January 2, 2017 -- This movie looks like a foreign film, with a lot of the dialog in Portuguese, but according to the IMDB listing it was made in the good old US of A, complete with bad country music playing on the pickup radio.

This sad, dark horror film, shot in black and white, has some really ugly monsters in it who are human in nature, but under the spell of terribly dark impulses. In the lighter parts of the film, a mother (played by Diana Agostini of “The Godfather Part III”) who was formerly a Portuguese eye doctor, jauntily cuts out an eye from the head of a decapitated cow on the kitchen table and shows the child what is inside.

This may sound a bit crude, but this schooling about eyes comes in handy for the daughter, Francisca (played as an adult by Kika Magalhaes of “Vamp Bikers”) who does crude surgery on various people unlucky enough to cross her path. Francisca is scarred as a child by her father's indifference and her mother's murder by a stranger (played by Will Brill of “Up the River”). The stranger, Charlie, gets his kicks by murdering people.

Francisca's strange father (Paul Nazak) catches Charlie in the act of killing his wife. He locks the stranger in the barn, where Francisca conducts some surgical experiments on him, rendering him sightless and voiceless. Francisca and her father don't bother the police with such trivialities as murder, they unceremoniously bury her mother in the woods. Things get weird after that as Francisca kidnaps and murders people, and perhaps also engages in cannibalism.

Francisca ends up alone, until she manages to capture a child and her mother, her idea of a family. She also goes bar-hopping and picks up a friendly stranger Kimiko (Clara Wong of “Exposed”). The only person in the film who seems to be having a good time is Charlie, the man who kills Francisca's mother, and even he doesn't enjoy his lengthy torture-filled stay on the farm with Francisca.

The colorless, emotionless life of Francisca and her father is reflected in the muted black and white cinematography of the film. The terrible loneliness and emotional pain of Francisca seems muted in this low key film, where even murders don't seem to generate much excitement. This is a very uninspiring movie about people who seem to be going through the motions of life with no real life inside them.

I suppose that fans of horror films might like this, but I sure could not see any point to it. The film was written and directed by first-time director Nicolas Pesce. This film rates a D.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

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