Horsehead (2014) - June 23, 2015

[Scoot79]

Anyone getting this? Thoughts?

[kinkyqueen]

Just received the Limited to 500 2 disc edition with the soundtrack. The movie is awesome! Btw it seems to have a DTS-HD MA soundtrack contrary to the single disc edition

http://blackfawndistribution.com/store/

[kinkyqueen]

[kinkyqueen]

The blu-ray seems to be corrupt... anyone else with this problem? I ran it through bdinfo this is what it said

[wiredmass]

No issues here. Disc plays just fine.

[HorrorBlu]

Originally Posted by kinkyqueen

The blu-ray seems to be corrupt... anyone else with this problem? I ran it through bdinfo this is what it said

Probably because it's a BD-R.

[MrTwoArms]

Originally Posted by kinkyqueen

Just received the Limited to 500 2 disc edition with the soundtrack. The movie is awesome! Btw it seems to have a DTS-HD MA soundtrack contrary to the single disc edition

http://blackfawndistribution.com/store/

Which is creepier, Horsehead or your avatar? Seriously, I think your avatar is going to give me nightmares.

[DeadEyesSmiling]

The back of the special edition doesn't list the 4 short films that the standard release has. Are they actually on the disk, and just not mentioned, or is it a different disk entirely? Also, the standard disk says the making of feature is 81 minutes long, and the special edition only says it's 58. Can you confirm this difference?

-DES

[MrTwoArms]

Originally Posted by DeadEyesSmiling

The back of the special edition doesn't list the 4 short films that the standard release has. Are they actually on the disk, and just not mentioned, or is it a different disk entirely? Also, the standard disk says the making of feature is 81 minutes long, and the special edition only says it's 58. Can you confirm this difference?

-DES

The standard says "81 minutes (Bonus)" which could be the total running time of all the bonus features (making of, short films, trailer). I'm just guessing though, as I don't have the disc yet.

[jebhdb]

Originally Posted by HorrorBlu

Probably because it's a BD-R.

BD-R? The disc isn't pressed with this release?

[cakefactory]

I have the regular release and it sure looked pressed to me. The making-of featurette is 57 minutes, and it has 3 audio tracks (DTS-HD MA, 5.1, and 2.0).

Anyway, the reason I came here to post, is does anyone else have interpretations of the ending?

[Show spoiler]Did you interpret that she died and somehow merged with her dead sister Lucy in the dream world? Or did she live and had sorta absorbed the familial history and her sister's spirit so she'll now be able to live a happy life? Or something else entirely???

It's a pretty awesome movie, but I don't get the Argento/Bava comparisons at all. It has blue and red lighting is all I can figure. If this reminded me of anything in particular, it was probably Gozu. It's surreal as heck but unlike something obnoxious like "Strange Color of your Body's Tears" it never got annoying (besides the two instances where the soundtrack broke out of Trent Reznor mode and instead went into dubstep). I wasn't quite sure if all the answers were there in the movie about the plot buried, or if the movie is intentionally very ambiguous about a bunch of stuff.

The one big problem I had with the movie was the grandfather, who reminded me of nothing so much as Garth Vader from Final Sacrifice. He not only looked like him and had an extremely anachronistic haircut, but he spoke in the same kind of crappy sub-Freddy Krueger deep scary voice that was obviously dubbed.

That said, it certainly wasn't enough to ruin the movie. If you don't mind swirly, beautiful dream movies that also happen to contain tons of grue and nasty themes and failed abortions and whatnot, you will probably appreciate this a lot. It's like some kind of weird brew of Gozu, Pan's Labyrinth, Lost Highway, Company of Wolves and...I don't even know what else.

It follows a young woman (the actress is 25, dunno how old the character's supposed to be) visiting her parents out in the country as her grandmother just died. She's been researching lucid dreaming, and immediately starts having nightmares about her grandmother, her mother, and a hulking figure with a horse's head. She also starts pulling family history out of the dreams, which agitates her mother, who wants to keep it buried.

The lead actress is pretty good, but mainly was just cast very well in a physical sense. She has a really soft, vulnerable yet intelligent look (think a midpoint between Elizabeth Olsen and Saoirse Ronan). It keeps you very involved with her throughout the movie, which is important since she's on screen the vast majority of the time and is usually without dialogue.

