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7 out of 10 people found the following review useful: Disturbing, Dark and Cruel Psychological Drama, 7 November 2006 Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The teenager Megan (Nicole DuPort) is a young woman raised completely isolated and dominated by her deranged and possessive mother, the writer Samantha Fergus (AnnieScott Rogers). Megan lives her life as if it were a fairy tale and without sense of reality, having her education through home schooling with private teachers. When her hormones change her behavior, inclusive with sexuality arisen, she does not have any support from her mother, and she creates an imaginary friend to satisfy her repressed desires and leading mother and daughter to a tragedy."Sonata" is a disturbing, dark and cruel psychological drama, showing the sick relationship of mother and her daughter. The movie is not bad, but the viewer is misguided by the distributor that sells this heavy drama as if it were a horror movie, with a typical cover inducing to a horror movie and certainly disappointing the fans of this genre. Therefore, the target audience is absolutely deceived. Nicole DuPort is perfect in the role of a repressed young woman finding sexuality without any orientation or support. AnnieScott Rogers in some moments exaggerates, but also has a good performance. The introduction of this film, with Ludwig van Beethoven's Sonata no. 14 ("Moonlight"), gives a touch of class to this good movie. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Gritos de Horror" ("Screams of Horror")
9 out of 15 people found the following review useful: How cruel one can be to the people they love?, 19 July 2004 Author: Sanford Meisner (SandyMeisner@aol.com) from New York City
Megan, a beautiful young woman with an incredible innocence(played by award winning actress Nicole Duport)is becoming deeply troubled. It may be that it is the onset of teenage schizophrenia; or it may be the combination of a strange stalker outside and a suffocating mother, but all attempts to cope are defeated by Samantha, an unfeeling cruel narcissistic single-parent(think "mommy dearest" played by actress Annie Scott Rodgers). Once mom's business partner/part-time suitor Allen (played very effectively by actor Tim Halpin) chances a visit to her room, well, all hell breaks out. And that is what this story is....the hell that is Megan's mind. Beautifully shot in High Definition by award winning cinematographer Vance Piper, this is a film that will gain an enduring and loyal audience. Filmmaker Boris Undorf, the writer-director, spent two years in the writing and is the new Hitchcock with this breakout work.Must see all the way through....it is worth it!
Absolutely awful from start to finish, 3 August 2009 Author: nooooddy from United Kingdom
My girlfriend and I rented this film hoping to experience a bit of a psychological chiller/horror. Unfortunately the only horrifying thing about this film is that it was ever given the green light.I'm 25 years old and have watched a lot of movies, undoubtedly this is one of the worst films I have EVER seen. It can't even be appreciated in an ironic way, it's just real chore to watch. Everything about it is disastrously misjudged; The storyline, dialogue, editing, cinematography, all of it. It's a lesson in how NOT to make a movie.Let's go into detail:The storyline is bafflingly chaotic, veering from tired cliché to tired cliché with no thematic continuity. I found the scenes involving apparent sexual abuse to be incredibly uncomfortable - not because I felt anything for the characters - but because they seemed shoe-horned in to provide titillation. Unfortunately they serve to suggest that this film was written/shot/produced by a bunch of aging perverts.The dialogue is hilariously wooden and so blindingly misjudged I wouldn't be surprised to hear it was written by an autistic 8-year old.I don't think this movie ever saw an edit suite. There are numerous scenes in which the shot lingers long after the dialogue/action is over, and for no apparent reason. This makes the film look incredibly amateur and feel even more disjointed and haphazard.The cinematography is truly abysmal. At times characters heads are cut out of shot. There doesn't seem to have been any attention paid to framing, lighting - anything. I could honestly have produced a better looking film using my 4 year old cell phone and Windows Movie Maker.In summary, this film is an absolute shambles. If it wasn't so painfully tedious I would recommend film students watch it to learn what not to do. But given its unwieldy length, chaotic storyline, nonsensical plot and awkwardly basic dialogue I would recommend everyone avoid it.
1 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Stylish Non-traditional Horror/Thriller, 5 January 2007 Author: neil-591 from United States
This film has some great moments in it. Recall that it is a first film from writer/director Boris Undorf. It has style and is not nearly the bore that one reviewer claimed. In fact, it's far more worthy of attention than most of the garbage that I've seen in theaters or on DVD lately.I refer to it as horror/thriller only because I don't know how else it could be categorized. It has a great use of color and has unnerving scenes that make you squirm - most notably the mother's insistence that her daughter strip for her and another scene in which the mother's lover "makes a pass" at the young girl. I felt increasingly uncomfortable as I watched the main character, wondering how she could stay sane at all in her nightmare-fairytale world.It's a shame that more people can't give this movie a try. These days, "horror" cinema seems to be made up of films about topless airheads who are tortured to death or psycho killers who go from one cliché to the next until it seems that the only things that have been changed are the names in the same tired old story.If you are looking for horror clichés like "the sheriff who just can't help because there's no proof" or "let's go check out that weird noise but first we should have sex" then you aren't going to like this film. But if you are looking for an actual story with a set-up and a fresh character piece then this is worth a look.
3 out of 7 people found the following review useful: For the good of your health, don't watch this., 21 August 2006 Author: ThePedofinderGeneral from United Kingdom
It's rubbish. More than rubbish. A celluloid turd. Actually, this movie looked like it wasn't made even with film.It does look very cheap. The girl was a good actress, as was the mother slightly, but there was no good characterisation. It is extraordinarily slow-moving, boring and hugely unrewarding. It said it's an 18, but I didn't see anything to constitute it being an 18. I suppose I wanted shock, scares, blood and nastiness, and I didn't get any of that because it was a psychological horror film.But even as a psychological horror film it was pants. The script was awful. It was just bad. Plain bad.Don't be fooled by the cover and watch it. It's awful.
2 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Painfully Dull, 23 June 2006 Author: jessopjessopjessop from United Kingdom
This film was like pulling teeth.Very little happened and each scene just dragged into another. Soap opera acting(apart from the lead girl)and I spent most of the 90 minutes fast forwarding through it. How this film has scored as high as 5/10 is beyond me. Occasionally you unearth a gem with these little known independent films, however this is not it. For supernatural thrillers etc your better off getting The Changeling or any other 70/80 horror.Hire it at your own risk, but you have been warned. There is a lot better out there and films that are entertaining at least, this one couldn't even be classed as that I'm afraid.Almost as appalling as Nutbag
4 out of 11 people found the following review useful: wonderful, 29 June 2004 Author: (folcoln@msn.com) from San Francisco USA
This movie rise a lot of problem for today people time being, roots of this film going back to such masters as Antonioni, Fellini,Tarkovsky,Bergman(Director and author Boris Undorf had a very good teachers). This is a thriller but thriller that force you to think about relations between parents and children, about border between childhood and adult life, about children privacy etc., This is a sort of investigation of existing problem that parents and children face everyday. Author gradually opens for you character of two women, shown how mother could destroy her own child. The biggest role in this movie belongs to the music. It is not much words between the main characters and director find the way to express people fillings. Both main characters give you right impression about conflict that keep you busy all 91 minutes of film.
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