunkielämän näköalattomuus."

"Notkean tavan yhdistää psykologista ja fyysistä kauhua voi nähdä myös edelläkävijyytenä. Vasta vuosia Kill Listin jälkeen virinneessä, taide-elokuvayleisöltä hyväksyntää hakevassa elevated horror -lajityypissä tavoitellaan yhä usein puolivillaisesti juuri sitä, missä Kill List osui napakymppiin jo lähes 15 vuotta sitten." NV 2025

NV 2025 COCKTAIL OF QUOTATIONS:

★★★★★

”A gut-wrenching chiller”

– -Jamie Graham, Total Film 21.7.2011

★★★★

”Dark, funny, disturbing”

– Kim Newman / Empire Magazine 28.7.2011

★★★★

”As far as British horror goes right now, Kill List is pretty much top of the range.”

– Peter Bradshaw / The Guardian 1.9.2011

”Brings a fresh mystery and bite to the hitman genre”

– John DeFore / The Hollywood Reporter 18.3.2011

”An effectively twisted piece of work”

– Andrew Barker / Variety 15.3.2011

”Jay (Neil Maskell), a freelance assassin running short of funds, is nagged by his wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) into taking on a new client. Jay and his partner Gal (Michael Smiley) accept a ’kill list’ of three successive targets. As Jay and Gal execute the commissions, it becomes apparent that the list is longer than it seems. —

As things proceed, the film gets deeper into the bizarre, as if Get Carter were successively rewritten by Harold Pinter and Dennis Wheatley. —

[Director Ben] Wheatley has a very British version of David Lynch’s knack for that disturbing twilight area which exists between the crime movie and the horror film.”

– Kim Newman / Empire Magazine 28.7.2011 - NV 2025 COCKTAIL OF QUOTATIONS

AA: Ben Wheatley's Kill List starts as a gangster movie and turns into a horror film.

Kill List is not a diverting genre pastiche. It channels authentic issues, a history of violence, especially in the figure of Jay (Neil Maskell). Jay is struggling with a post-traumatic stress disorder from a failed mission in Kiev.

Jay, his wife Shel, and partner Gal plus his girlfriend Fiona are freelancing operators in a murder syndicate. Jay and Gal are contract killers, and Shel and Fiona background figures.

Because of his trauma, Jay has become unable to function, and he is needled for this by Shel. During a family dinner, in which Gal and Fiona are guests, Jay's frustration reaches a boiling point. He goes berserk in a scene of marital explosion. His fits of rage are fearsome, and he loses self-control in senseless violence.

Jay and Gal's current appointment consists of a "kill list" of three murders which lead to increasing darkness. The first target, The Priest, takes us to paedophilia. The second one, The Librarian, introduces us to snuff videos, which horrify Jay so that he murders the entire production team in a bloodbath. The experience is too much for Jay & Gal, and they want to be released from the contract which was signed in blood. It is too late. There is no way out. They have to fulfill the third chapter, The MP. On the grounds of a Member of Parliament, occult rites with human sacrifices take place, and after the hit, Jay and Gal will be next.

The finale leads us to conspiracy territory, which Wheatley in his Q&A revealed to have been inspired by The Parallax View. He also told that "folk horror" was not generally discussed at the time the film was made. But clearly the occult rites in the last episodes evoke The Wicker Man. Wheatley told that the awareness of older religious worship still conducted in the woods has fascinated him since childhood.

The topic of "elevated horror" was evoked. I don't know what that is. The horror genre has been elevated since F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu.

But I know that Kill List is true cinema. It is full of energy. There is a power drive. It is not based on surface attractions. There are no sympathetic figures. But there is a profound psychological undercurrent and a genuine sense of the dream mode.

...

SYNOPSIS FROM WIKIPEDIA

Plot

Jay and Gal are two former British soldiers turned hitmen. While Gal is laid-back, Jay is still reeling from a disastrous mission in Kyiv. Despite his wife Shel's urgings, Jay has not obtained full employment, to the point where they are financially broke.

Shel organizes a dinner party, which was joined by Gal and his girlfriend Fiona, a human resources manager. During the party, Gal reveals he has a new job for them, which Jay eventually accepts. Meanwhile, Fiona goes to the toilet, carves a symbol on the back of the bathroom mirror, and collects a tissue with Jay's blood. Jay and Gal meet the client, who has a list of three people he wants killed. The employer unexpectedly cuts Jay's hand and his own, so that the contract is effectively signed in blood.