Her mother is played by Catriona MacColl (of The Beyond, etc fame), and the age discrepancy is enough to lead to questions (she's 60 and looks all of it, this actress is 25 but looks younger), especially as the backstory

[Show spoiler]seems to point to her father impregnating her, which seems like it should have happened well before she was 35 since why the heck would she still be living with them at age 35?!

. BUT, who knows, maybe the age discrepancy was intentional as opposed to they just saw an opportunity to get a recognizable cult actress in the movie. There are a couple more recognizable faces in there, such as the old creepy guy from High Tension.

I'm watching the making-of now, so maybe it will answer some of these questions, but I sorta doubt it. It's quite a dreamy movie, and quite gorgeous cinematography-wise if you can handle it. I guess the Argento comparison comes down to artiness for artiness's sake, and also the approximate level of gore on display. If you like dreamy, VERY dark fairy-tale movies and can deal with serious ambiguity, you'll probably like this. It's one of the best visualizations of a nightmare I've ever seen, and while it's obviously arty as hell and loaded with beautiful slow motion visuals I found it less pretentious and aimless than say, every episode of Hannibal so far this season (I like Hannibal, but there's some similar stylistic stuff going on there and I think it's way more self-indulgent there than in this movie, where all of it seems to have a purpose).

Here are a couple good reviews I found through IMDB:

http://twitchfilm.com/2015/01/films-...d-reality.html

http://www.28dayslateranalysis.com/2...backwards.html

Unsurprisingly, most of the real reviews are very positive, and all the message boards are in mangled English and largely complaints that "it was boring i dun get it lol" and the current user rating is quite low. One of those movies, I guess.

[HorrorBlu]

Originally Posted by jebhdb

BD-R? The disc isn't pressed with this release?

This and Der Samurai are BD-Rs. Future releases from Artsploitation should be normal blu-rays though.

[cakefactory]

Yeah, I just didn't look at the bottom when I put it in the machine, it's dark like a BD-R. But, I got the 1 disc version and it most definitely has the 5.1 DTS-HD MA audio track on there even though it doesn't list it on the back. The movie looked and sounded great, I never had any hitches from it being a BD-R.

The making-of didn't really answer any of my questions other than that Jessica was supposed to be 25, but hey. It's a really interesting movie and I plan on watching it again.

[jebhdb]

Originally Posted by HorrorBlu

This and Der Samurai are BD-Rs. Future releases from Artsploitation should be normal blu-rays though.

Well that sucks!

[Scoot79]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

I have the regular release and it sure looked pressed to me. The making-of featurette is 57 minutes, and it has 3 audio tracks (DTS-HD MA, 5.1, and 2.0).

Anyway, the reason I came here to post, is does anyone else have interpretations of the ending?

[Show spoiler]Did you interpret that she died and somehow merged with her dead sister Lucy in the dream world? Or did she live and had sorta absorbed the familial history and her sister's spirit so she'll now be able to live a happy life? Or something else entirely???

It's a pretty awesome movie, but I don't get the Argento/Bava comparisons at all. It has blue and red lighting is all I can figure. If this reminded me of anything in particular, it was probably Gozu. It's surreal as heck but unlike something obnoxious like "Strange Color of your Body's Tears" it never got annoying (besides the two instances where the soundtrack broke out of Trent Reznor mode and instead went into dubstep). I wasn't quite sure if all the answers were there in the movie about the plot buried, or if the movie is intentionally very ambiguous about a bunch of stuff.

The one big problem I had with the movie was the grandfather, who reminded me of nothing so much as Garth Vader from Final Sacrifice. He not only looked like him and had an extremely anachronistic haircut, but he spoke in the same kind of crappy sub-Freddy Krueger deep scary voice that was obviously dubbed.

That said, it certainly wasn't enough to ruin the movie. If you don't mind swirly, beautiful dream movies that also happen to contain tons of grue and nasty themes and failed abortions and whatnot, you will probably appreciate this a lot. It's like some kind of weird brew of Gozu, Pan's Labyrinth, Lost Highway, Company of Wolves and...I don't even know what else.

