Vivarium [2020]
Aug. 8th, 2020 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
singedsunAnother rendition of "I Watch Bad Horror Movies So You Don't Have To" theater.
Over the weekend Matt and I watched the new Amazon Prime movie, Vivarium. This movie with a very odd premise caught our attention back when the trailer came out and we've both been eager to watch it. The movie stars Imogen Poots & Jesse Eisenberg as a couple searching for a home to move into together, a house somewhere vaguely outside London.
They're taken in by a very strange man at the housing office who convinces them to come on a quick trip to the newest neighborhood, Yonder. The houses their are copy/pasted from space to space - all the same color, size, shape, lawn. They come to #9 and the guy from the office leads them on a tour throughout the house. Near the end of the tour, after showing off a very eerie ability to mimic the voice of the woman, the man from the housing office disappears while the character's backs are turned.
The couple attempt to leave when they can't find him and in their car trying various routes and turns to leave the neighborhood they always end up coming back around to #9 with it's open door and lights on. When the car runs out of gas on one of these many attempts to flee the house, they must face the open door and the small bit of food the housing agent had left with Champagne in the fridge.
From here, the movie just keeps on spiraling. The couple makes a whole day's attempt at leaving via the connected lawns. before eventually getting fed up with the place and burning the whole house to the ground. In the morning the house has returned in place and there's a box in the road waiting for them. The box contains a baby and a note: "Raise the Child and Be Released".
I don't want to spoil things, but it's obvious from the trailers that things don't go well. This couple doesn't take well to having a baby forced on them, let alone the odd one they've been saddled with.
Overall I think the abstract and absurd elements were done well here. I'm not sure it completely qualifies as a horror movie (but I'm counting it based on a few spoilery things). But it's more like a absurdist science fiction film.
After a few days of thinking about it though I think there's an argument to be made about this movie from a ex-Vangelical standpoint. Specifically I was thinking about some of my ex-JW friends or ex-Mormon friends that would maybe see this movie with a different light. Going there would get a little spoilery, but if you want to talk about it more in the comments, I can add to that.
Has anyone else seen this yet? What did you think?
Over the weekend Matt and I watched the new Amazon Prime movie, Vivarium. This movie with a very odd premise caught our attention back when the trailer came out and we've both been eager to watch it. The movie stars Imogen Poots & Jesse Eisenberg as a couple searching for a home to move into together, a house somewhere vaguely outside London.
They're taken in by a very strange man at the housing office who convinces them to come on a quick trip to the newest neighborhood, Yonder. The houses their are copy/pasted from space to space - all the same color, size, shape, lawn. They come to #9 and the guy from the office leads them on a tour throughout the house. Near the end of the tour, after showing off a very eerie ability to mimic the voice of the woman, the man from the housing office disappears while the character's backs are turned.
The couple attempt to leave when they can't find him and in their car trying various routes and turns to leave the neighborhood they always end up coming back around to #9 with it's open door and lights on. When the car runs out of gas on one of these many attempts to flee the house, they must face the open door and the small bit of food the housing agent had left with Champagne in the fridge.
From here, the movie just keeps on spiraling. The couple makes a whole day's attempt at leaving via the connected lawns. before eventually getting fed up with the place and burning the whole house to the ground. In the morning the house has returned in place and there's a box in the road waiting for them. The box contains a baby and a note: "Raise the Child and Be Released".
I don't want to spoil things, but it's obvious from the trailers that things don't go well. This couple doesn't take well to having a baby forced on them, let alone the odd one they've been saddled with.
Overall I think the abstract and absurd elements were done well here. I'm not sure it completely qualifies as a horror movie (but I'm counting it based on a few spoilery things). But it's more like a absurdist science fiction film.
After a few days of thinking about it though I think there's an argument to be made about this movie from a ex-Vangelical standpoint. Specifically I was thinking about some of my ex-JW friends or ex-Mormon friends that would maybe see this movie with a different light. Going there would get a little spoilery, but if you want to talk about it more in the comments, I can add to that.
Has anyone else seen this yet? What did you think?
