First-time
director Panos Cosmatos – son of 80s action director George P. Cosmatos – conjures
the spirits of Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Roeg and Cronenberg in this measured but
hallucinatory sci-fi thriller. In a 1980s experimental New Age clinic out in
the country – straight out of Cronenberg’s early films – a young female patient
with psychic powers is being held in isolation. The facility’s sinister
director is obsessed with the girl, for mysterious reasons, and really loses
touch with sanity when she starts using her telekinetic abilities to escape. The
plot is not really the whole story, though; what makes the film compelling is
its surreal visuals; vacillating between the stark to the psychedelic to the
nightmarish. Cosmatos didn’t make another film until 2018’s even more hellish Mandy,
and based on these two films, it will definitely be interesting to follow his
career in the years to come.
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