A Banquet

If you read about religious mysticism, you realize that for every spiritual prodigy, dozens of others must have been repressed, exorcized or institutionalized. Much has written about holy fools in folklore, legend and sacred texts. Some inspire religious followings. Others, like Jim Jones, Jan of Leyden, or Hong Xiuquan, inspire violence and mass suicide. Some are canonized, because their fame and/or writings endure. All I can say is, I believe some people really do serve a divine purpose with their visions and feats. Others are clearly misled and lead their disciples to destruction. We may think of them as a source of amusement for diabolical forces. Some are just plain mad. Yet we wonder how many spiritually sensitive people are locked away, or heavily medicated, because no one was willing to listen to or appreciate them. This movie, I think, hinted at this quandary. What if the lunatic is really a prophet? Would we recognize a true voice of warning with so many crying "Wolf!"? The character of Bets would be at home in Medieval Europe or among a tribal people relatively uncorrupted by Western thought.

I'm very relieved for the large number of reviewers who didn't get the movie because they clearly had happy childhoods with parents who were not emotionally abusive. Honestly, good for you! For the rest of us this movie is a horrific and poetic rendering of real and complicated mother/daughter dynamics.

It was good, but it could have been so much more. The acting was excellent, the cinematography was exceptional, the music scoring was topnotch, there was some nice gore sprinkled in, and the suspense was extremely intense. Saying all that, I feel like you spend the whole movie trying to figure out the meaning. Is it mental illness? Is it an eating disorder? Is it aliens? Is it possession? Is it a witch? Is it some sort of supernatural entity from another culture? Could it be a shared delusion? Who knows, because you get zero answers. So for all the work that went into it, it was great,...but it really deserves closer to 3&1/2 skulls, because the storyline never really sinks it's teeth in and it fails to give you any kind of real sustenance or satisfaction for the elaborate course served. (And yes, that pun was intended.)

Sleep is what you will get when you watch this one. I just don't understand all of the 4 and 5 skulls on these boring, slow, worse than B-Movie movies. See what you think. On to the next.

a little slow, a little lingering and slightly repetative, but still a good movie. it was definitely unsettling, and wasnt quite what i expected (i was thinking posession at first).