HORROR DVD/BLU-RAY REVIEWS

Two parents discover their son, presumed dead, may actually be alive, stolen by slave traders. Mom's sanity unravels, Dad's patience wears thin, and this viewer just didn't give a f*ck.

Reading the copy on the back of Vinyan it is obvious they are trying to sell it as a similar movie to The Grudge. It's not. What it is poses a more difficult question. The film is from France, and in France the director has complete control of the film. No studio or producer influence can get in the way. That might sound like a good thing, but this was a case where somebody needed to be able to say, "What the f*ck are you trying to do here?"

It took me three sittings to get through this hour and a half movie because its ponderous obsession with images that had no meaning behind them, and near complete disinterest in explaining anything simply made me too annoyed to sit with it long.

A good example is an early scene where the husband (Rufus Sewell) is desperately chasing his highly upset wife (Emmanuelle Béart) through the streets of Thailand, and inexplicably the camera just keeps randomly meandering off track, following the path of uninvolved people until finally cutting back to the couple at the center of everything. Now you can make all the arguments you want about trying to capture the confusion of the city and flowing with the unique rhythm of the streets, but all you really get here is sloppy filmmaking.

There's also the question of whether this is a horror flick at all. It bills itself as supernatural horror, but given that most of the characters are at least mildly hallucinating by the end, it's really more LORD OF THE FLIES than anything else.

Mostly this feels like a generally thin concept for a movie that got wrapped up in artistic trappings until everyone involved had drunk the same Kool-Aid, much to our detriment as an audience.

Video: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio

Vinyan: The Making of... featurette - OK, this f*cking thing is nearly half the length of the movie. And it's all just watching people involved jerk themselves off about what amazing things they're doing. Utter, maddening bullshite. If watching VINYAN was Hell, this featurette was Purgatory.

Trailers

When a story of a grieving mother desperately trying to find her son elicits no sympathy, and instead leaves you wanting to kick her in the head, it's a good signal that the movie has failed miserably.