Their first target, captioned as "The Priest", recognizes Jay and thanks him just before being killed. The second name on the list, "The Librarian", is an archivist who keeps a collection of horrific, sickening videos of an undisclosed nature. Jay is deeply disturbed by the videos and breaks down in tears. As the duo enter the archivist's home, an enraged Jay beats him senseless and tortures him into identifying the videos' creators. As Gal goes to raid the safe, the archivist thanks Jay, who proceeds to savagely beat him to death with a hammer. In the archivist's files, Gal finds a folder on himself and Jay, including details of their Kyiv mission. Although they do not recognize it, the files include the symbol that Fiona carved in Jay's mirror.

Jay insists they kill the archivist's associates. Gal drives them to the location of the creators of the videos, where Jay brutally murders all of them. Gal informs Jay that, from the archivist's safe, he took enough money to cover the contract money. The pair decide to abandon the contract and return home. When his cut hand becomes infected, Jay visits his regular doctor, only to find he has been replaced by another man who will only give him cryptic advice.

Jay and Gal return to their client and offer to find replacements for the last hit. The client refuses and says that both hitmen and their families will be killed if they do not complete the contract. Shel takes their son Sam to the family's cottage for safekeeping while Jay and Gal go back to work.

Their final mark, "The MP", is a Member of Parliament who lives in a mansion. While observing the house, the pair witness a strange ceremony in the woods that culminates in human sacrifice. Jay opens fire with an assault rifle, and the leader of the ceremony presents himself for Jay to execute. He kills the leader and several cultists before the remaining masked members chase the hitmen into an underground complex. They capture and disembowel Gal, forcing Jay to perform a mercy killing on him. Emerging from the tunnels, Jay flees to the family cottage and meets with Shel. When he goes outside, he finds their car tyres have been slashed and lit torches have been placed around the nearby field. Jay attempts to locate their attackers, but he is knocked unconscious. Inside the cottage, Shel arms herself and shoots several invaders.

Jay awakens in the field surrounded by the cultists, who strip him and place a mask over his face. He is confronted by his last victim, "The Hunchback", a masked and cloaked person armed with a knife. After a brutal knife fight, Jay triumphs, only to discover that the Hunchback was his wife with Sam strapped to her back. Shel laughs as they both die. The cultists applaud and remove their masks, revealing Fiona, the client, and the man from the doctor's office amongst their numbers. Jay is then crowned by the cultists.

Junk World

Takahide Hori: Junk World (JP 2025)

Country and year: Japan 2025

Producer(s): Aniplex

Director and writer: Takahide Hori

Cinematographer: Takahide Hori

Music: Takahide Hori

Cast: Atsuko Miyake, Takahide Hori, Matsuoka Kusaku, Sugiyama Yuji, Idota Ikuya, Nakagawa Raki

Duration: 104 min

Language: Japanese

Subtitles: English

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 2, Helsinki, 21 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Scifi-teemaisen stop motion -animaation klassikkoluokkaan oitis kohonnut Phil Tippettin Night Visions -suosikki Mad God (2021) saa nyt todella kovan luokan haastajan Japanista. Junk World tosin huokuu Mad Godin synkkyyden sijaan hieman Linnunradan käsikirja liftareille -tyyppistä huumoria. Se myös yltyy ajoittain niin absurdiksi ja törkeäksi, että ääripäitä koetellaan jopa japanilaisella WTF-skaalalla.

Tulevaisuuden maailmassa ihmiset ja synteettiset mulliganit toimivat yhteistyössä. Harmonia särkyy, kun ihmislihan makuun päässyt Gyuran-lahko ei ole enää kiinnostunut 280-vuotisen rauhansopimuksen noudattamisesta.

Arpinen naiskomentaja Tris tekee pakkolaskun kulttilaisten hallinnoimalle alueelle. Armoton selviytymistaistelu käydään joutomailla, joita kansoittavat toinen toistaan oudommat eliöt. Hyökkäyksiä satelee joka suunnasta, välillä jopa tulevaisuudesta.

