‘A Plague Tale: Requiem’ review – One of the most fulfilling horror video games of the year

The Czech Republic’s ‘Repulse’ immerses the audience in an extended exercise in trauma that turns to brevity and non-linear storytelling to amplify the pain.

“You can do what you want.”
“What do I want?”

Screams of agony are the only forms of dialogue present in the first ten minutes of Repel, Emil Krizka’s ode to anger and revenge from the Czech Republic. Repel is intentionally sparse with its dialogue so that the raw weight of every gesture and groan speaks for itself. It’s an isolating tactic, but one that immediately establishes that the world is a harsh, angry, confusing place. It’s a bleak mission statement, but one that echoes through every frame of Emil Krizkas Repel.

Repel is a big Russian nesting doll of pain, torture and humiliation that only grows more venomous as the film digs deeper and casts a wider net. Repulse his The most striking feature is the two-part back-and-forth narrative in which the audience gradually begins to piece together the pieces of this traumatic puzzle box. However, once the image of Repel finally begins to take shape it is too late to escape or become immune to these human horrors.

Repel engages in a dizzying, heartbreaking dissection of two grieving families bound together in vile ways. These frayed family units process this trauma through unique gruesome coping mechanisms. Both of these families are indebted to the idea of ​​guardians and caregivers in some way, which makes the act of survival a process even more painful and depressing than death.

Repel enjoys how it compares and contrasts these families. One family is pure; the other is encased in dirt. One is methodical and skilled, while the other is raw. Despite these differences, Repel highlights that pain and grief do not discriminate regardless of someone’s background or social class. The trailer as Viktor (Stepan Kozub) is forced to live out its days in an almost feral appearance or that it has been pulled out of a haunted fairy tale. It is surrounded by nature and smoke, while the other family exists at the height of luxury and urban life. There are repeated moments where Viktor’s state of arrested development seems not unlike that of the Sawyer family The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or other fringe deviants like Leslie Vernon.

Speaking of which, Repel feels cut (or rather hacked) from the same cloth as other gratuitous torture stories like Martyrs and The inside. The film’s tagline proudly boasts that this is “the most extreme film to come out of the Czech Republic.” It’s certainly as nihilistic as Central Europe’s earlier heavy horror, A Serbian film, but it is hardly as intense or with as much to say. Repulsion never feels purely like gratuitous “torture porn,” and it at least has something to say about grief, trauma, and forgiveness. There’s enough thematic heft to make this a horror film that appeals to more than just violence junkies, but mainstream viewers can crawl through the experience.

Repel is a grim cycle that inherently pushes the audience to question the point of all this violence. The film reveals an emotional catalyst for this freewheeling pain, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been explored before in other films, albeit with a less cruel and hostile sheen. Repel is full of brutal, disgusting behavior, but it’s telling that the film intentionally cuts away from the actual actions and leaves more to the audience’s imagination. It is a stylistic decision that implies Repel is not solely interested in pain and extreme violence, but rather the people behind these actions and how this trauma shapes their lives.

Repel is blunt with its aggression and violence. However, the film shows surprising restraint when it comes to exposition and the unconventional way the story unfolds, all of which make up a lot of Repulse his unnerving, unique personality. Repel is a master class in “show don’t tell” storytelling and the very sparse dialogue gives enormous weight to every spoken word. So much of Repel also intentionally hides characters’ faces, dehumanizing them in the process.

This results in an engrossing package that isn’t a failure, but all of these pieces look a lot less impressive when broken down to their basic plot elements without the benefits provided by Repulse his atypical structure. In a way, this messy structure taps into the frayed mental states of the film’s players as they all try to make sense of the cruel fates that have become their lives. That being said, Repel is at its most engaging when viewers are in the middle of this experience.

Repel rises to the occasion when it comes to unflinching tales of revenge. It’s just a sour, depressing detour that will leave gore-hounds disappointed, and the narrative is too tired to stand out from the crowd. If nothing else, Repulse his the message seems to speak to the fact that violence only begets more violence and that the best revenge really is a life well lived. Unfortunately, i Repulse his world there are just too many individuals who believe that such an existence is impossible.