This dark gem of a film is exactly what I needed to watch tonight. I think I was way too happy. I had started this about five days ago, and something rare happened: I had to turn it off. This is the first film that actually made me flinch and walk away in recent memory. I was sure that would have been Antichrist, but here we are, and without any real gore and barely any violence.

A lot goes right all at once here. Robert Pycior's score is arresting enough that people are discussing it in its own right. By the time the first set of scenes closes, I was already trying to stop comparing it to Schnittke and Berio and Crumb and hear it in its own right instead of hearing my references in it. The wavering wordless choral voices and the violin slurs set a perfect uncanny tone of dread that match the cinematography perfectly. I could say more about the music but the point is it starts good, it stays good, it ends good.

My problem with comparing this to old favorites persisted as the narrative threw a series of amazing shifts that used familiar tricks in a seamless way that had me missing them until they happened and then laughing at how new and dark they felt. There is a caper sequence that reminded me of nothing more than the surprise I felt at the start of the now-famous tracking shot in True Detective. The tone and pace shift suddenly and deftly and it just works.

In thinking about what to write here, I watched the first seven minutes again and realize I will be rewatching this because there is a lot I missed. The way this movie is structured, my experience was that I solved the puzzle several times in different ways, and they all made sense, but I did not place all of the solutions together and it was a bleak but very satisfying surprise. I am glad I came back to finish this because once I got through the initial shock, this was just so grim and so disturbingly fun at once that I sat there reflecting and watched the credits through. Worth it.

I'm sticking this in my Slightly Hidden Horror Gems list now, but provisionally, because I am not sure this will stay hidden for long.