Huvipuistojen sisustussuunnittelija ja itseoppinut animaattori Takahide Hori teki vaikutuksen jo esikoispitkällään Junk Headillä (2017), joka käväisi valkokankailla myös Suomessa. Junk World sijoittuu samaan maailmaan tuhat vuotta aiemmin, mutta toimii täysin itsenäisenä elokuvana.

Yksityiskohtaisten nukkejen animointi vaikuttavissa miniatyyrilavasteissa on toteutettu upeasti käsityönä muutaman valmiin sekunnin päivävauhdilla. Lopputulos ei ole vain ällistyttävä työvoitto kuuden animaattorin tiimiltä, jotka vieläpä näyttelevät kaikki elokuvan ääniroolit. Se on myös vinkeiden kyber/-biopunk-scifi-ideoiden lähes pohjattomalta tuntuva, jatkuvasti ilahduttava aarreaitta." NV 2025

NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE:

★★★★

”A blast from start to finish”

– Kyle Flynn / From the Fourth Row!

”Constantly delivers strange, disturbing, twistedly funny sights you’ve never seen before”

– Reuben Baron / Endless Mode

”By all accounts, one of the most insane films I’ve ever seen”

– Zachary Lee / RogerEbert.com

”Should excite any cinephile”

– Alex Papaioannou / InSession Film

”Stalk-like creatures wriggling out of walls. Endless trenches that hide dangers. Half-men, half-robots in fetish wear. Removable eyes. These are just some of the wonders and weirdos that await in Takahide Hori’s latest animated film, Junk World. Bizarre, funny, sometimes confusing, always entertaining, it’s a feast for the eyes and ears and either a good puzzle or a film for which you will just let any logic go and enjoy the visual feast. —

It’s a showcase of the power of human-led storytelling, imagination, and artistry.”

– Shelagh Rowan-Legg / Screen Anarchy – NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE

AA: I watched one hour but failed to establish a connection with the spiritual dimension of this astonishing action spectacle.

Bulk (in person: Ben Wheatley, Andy Starke)

Ben Wheatley: Bulk (GB 2025) starring Sam Riley.

Ben Wheatley and Andy Starke at Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3025, Kinopalatsi, Helsinki, November 20 Nov 2025. Photo: Juho Liukkonen / Night Visions.

Country and year: UK 2025

Producer(s): Andy Starke, Ben Wheatley

Director and writer: Ben Wheatley

Cinematographer: Nick Gillespie - Academy - mostly b/w, with passages in colour - iPhone - GoPro - SVHS

Music: Dave Welder

Cast: Sam Riley, Alexandra Maria Lara, Noah Taylor, Mark Monero, Bill Nighy

Duration: 91 min

Language: English

Subtitles: No subtitles

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

Hosted by Mikko Aromaa

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 2, Helsinki, 20 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Tehosekoittimessa pyöräytetyksi versioksi Christopher Nolanin Tenetistä medioissa luonnehdittu Bulk on yllätysveto jopa ennakoimattoman ohjaajansa Ben Wheatleyn mittapuulla. Scifi-seikkailun ja vainoharhatrillerin surrealistinen yhdistelmä on rosoinen paluu alkulähteille, vielä juurikarvojakin syvemmälle. Elokuva toteutettiin salassa Wheatleyn saatua valmiiksi toistaiseksi ylivoimaisesti suurimman elokuvansa, yli sata miljoonaa euroa nielleen Meg 2:n.

Kun tieteilijä Anton Chambersin (Mark Monero) kehittämä Brane-järjestelmä leviää käsiin, myös mies itse katoaa jäljettömiin. Toimittaja Corey Harlan (Sam Riley) kaapataan salaperäiseen taloon ja usutetaan jäljittämään Antonia sekä järjestelmän ydintä.

Talon jokainen ovi tuntuu olevan portaali uusiin maailmoihin. Matkailu ulottuvuuksien halki ei tietenkään suju mutkitta, ja harhailun jatkuessa koko universumin rakenteet alkavat natista.

Bulkin vertaaminen Christopher Nolanin tuotantoon ei ole tuulesta temmattua. Yhtäläisyyksiä löytyy myös Jean-Luc Godardin kyseenalaisiin, Alphavillen (1965) kaltaisiin elokuvallisiin kokeiluihin. Kunniaa tehdään samalla suurella sydämellä Ray Harryhausenin efektikuvastolle, film noirille sekä 1960- ja 1970-lukujen brittiläiselle vainoharha-scifille.

