Nocebo had a good start... that opening definitly drew me in with that weird tick infested dog appearing out of nowhere.
The female main actors are great and there is some suspense building when the philippine maid arrives and its not clear if the female main character has amnesia or this is some kind of con.
The main character fell ill after being bit by a tick in the opening scene. She is working in the fashion industry and there was some kind of incident that triggered her illness which could be psychosomatic or from an infection. The whole dog/tick thing was too weird to be taken as seen, so we are unsure about that for quite a while.
Anyway, the maid that is supposed to take care of the feisty daughter soon is revealed to be a kind of witch using her healing power on the woman while slowly getting closer to her daughter. Beside using her unorthodox healing methods on the woman, collecting blood and hair from the woman, praying in front of an altar and having weird interactions with ticks and birds the maid is also hiding the womans medication and connecting with the daughter behind her back secretly. The husband is suspicious from the get-go but pretty much ignored on the sidelines for most of the story.
Nocebo really is a solid movie but any movie freak will guess the ending after 15 Minutes. The movie tries to be atmospheric and mysterious but the puzzle pieces are dropped right away. The horror tropes of vengeful ghosts coming to punish the sins of the greedy are mixed with some interesting eastern witchcraft elements and symbolism that is so wooden, i would have never guessed they would really go there.
After a while the movie feels drawn out because you pretty much know whats going on and only wait for a reveal to the opening scene and constantly re-appearing ticks. And that is the final straw that only reveals the script to be extremely bad and cringe. Not only is the movie totally predictable but the symbolism really ends up being "western fashion industry is a leech on the third world" amplified by scenes showing the woman locking fire exits so the workers don't steal shirts which makes her some kind of cartoonish Cruella of this movie. The stupid story about the tick infested dog and the bad FX of giant ticks and closeups of the dog do the rest.
Its really a shame they were so lazy on central parts of this movie because there was some really interesting elements in the backstory of the philippine witch and her relationship to the daughter. The actress playing the witch had an interesting mix of sweetness and sinistery that gave a lot of suspense to the movie But the cheesy horror elements unfortunately drowned out that part for me. In the end i was happy to see that the womans red shoes while not being the lucky charm she hoped for were at least fire resistant and protected her feet.
If you like witch and ghost movies have a go... its definitly not a bad movie (I was weirdly reminded of "Last night in Soho" by the fashion industry background and ghosts in burning buildings part) but could have used some more time on fleshing out that script and connecting the threads.
The female main actors are great and there is some suspense building when the philippine maid arrives and its not clear if the female main character has amnesia or this is some kind of con.
The main character fell ill after being bit by a tick in the opening scene. She is working in the fashion industry and there was some kind of incident that triggered her illness which could be psychosomatic or from an infection. The whole dog/tick thing was too weird to be taken as seen, so we are unsure about that for quite a while.
Anyway, the maid that is supposed to take care of the feisty daughter soon is revealed to be a kind of witch using her healing power on the woman while slowly getting closer to her daughter. Beside using her unorthodox healing methods on the woman, collecting blood and hair from the woman, praying in front of an altar and having weird interactions with ticks and birds the maid is also hiding the womans medication and connecting with the daughter behind her back secretly. The husband is suspicious from the get-go but pretty much ignored on the sidelines for most of the story.
Nocebo really is a solid movie but any movie freak will guess the ending after 15 Minutes. The movie tries to be atmospheric and mysterious but the puzzle pieces are dropped right away. The horror tropes of vengeful ghosts coming to punish the sins of the greedy are mixed with some interesting eastern witchcraft elements and symbolism that is so wooden, i would have never guessed they would really go there.
After a while the movie feels drawn out because you pretty much know whats going on and only wait for a reveal to the opening scene and constantly re-appearing ticks. And that is the final straw that only reveals the script to be extremely bad and cringe. Not only is the movie totally predictable but the symbolism really ends up being "western fashion industry is a leech on the third world" amplified by scenes showing the woman locking fire exits so the workers don't steal shirts which makes her some kind of cartoonish Cruella of this movie. The stupid story about the tick infested dog and the bad FX of giant ticks and closeups of the dog do the rest.
Its really a shame they were so lazy on central parts of this movie because there was some really interesting elements in the backstory of the philippine witch and her relationship to the daughter. The actress playing the witch had an interesting mix of sweetness and sinistery that gave a lot of suspense to the movie But the cheesy horror elements unfortunately drowned out that part for me. In the end i was happy to see that the womans red shoes while not being the lucky charm she hoped for were at least fire resistant and protected her feet.
If you like witch and ghost movies have a go... its definitly not a bad movie (I was weirdly reminded of "Last night in Soho" by the fashion industry background and ghosts in burning buildings part) but could have used some more time on fleshing out that script and connecting the threads.