If you like slow paced horror, dripping with atmosphere, tension and layers of story told only through visuals, implications, and audio cues, this is it. This is the movie you need to watch, now.
This film won't appeal to everyone, as the reviews unfortunately reveal, but there is a ticking heart to this film that casual horror viewers won't be able to appreciate.
Subtlety.
The story never gets bombastic. It never becomes too grand or overly ambitious. It stays grounded in a cold harsh 1930s reality. Delivering on that reality with drawn out tension crafted to a nearly perfect degree through great, but subtle, cinematography, excellent sound design and truly moody music.
Unfortunately there are a couple moments where the budget of the film shows through, one of which being a glaring error where an entire crew member can be seen on set for a single brief shot, but overall they do a good job of disguising a lot of the more low budget elements.
Unfortunately, the moments where the budget does show through, mainly in a particular sequence where they show a bit too much of the "creature", knock a couple stars off this films rating.
With slightly better effects--or a little more clever disguising of those less convincing elements--this could be a masterpiece of horror.
The story itself is simple, and leaves you with a lot of lingering questions, but the ambiguity is deeply intriguing, and there are enough subtle story elements sprinkled throughout the film to hint toward a possible answer to the mystery.
This is a film that wants you to think and figure things out on your own. It rarely holds your hand and leaves you both figuratively and literally in the dark, allowing for only murky and speculative answers to the questions it asks.
This is by design, and if that is not the type of movie you enjoy, then don't watch it, but if you like a bit of ambiguity to your horror, if you like to be left with lingering questions just as unsettling as the events that took place, you won't be disappointed here.