Siinä missä Wheatleyn edellinen todellinen irtiotto A Field in England (2013) leikki persoonallisella tavalla folk-kauhulla ja happokuvastolla, Bulk nivoo yhteen menneen ajan lajityyppiaineksia vielä villimmin ja omaehtoisemmin. Lopputulos on houreinen, perinteitä kieli poskessa hyödyntävä vyörytys elokuvallisia silmäniskuja." (NV 2025)

NV 2025 COCKTAIL OF QUOTATIONS:

★★★★

“Sci-fi nightmare fusing head scrambling multiverse and a conspiracy of global proportions”

– Andrew Robertson / Eye For Film

“Wonderfully inventive”

– Anton Bitel / Sight and Sound

“Lands somewhere between cosmic horror and a metaphysical trip”

– Christina Brennan / Soundsphere Magazine

“Plays like Tenet tossed in a blender — Hybrid of conspiracy thriller, time-bending sci-fi and goofy genre parody —

Oligarch tech whiz Anton Chambers (Mark Monero) has conducted a failed experiment in string theory, causing his enigmatic “brain collider” invention to explode, and Chambers to disappear with it. Dazed journalist Cory Harlan (Sam Riley) is kidnapped and enlisted to help retrieve him, with the arch, ultra-poised Aclima (Alexandra Maria Lara) as his identity-shifting warden. —

A film that is about nothing so much as its own diverse tapestry of influences, from the handmade whimsy of vintage British TV series Thunderbirds to the opaquely minimalist sci-fi world-building of Godard’s Alphaville to the luridly cranked-up paranoia of midcentury B-movies like The Quatermass Experiment.”

– Guy Lodge / Variety – NV 2025 COCKTAIL OF QUOTATIONS

AA: In Bulk, Ben Wheatley covers multiverses resembling those of the world's most expensive action and science fiction megaliths, with a fraction of the cost.

With footage created on iPhone, GoPro and SVHS, the movie boasts a do-it-yourself look like avantgarde artists such as Finland's extraordinary Mox Mäkelä.

Wheatley in his Q&A evoked Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, "the act of will" which converted the Paris of today into a dystopia of the future. All prove something fundamental, which also Richard Linklater evokes in his lovely Nouvelle Vague. Great cinema is a triumph of the spirit. It is all about energy.

I have been puzzled since 2020 by what I call the pandemic-phlegmatic syndrome. There have been movies with outstanding ingredients, but one thing has been missing: energy - drive - the irresistible urge.

I am also thinking about the Quixotic Finnish hero Teuvo Tulio and his sometimes pathetic visual effects. They are ridiculous, but we don't laugh, because we feel the formidable passion.

Like Tulio, Wheatley uses blatant solutions, in his case treadmills for chase sequences. But his reach is apocalyptic.

Kim Novak's Vertigo

Alexandre O. Philippe: Kim Novak's Vertigo (US 2025) with Kim Novak as Madeleine. Falling in his death dream: Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart).

Alexandre O. Philippe: Kim Novak's Vertigo (US 2025) with Kim Novak at home.

Country and year: USA 2025

Producer(s): Terri Piñon

Director and writer: Alexandre O. Philippe

Cinematographer: Robert Muratore

Music: Jon Hegel. Soundtrack: Bernard Herrmann: Vertigo.

With: i.a. Kim Novak, Alexandre O. Philippe

Duration: 77 min

Language: English

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

Hosted by Mikko Aromaa

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 9, Helsinki, 20 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Alfred Hitchcockin Vertigo (1958) nousi vuonna 2012 ykköseksi maailman kaikkien aikojen parhaiden elokuvien äänestyksessä, jonka Britannian arvovaltaisin elokuvalehti Sight and Sound järjestää  kerran vuosikymmenessä. Surrealistisen noir-jännärin voitto oli kunnianosoitus koko lajityyppielokuvan perinteelle, jota taidehiippailuja suosivat ranking-listat usein ylenkatsovat."

