Proxy (movie)

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Movie
German title Proxy
Original title Proxy
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2013
length 122 minutes
Rod
Director Zack Parker
script Kevin Donner , Zack Parker
production Faust Checho , Zack Parker
music The Newton Brothers
camera Jim Timperman
cut Zack Parker
occupation

Proxy is an American horror thriller published by Zack Parker in 2013 . Parker describes his film as a spiritual successor to the horror film Rosemary's Baby . The main character of his film, Esther Woodhouse played by Alexia Rasmussen, has been named after the heroine of the aforementioned film.

action

Esther Woodhouse, who is about to give birth to her child, is brutally attacked and injured by a hooded figure after a last appointment with her gynecologist. The hooded attacker also kills the unborn baby by hitting Esther's stomach with a brick. In the hospital, attempts are made to save the baby with a caesarean section, but it can only be delivered dead. Esther, whose child was the product of a sperm donation and who lives fairly isolated, finds consolation and attention in a self-help group , whose members are parents who have gone through similar things, even if she initially only visits them reluctantly.

There she befriends Melanie, who claims that her husband and young son Peyton were killed by a drunk driver. A scene a few days later, Esther puzzles when she happens to see Melanie in a shopping center and it seems as if she is looking for her son, whom she allegedly lost. Esther waits and watches a little later as Melanie gets a little boy out of her car. When she follows Melanie to her house, she discovers that her new friend's husband is still alive. It looks like Melanie is just faking her suffering to get attention.

Esther thinks she has to help Melanie, because deep down she would like to be a mother who has lost her child, but does not dare to take this step. She enters Melanie's house and kills the child. The boy’s father, however, surprises Esther and shoots her with a shotgun.

The frightening background to these acts and the pregnancy are revealed, it turns out that Anika Barön, Esther's lesbian lover, attacked her and killed the child in her stomach. Perhaps the sequence of events was so planned because it turns out that Esther only wanted the attention that is given to pregnant women, but without taking on the obligations that come with the birth of a child. The victim role she was given by losing her child was a bonus, so to speak.

production

It is a production by Along The Tracks and FSC Productions. The film was shot in Richmond and in the studios in Connorsville, Indiana .

reception

publication

The world premiere took place on September 10, 2013 at the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada. The film was then presented at the following festivals:

  • September 14, 2013: Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival in France
  • September 19, 2013: Austin Fantastic Fest in Texas, USA
  • October 13, 2013: Sitges Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya in Spain
  • October 20, 2013: DedFest in Canada
  • October 29, 2013: American Cinematheque in the USA
  • 0November 4, 2013: Lincoln Center Film Society in the USA
  • February 16, 2014: San Francisco Indie Fest in the USA
  • February 19, 2014: Nevermore Film Festival in the USA
  • February 21, 2014: Portland International Film Festival in the USA
  • February 28, 2014: Glasgow Fright Fest in the UK
  • March 21, 2014: Little Rock Horror Picture Show in the USA
  • 0April 4th 2014: CPH: PIX-Film Festival in Copenhagen in Denmark
  • 0April 8, 2014: Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival in the USA
  • 0April 9, 2014: International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in the USA
  • April 18, 2014: Nashville Film Festival in the USA
  • April 18, 2014: limited showing in the USA

In Germany the film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 14, 2014, in Japan in December 2016. It was also released in Russia.

criticism

At Metacritic, Proxy achieved an average critic rating of 57 out of a possible 100 points.

Mike D'Angelos spoke on The Dissolve of a real nerve-wracking cause and effect study. Finding out just what the film title actually means takes some effort. Parker's composition is clean, precise and unfussy. Admittedly, this is not a film for everyone. The performance style is purposely artificial, which might offend some. Some logic errors have to be ignored. Low-budget genre images as bold and ambitious as in Proxy are not often featured.

Brian Tallerico, a film critic of Roger Ebert , found Parker made a tough, brutal, and often addicting thriller. Tallerico went on to say that the amateurish aspects of the production would not really affect it, as a quality that was experienced as uncanny makes it difficult to shake the work, similar to the works of an early David Cronenberg , a filmmaker who also loved it, to explore the appalling depths of everyday life. Parker writes very informal dialogues and does not edit his film ineptly so that the horror emerges from the everyday or tears it apart. In conclusion, the reviewer wrote that this was a daring, confident, absolutely brutal film, probably repulsive to those who are morally unwilling to accept the descent into darkness while accepting that this darkness, which is so captivating, is based on human needs rest.

Variety's Dennis Harvey believed that the initially unpromising thriller Proxy made daring twists and turns increasingly bizarre and captivating. The story is only plausible, however, if one accepts that a murderous madman lurks in each of us. One of the film's later charms is its willingness to abruptly shift perspective from one character to another. The film delivers few frills and doesn't need it either, since it's stylistically sharp and simple as a knife.

Jeannette Catsoulis stated in the New York Times : With a scaled-down set and the audacity of a low-budget production, Mr. Parker is an intelligent and borderline filmmaker who is less concerned with logic than with how far he takes his characters can. Parker plays with extremes, as he did in his film Scalene and brings his thriller format close to a horror comedy, but not many viewers would laugh.

AA Dowd wrote for AV / Film that the greatest attribute of proxy is the deliberate dismantling of audience assumptions. Parker creates an atmosphere of vague discomfort that suggests something is wrong with the events long before the script reveals the source of the tension. Dowd said the filmmaker owed considerable thanks to his composer, the Newton Brothers, for their dark music was a perfect accompaniment to the film, especially during the flashy scene of the gruesomely slow slaughter. Finally, it said: like its characters, the film is not what it first appears to be. But he should have stopped revealing identities right before the final reveal.

Frank Voigts from Killingred recommended the film, even if it belongs in the “heavy fare” category. This is "not a film for an entertaining evening with beer and chips and nothing to really scare your wife or girlfriend again". But if you were to deliberately get involved in the film, you would be “more than sufficiently rewarded”. Although this is not a horror film in the true sense of the word, "the tricky story and the pointed violence" would captivate until the end.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Proxy - When nightmares come true: It's all downhill for the finale see dienachtderlebendentexte.wordpress.com
  2. ^ "Proxy" at Metacritic.com (English). Retrieved December 7, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Mike D'Angelo: Proxy sS thedissolve.com (English). Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  4. ^ Brian Tallerico: Proxy sS rogerebert.com, April 18, 2014 (English). Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  5. ↑ Dennis Harvey: Film Review: “Proxy” sS variety.com (English). Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  6. ^ Jeannette Catsoulis: After the Violence, the Real Pain Begins In: The New York Times , April 17, 2014
    (including film excerpt, English). Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  7. ↑ AA Dowd: The Thriller "Proxy" is at its best when throwing vieverws for a loop see film.avclub.com,
    April 17, 2014 (English). Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  8. ^ Frank Voigts: Proxy film review sS killingred.com. Retrieved August 17, 2018.