Before I complain, let me just say that the acting in St. Agatha is great. The players use every opportunity to try and ease a confused and messy script, but even with their best intentions at heart it really felt that this film couldn't be saved.
Opening with the feeling of a modern Gothic horror, St. Agatha really shows some promise in the early scenes, the director seeming to have followed Tobe Hooper's classic, less can be more, principle. Unfortunately as the film develops, the subtle scenes descend into more gruesome and direct gore and you end up wishing for the implied threat. As it would certainly have given the whole film more gravitas than the shock moments which made the audience I watched it with giggle.
When you see a horror film which has been penned by multiple writers, you're always concerned that an original vision has been overwritten with someone else's take, and this film provides that sense in droves. Some establishing ideas merely drift into the sunset to never be scene again, and there's a lack of consistency throughout.
Sometimes we're told the women are monitored at all times, but as the number whittles down, Mary/Agatha, seems to be able to wander about freely. Some scenes are ploddingly written, such as when Mary/Agatha can phone the police, and you simply know that whoever turns up is going to be duped - especially when another policeman turns up out of the blue in a remote location. People are condemned for trying to escape, but are then given access to candles and matches and the list simply goes on. One really telling moment being the point where they're trying to break Mary and get her to conform to being Agatha, which fails to convince at all. Yet again, not the actors faults, who seem to be crying out for some clearer instruction from both director and script.
To its credit, I stayed to the end in the hopes things would improve, and St. Agatha's is certainly not the worst horror film I have seen. But I really can't find anything apart from what has already been mentioned to compliment it.
Opening with the feeling of a modern Gothic horror, St. Agatha really shows some promise in the early scenes, the director seeming to have followed Tobe Hooper's classic, less can be more, principle. Unfortunately as the film develops, the subtle scenes descend into more gruesome and direct gore and you end up wishing for the implied threat. As it would certainly have given the whole film more gravitas than the shock moments which made the audience I watched it with giggle.
When you see a horror film which has been penned by multiple writers, you're always concerned that an original vision has been overwritten with someone else's take, and this film provides that sense in droves. Some establishing ideas merely drift into the sunset to never be scene again, and there's a lack of consistency throughout.
Sometimes we're told the women are monitored at all times, but as the number whittles down, Mary/Agatha, seems to be able to wander about freely. Some scenes are ploddingly written, such as when Mary/Agatha can phone the police, and you simply know that whoever turns up is going to be duped - especially when another policeman turns up out of the blue in a remote location. People are condemned for trying to escape, but are then given access to candles and matches and the list simply goes on. One really telling moment being the point where they're trying to break Mary and get her to conform to being Agatha, which fails to convince at all. Yet again, not the actors faults, who seem to be crying out for some clearer instruction from both director and script.
To its credit, I stayed to the end in the hopes things would improve, and St. Agatha's is certainly not the worst horror film I have seen. But I really can't find anything apart from what has already been mentioned to compliment it.