"Hitchcockin magnum opusta on luettu ohjaansa nerouden ilmentymänä. Siksi genreanalyytikko Alexander O. Philippen (78/52 – Psykon salaisuudet, Lynch/Oz) päätös lähestyä klassikkoa sen pääosatähden Kim Novakin silmin tuntuu freesiltä. Novak (s. 1933) oli 1950-luvun lopussa Yhdysvaltain suosituimpia elokuvatähtiä, joka tympääntyi lopulta Hollywoodiin ja vetäytyi omiin oloihinsa keskittyäkseen maalaamiseen. Philippe käy pikakelauksella läpi päähenkilönsä uran ja keskittyy sitten pääasiaan: Vertigoon."+

"Hyvävireinen yhdeksänkymppinen muistelee eloisasti mestariteoksen syntyprosessia ja pääosakollega James Stewartin kanssa muodostunutta kemiaa. Ohjausmetodeistaan myös kritiikkiä saaneesta Hitchcockista Novak puhuu arvostavasti. Muistelun lomassa Philippe käy läpi näyttelijän aarreaittaa muistuttavaa arkistoa."

"Nyansseja ymmärtävä dokumentaristi syventyy Vertigon maailmaan seinätapetin kuvioiden tarkkuudella ja laajentaa havaintonsa oivaltavaksi analyysiksi. Tuloksena on poikkeuksellisen tarkka ruumiinavaus yhdestä kaikkien aikojen elokuvista. Kim Novak’s Vertigo on myös omaperäinen näyttelijämuotokuva ja harvinainen näkökulma Alfred Hitchcockin työskentelytapoihin." (NV 2025)

NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE:

"★★★★

“Intensely personal”

– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“Feels like an act of love from the director of 78/52 and Lynch/Oz.”

– Brian Tallerico / RogerEbert.com

“Unapologetic and, right from the start, impressively unfiltered.

– Damon Wise / Deadline

“Resonates as what is today a vanishingly rare first-hand window into the joys, terrors and vagaries of Hollywood’s golden age.”

– Guy Logde / Variety

“”I needed to know that I was authentic”, says Kim Novak at one point in Alexandre O. Philippe’s affectionately revealing documentary about an actress who turned her back on Hollywood at the height of her career.  That phrase could serve as the logline for a film that is both the celebration of a remarkable woman and an attempt to connect the actress with her most iconic role – that of Judy in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. It feels at times like a kind of exorcism, as the 92-year-old Novak grapples with the ghosts of the past – given prominent visual form here in the grey suit Hitchcock famously forced her to wear in the film, which she is seen handling for the first time in over half a century.”

– Lee Marshall / Screen International" – NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE

AA: Kim Novak is the subject of her own story in Alexandre O. Philippe's film historical essay Kim Novak's Vertigo. Of Philippe's former work, I have only seen last year's remarkable Chain Reactions (US 2024). Having seen these two I need to see the rest, as well.

Kim Novak's is also the voice of her story, in effect a first person narrative. It is also her story as an artist: creator of watercolours, oil and pastel paintings, photographs and poetry. She loves nature and animals. She loves to ride. We meet her as a dancer and singer in her movies.

She has undertaken cosmetic surgery but regrets the fat injections. "I should have known better, but what do you do? We do some stupid things in our lives." (Source: Wikipedia).

Novak invites Philippe to her home for an in extenso conversation. We get glimpses into her personal archives, family photo albums and movie scrapbooks. 

Memory is fragile. Three of Novak's houses have burned to the ground.

As a child she idolized Greta Garbo: "she felt what I felt... the same insecure little girl". James Stewart: "he was always himself". He never acted. "It was real to him". He projected tenderness and respect. Of more recent actors, Novak admires Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Richard Quine (Pushover, Bell, Book and Candle, Strangers When We Meet, The Notorious Landlady) was an important director and mentor.

But Alfred Hitchcock was the big influence. The double performance in Vertigo, the thriller about a loss of identity, became a signature role. Vertigo was not much noticed during its first run, but its fame kept rising and reached its height 50 years after the movie was released when it was voted the best film in the world.

Included in the movie are generous helpings of clips from Novak's movies such as

1954 The French Line, Pushover, Phffft

1955 5 Against the House, Picnic, The Man with the Golden Arm

1956 The Eddy Duchin Story

1957 Jeanne Eagels, Pal Joey

1958 Vertigo, Bell, Book and Candle

1959 Middle of the Night

1960 Strangers When We Meet

1962 The Notorious Landlady, Boys' Night Out

1964 Of Human Bondage, Kiss Me, Stupid

1965 The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders

1968 The Legend of Lylah Clare

The selection is excellent, and the clipreel experience is alone worth the visit. 

