Motel Mist, 2016.
Directed by Prabda Yoon
Starring Surapol Poonpiriya, Prapamonton Eiamchan, Vasuphon Kriangprapakit, Wissanu Likitsathaporn, and Katareeya Theapchatri.
SYNOPSIS:
In just a few hours, at an unusual love motel on the outskirts of Bangkok called Motel Mistress, four (human) lives intertwine and change forever.
Motel Mist takes place at a weird out of town motel where sexual proclivity and frankly criminality are encouraged. There’s a middle aged man with a taste for school girls, a school girl he’s paid to spend the evening with, a quirky motel employee and his little sister (I assume) and a missing former child star freaking out about aliens.
This is a slow starter, and I do mean slow. Almost nothing happens for a good half an hour and even then things only gradually start to pick up. There doesn’t seem to be any real motivation for any of the characters which leaves them in a limbo of only two dimensions wherein I do not care about them, on top of this nothing really happens in the story…at all.
The film is written and shot well despite soapy, amateur performances throughout. The long lingering centred shots, capturing intriguing mise-en-scene compliment the slow arty pace of the script beautifully. The overall feel is quite unsettling with a lot of drawn out silences and nuance in the screenplay. This, accompanied by the wu-xia meets indie flick style of shooting (and nods to Psycho), creates a fairly watchable piece.
Having said that, the music is borderline non-existent and the acting really is poor across the board making it pretty difficult to care about what happens at any given point.
Motel Mist is honestly so middle of the road I’ve actually run out of things to say about it. It’s fine. It’s different, but not original. It’s creepy, but not scary. It’s a film, but it’s not a good one.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film ★ ★ / Movie ★ ★
Olly Krizan
