My Animal
Heather, an outcast teenage goalie in a small northern town, falls for newcomer Jonny, an alluring but tormented figure skater. As their relationship deepens, Heather’s growing desires clash with her darkest secret, forcing her to control the animal within.
- Released: 2023-01-23
- Runtime: 99 minutes
- Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Romance
- Stars: Bobbi Salvör Menuez, Cory Lipman, Amandla Stenberg, Joe Apollonio, Stephen McHattie, Bill MacDonald, Heidi von Palleske, Dean McDermott, Scott Thompson
- Director: Jacqueline Castel
Comments
- countinreykjavik - 5 April 2024
Loved everything about this...
I can't understand the low reviews for this. The score alone is incredible, composed by Augustus Muller from Boy Harsher whos bandmate Jae Matthews wrote the script.
The film itself is dark and brooding and so full of red imagery one would think Nicolas Winding Refn was behind it. It never really explodes into outright horror but just keeps everything simmering beneath the surface and the movie is all the better for it in my opinion.
It is primarily a love story and the chemistry between the two lovers is portrayed very well on screen in the cold Canadian winter. This is definitely a movie I'll be recommending to others... - chenp-54708 - 14 September 2023
Strong atmosphere, but decent slice-of-life horror romance
Firstly, I appreciate the strong atmosphere and creative take on the horror romance genre as director Jacqueline Castlel does offer strong sense of direction on creating the atmosphere, characters, and narrative. Castel proves she has talents on film directing after creating various music videos for various artists like Zola Jesus, Moon Duo and Jim Jarmusch. Premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in the Midnight Selection, while ambitious, it was a decent slice-of-life romance horror movie.
Throughout, the production is solid and the camerawork is pretty good on capturing the Canadian landscapes and snowy atmosphere setting. There are some amazing visual presentations as the visuals felt dream-like, strange and colorful which reminded a lot of 80s and giallo horror visuals. Most of the performances were solid as the main leads are pretty good with some decent chemistry between one another.
The narrative and concept about queer lovers and werewolves is pretty awesome as not often LGBTQ themed concepts in horror genres are explored. However, while the narrative does offer some good ideas, the narrative doesn't feel as strong as it was hoping for. Many concepts that could have been explored wasn't really fully utilized which made the characters not fully interesting nor connectable.
There are good themes explored about sexuality, identity and societal expectations as the themes were explored but some themes could have used a little work on fully developing the characters. The musical soundtrack is pretty good which brought a good 80s vibe to it. The dialogue is solid while there were a few dialogue moments that felt kind of rough.
Overall, it's clear the movie has ambition and there are strong direction and good metaphors are explored, yet, needed some improvements. Decent Midnight Flick.