It gets deeply emotional as we enter what for a cinephile is holy ground. Novak opens her personal copy of the screenplay of Vertigo, at the time still called From Among the Dead. When Madeleine's gray suit is revealed from a box that has not been opened since the film was made, Novak falls into tears.

We are in the territory of fetishism, but the experience reaches beyond that. Already at the time, it was clear that Vertigo was a project personally meaningful for its star. It is about a young woman full of life being transformed into a spectacle by patriarchal authority.

In this house of mirrors, Judy / Madeleine was lost and perished. But Novak is still haunted by the stardom experience which both elevated and entrapped her. "You start to lose who you are". "Kim Novak" was a creature of the Hollywood star system. "I did not know who Kim Novak was". "It was scary losing myself". They did not hear the little girl crying inside.

La Tour de glace / The Ice Tower (opening screening, in person: In person: Whitney Ward, Joe Coleman, Jason Diamond, Scott Gracheff, Vincent Grashaw, Lewis Teague, Can Evrenol, Bruno Forzani)

 

Lucile Hadžihalilović: La Tour de glace / The Ice Tower (FR/DE/IT 2025). Marion Cotillard as Cristina in her role as the Snow Queen.

Guests of honour lineup at the opening screening of Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3025, 19 Nov 2025. Whitney Ward, Joe Coleman, Jason Diamond, Scott Gracheff, Vincent Grashaw, Lewis Teague, Can Evrenol, Bruno Forzani, Mikko Aromaa. Photographer to the right: Juho Liukkonen. Photo: Tanja Ryhänen / Night Visions.

Country and year: France / Germany / Italy 2025

Producer(s): Muriel Merlin, Harald Steinwender

Director: Lucile Hadžihalilović

Writer: Geoff Cox, Lucile Hadžihalilović

Cinematographer: Jonathan Ricquebourg

Music: Olivier Messiaen

Cast: Marion Cotillard, Clara Pacini, August Diehl, Gaspar Noé, Marine Gesbert, Lila-Rose Gilberti, Valentina Vezzoso

Duration: 117 min

Language: French

Subtitles: English: Ian Burley & Sophia T... [the names flashed by too fast]

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

Opening screening hosted by Mikko Aromaa.

In person: Whitney Ward, Joe Coleman, Jason Diamond, Scott Gracheff, Vincent Grashaw, Lewis Teague, Can Evrenol, Bruno Forzani.

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 1, Helsinki, 19 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Hans Christian Andersenin Lumikuningattaresta versovassa The Ice Towerissa satu ja tosi sekoittuvat valveuneksi, josta David Lynch olisi kateellinen. Oman tyylinsä täydellistäneen auteur-ohjaaja Lucile Hadžihalilovićin suurteos on kuin eurooppalainen Mulholland Drive, kuvaus haaveiden ja pelkojen risteyksestä, jossa näkymä voi muuttua silmänräpäyksessä.  

Hadžihalilovićin elokuvat ovat mystiikkaan kiedottuja kasvukuvauksia. Berliinin festivaalin pääkilpasarjassa maailmanensi-iltansa saanut uutuus seuraa Innocencen (2004), Evolutionin (2015) ja Earwigin (2021) jälkiä, mutta astuu askeleen pidemmälle synkän fantasian maailmaan.

Äitinsä traagisesti menettänyt teinityttö Jeanne (Clara Pacini) ottaa hatkat sijaisperheestä, vaeltaa alppimaisemien halki kaupunkiin ja löytää lymypaikan studiohallista. Piilostaan hän näkee lapsuutensa suosikkisadun, Lumikuningattaren, muuntuvan elokuvaksi. Pääosanesittäjä Cristinan (Marion Cotillard) kylmä karisma lumoaa tytön, ja tähtinäyttelijä ottaa karkulaisen suojatikseen.

Hadžihalilović rakentaa symbolien tornia, jonka ytimessä on kysymys siitä, onko äitien sydämessä jäätä vai lämpöä. Unen sävyt nousevat upeasti rakennetusta elokuvanteon kuvauksesta. Jeannen kävellessä öisissä lavasteissa pienoismallien keskellä suruun sekoittuu taikapölyä. Huikean debyytin tekevä Pacini tuo hahmoonsa haavoittuvaisuutta. Cotillard loistaa elämää suurempana mysteerinä." (NV 2025)

NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE:

★★★★★

“A fairytale of death-wish yearning and erotic submission”

– Peter Bradshaw / The Guardian

★★★★½

“[Marion] Cotillard is at her very best”

– Jennie Kermode / Eye For Film

“Frozen meets Mulholland Drive”

– Jordan Mintzer / The Hollywood Reporter

“Casts a creepy spell that lingers and even deepens in the mind long after it’s over. As only the best spells do.”