It follows a young woman (the actress is 25, dunno how old the character's supposed to be) visiting her parents out in the country as her grandmother just died. She's been researching lucid dreaming, and immediately starts having nightmares about her grandmother, her mother, and a hulking figure with a horse's head. She also starts pulling family history out of the dreams, which agitates her mother, who wants to keep it buried.

The lead actress is pretty good, but mainly was just cast very well in a physical sense. She has a really soft, vulnerable yet intelligent look (think a midpoint between Elizabeth Olsen and Saoirse Ronan). It keeps you very involved with her throughout the movie, which is important since she's on screen the vast majority of the time and is usually without dialogue.

Her mother is played by Catriona MacColl (of The Beyond, etc fame), and the age discrepancy is enough to lead to questions (she's 60 and looks all of it, this actress is 25 but looks younger), especially as the backstory

[Show spoiler]seems to point to her father impregnating her, which seems like it should have happened well before she was 35 since why the heck would she still be living with them at age 35?!

. BUT, who knows, maybe the age discrepancy was intentional as opposed to they just saw an opportunity to get a recognizable cult actress in the movie. There are a couple more recognizable faces in there, such as the old creepy guy from High Tension.

I'm watching the making-of now, so maybe it will answer some of these questions, but I sorta doubt it. It's quite a dreamy movie, and quite gorgeous cinematography-wise if you can handle it. I guess the Argento comparison comes down to artiness for artiness's sake, and also the approximate level of gore on display. If you like dreamy, VERY dark fairy-tale movies and can deal with serious ambiguity, you'll probably like this. It's one of the best visualizations of a nightmare I've ever seen, and while it's obviously arty as hell and loaded with beautiful slow motion visuals I found it less pretentious and aimless than say, every episode of Hannibal so far this season (I like Hannibal, but there's some similar stylistic stuff going on there and I think it's way more self-indulgent there than in this movie, where all of it seems to have a purpose).

Here are a couple good reviews I found through IMDB:

http://twitchfilm.com/2015/01/films-...d-reality.html

http://www.28dayslateranalysis.com/2...backwards.html

Unsurprisingly, most of the real reviews are very positive, and all the message boards are in mangled English and largely complaints that "it was boring i dun get it lol" and the current user rating is quite low. One of those movies, I guess.

Thanks for the review. My copy should ship Monday or Tuesday from amazon.com. I also ordered the LE 2 disc from the link above. The tagline, "Enter a psycho-sexual world of nightmares" reminds me of Torso (1973), a film I love.

[Clark Kent]

It's arty horror. The physical design for the character of Horsehead is inspired, some of the best I've seen outside of Hollywood. You could make a pretty nasty slasher around Horsehead, I almost wish another director would license the character.

The visuals are very strong in Horsehead. Some of the fantasy sequences heavily remind me of the work seen in Tarsem Singh's films with their dreamy haze and surreal design.

The Blu-ray has excellent A/V quality, if anyone was wondering.

[cakefactory]

Yeah, the picture quality seemed great to me, as did the audio - the soundtrack is incredibly effective for most of the movie.

The character of Horsehead doesn't look remotely realistic, but I thought it was perfect for the part. It reminded me of some kind of theatrical thing, it looked like something from the Broadway Lion King or something. This isn't meant to be a knock on it, I just don't think the character was supposed to look like a literal demon, just like some kind of dream impression of a horseheaded thing, so the surrealness of it worked just fine.

[Lord Summerisle]

I'm dying to see this movie. Not sure if I want to blind buy though.

[darkness2918]

Originally Posted by Lord Summerisle

I'm dying to see this movie. Not sure if I want to blind buy though.

Im in the same boat. I may just wait till drops in price a bit.

[Wooden Lens]

Originally Posted by kinkyqueen

Just received the Limited to 500 2 disc edition with the soundtrack. The movie is awesome! Btw it seems to have a DTS-HD MA soundtrack contrary to the single disc edition

http://blackfawndistribution.com/store/

So is Black Fawn a different company than Artsploitation?

Is the Black Fawn edition region A?