– Ryan Lattanzio / IndieWire

“Mesmerizing — Infused with a lot of psychosexual energy”

– Elisa Guimarães / Collider 

“Countless adaptations and appropriations – among them Disney’s Frozen – have diluted the sheer weirdness of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Snow Queen, a tale of good and evil that is also one young girl’s investigative quest for a missing boyfriend who has come under the influence of an older woman. In her ravishingly shot fourth feature, set in the mid 1970s, Lucile Hadzihalilovic takes the boy out of the picture. Told through the allusive frame of a female teenage runaway’s encounter with a movie star diva played by Marion Cotillard, who is shooting a new version of The Snow Queen, this is a story of womanhood at a crossroads: its two characters somehow become one, a before and an after, slowly circling, testing, and taking stock of one another.”

– Lee Marshall / Screen International – NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE

AA: Lucile Hadžihalilović's The Ice Tower is scheduled at the Night Visions film festival on the same day as the Danish Adorable Humans. Both have been inspired by H. C. Andersen: the Danish movie by four fairy-tales, including The Snow Queen (Sneedronningen, 1844, Andersen op. 68), and The Ice Tower by the same tale plus The Red Shoes (De røde Skoe, 1845, Andersen op. 72), also directly referred to in the movie poster of the film adaptation by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes, GB 1948).

The Snow Queen has inspired a lot of art and adaptation. Hadžihalilović's interpretation is new and original.

It is a work of visionary poetry, enchanting in its cinematography and soundscape. With a gentle and assured approach Hadžihalilović enters the world of the young orphan and outcast Jeanne who is fascinated by the world of art, the stage, the spectacle and the fairy-tale. Ultimately, it is a quest for a home that she has never had.

The Ice Tower is a voyage in transcendental homelessness. Cristina, the Ice Queen, appears like a long needed mother figure for Jeanne, but this turns out to be a misunderstanding.

Clara Pacini as Jeanne and Marion Cotillard create unforgettable studies of solitude. Hadžihalilović is full of love to her broken and erratic characters. Something in this makes me think about A Place in the Sun.

Jonathan Ricquebourg is in charge of the haunting cinematography on the Alps. Olivier Messiaens's devout compositions enchant us on the soundtrack.

Reflet dans un diamant mort / Reflection in a Dead Diamond (in person: Bruno Forzani)

Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani: Reflet dans un diamant mort / Reflection in a Dead Diamond (BE/LU/IT/FR 2025) with Manon Beuchot as Serpentik.

Country and year: Belgium / Luxemburg / Italy / France 2025

Producer(s): Pierre Foulon

Director and writer: Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani

Cinematographer: Manuel Dacosse - Super 16 mm

Music: i.a. Stelvio Cipriani, Vladimir Cosma, Bruno Nicolai, Piero Umiliani

Soundtrack: La Wally.

Cast: Fabio Testi, Yannick Renier, Koen De Bouw, Maria de Medeiros, Thi Mai Nguyen, Céline Camara, Kezia Quental

Duration: 87 min

Language: French, Italian, English, Spanish

Subtitles: English - by: Tongue Unit

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

In person: Bruno Forzani

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 1, Helsinki, 19 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Ennen kaikkea menneiden vuosikymmenten viileimmille ja villeimmillle agenttiseikkailuille silmää iskevä Reflection in a Dead Diamond on vuoden tyylikkäin elokuva. Ohjaajakaksikko Hélène Cattet’n ja Bruno Forzanin täydellisen omintakeinen luomus on tauoton, kokonaisvaltainen audiovisuaalinen vyörytys, joka hivelee katsojansa kaikkia aisteja huikealla intensiteetillä."

"Kaikkein kiehtovimmasta vanhasta uutta muovaavat ohjaajat ajavat silppurinsa läpi Mario Bavan Diabolik-klassikon (1968) sekä koko joukon 1960- ja 70-lukujen euroelokuvan James Bond -klooneja. Aikakaudelta mukaan ammennetaan aineksia myös italialaisten pulp-seikkailusarjakuvien kuvastosta ja giallo-kauhusta. Jotkut kriitikot ovat lukeneet lopputuloksesta myös anime-viitteitä."

"Lineaarisen kerronnan rikkovan ja aika- sekä metatasoilla leikittelevän tarinan keskiössä on legendaarinen vakooja John D (italoelokuvan ikoni Fabio Testi), joka viettää eläkepäiviään ylellisessä rantahotellissa Rivieralla. Arvoituksellisen naisen (Manon Beuchot) kirjautuminen hotellin asukkaaksi palauttaa konkarin mieleen vanhat hyvät ajat, jolloin maailma oli täynnä vauhtia, salaisuuksia ja kauniita vihollisia. Kun nainen katoaa jäljettömiin, John joutuu kohtaamaan myös menneisyytensä demonit."

"Jo ohjaajien edellisssä elokuvissa (The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears, 2013, Let the Coprses Tan, 2017) tavaramerkiksi muodostunut tinkimätön, äärivisuaalinen elokuvakieli on nyt hiottu huippuunsa. Reflection in a Dead Diamond on timantti, joka todella huutaa tulla katsotuksi mahdollisimman suurelta valkokankaalta." (NV 2025)

NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE: 

”An exquisite and flashy cinematic jewel box”

– Jordan Mintzer / The Hollywood Reporter

”[Directors Cattet and Forzani are] delivering The Old Man Bond movie we’ve always wanted, and infusing it with enough giallo and anime influences”

– Rafael Motamayor / Slash Film

”Crazy and intense”

– Ola Salwa / Cineuropa

”Cements Cattet and Forzani’s place among the best manipulators of sight and sound working today”

– Anton Bitel / Projected Figures

“If you surrender yourself to [Cattet and Forzani’s] formal explosion, you may be inclined to think Reflection in a Dead Diamond is the year’s best film.”

– Maxance Vincent / Awards Radar

“The directors are always playful, but they’ve never been this fun.”

– Philip Bagnall / Loud and Clear Reviews

”If a picture is worth a thousand words, then every shot in Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s cine-kaleidoscopic Reflection in a Dead Diamond is worth its weight in cubic zirconia. The latest eyegasm from the French couple behind The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears continues their pop-art worship of guilty-pleasure ’60s cult cinema. This time, their primary inspiration are fumetti neri, the Italian pulp comics that launched the masked Diabolik character and a stylish (if schlocky) subgenre of crime and adventure films — mostly James Bond knockoffs with giallo-vivid visuals.”

– Peter Debruge / Variety – NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE

AA: In his words to the audience, Bruno Forzani reflected on his 25 years together with Hélène Cattet: "romance came first, then film". He summed up Reflet dans un diamant mort: "Death in Venice meets James Bond".

Reflet dans un diamant mort is a super-charged genre mix of 1960s European popular cinema, a study of the pop sensibility of that decade, channelling both the original blockbusters and their low budget imitations and parodies. Besides films, it also evokes their parallel lives in comic strips. Cattet & Forzani relish on signifiers without the signified, styles without substance and characters without personality traits.

Direct art history references range from Mimmo Rotella's torn movie posters to Caravaggio's bloody murder. But perhaps most profoundly to classics of surrealism, including Belgium's own René Magritte who recycled the cover illustration of Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre's Fantômas, adapted into a serial by Louis Feuillade. To the supervillains of early French genre cinema belonged also Protéa by Éclair and Irma Vep / Vampira by Gaumont / Feuillade - the cinema's original female cat burglars to which Cattet & Forzani contribute their daunting Serpentik (Manon Beuchot).

In an affectionate gesture, Cattet & Forzani cast old favourites in juicy parts. Fabio Testi is the super agent emeritus John D. and Maria de Medeiros a mature incarnation of elusive womanhood.

In this piece of metacinema we sometimes witness the filming of the film itself. The cartoon violence is relentless, and the film pursues shock value in divertissement mode.

Watching this in 2025 I feel a fatigue in gratuitous violence. Our daily news feed is full of Russian atrocities in Ukraine and rampages of IDF baby-killers and brutal settler violence in Palestine. Excuse me for not being entertained.