How would you like Sonia to be your cat?
(2015) Horror (Artsploitation) Adrian Tofei, Sonia Teodoriu, Florentina Hariton, Alexandra Stroe, GiEmSi, Donna Tofei. Directed by Adrian Tofei
Love and obsession can be two sides of the same coin. What happens when one becomes the other can be frightening indeed, particularly when the obsessive is a psychopath.
Adrian (Tofei) is a budding filmmaker who lives in a small Romanian town, but that doesn’t preclude him from big dreams. He has an idea for a movie and only one actress will do – Anne Hathaway. To a sense, he’s somewhat pragmatic; he realizes that an actress of her stature isn’t going to give the time of day to just anyone. What he decides to do is make a kind of video pitch to her, showing her the film he intends to make with her using other actresses to fill in her role so she can get a sense of the movie he wants to make.
At first, Adrian seems a likable film dork. He lives with his mom (D. Tofei) and has rented out a pension to do his filming in. He has informed all and sundry around the area that he is making a horror film and not to be alarmed at shrieks and loud voices.
It seems pretty cinema verité to the actresses he hires. Sonia (Teodoriu) gets frustrated at Adrian’s barebones direction, telling her to find a solution to what appears to be contradictory directions. Finally, after Adrian stages an abduction scene, the actress isn’t aware that he’s using real chloroform, or that he’s planning a real murder with her as the star.
When the second actress, Flory (Hariton) arrives, Adrian is severely disappointed. For one thing, the actress has gained weight since she took the head shots and video that she submitted. For another thing, she seems more interested in having sex with Adrian than in acting in his film. Adrian is genuinely embarrassed by this and the results for Flory are fairly gruesome.
Finally there’s Alexandra (Stroe), the third actress. By this time, Adrian believes he’s ready for the real Anne Hathaway and that he doesn’t need to murder a third actress to play the part with his beloved Anne. That leaves the question; what to do with Alexandra? She certainly doesn’t want to die for her art.
This is a found footage-style horror film with a budget that is virtually non-existent and was raised by an Indie-Go-Go campaign. Tofei, who was inspired by a one-man stage show he performed as a similar character, does virtually everything from writing and directing to starring to editing to distributing to publicizing to producing and he probably made sandwiches for the cast and crew which was largely just him.
He does a pretty satisfactory job as the obsessed directorial wanna-be. The longer the film goes, the more manic and crazed Adrian becomes until he is clearly around the bend by the final act. There are some maniacal giggles that are a bit over-the-top but Adrian’s lunacy is completely believable, from the repetition of his dialogue to the disarming but sinister grin. That the actresses willingly put themselves in situations in which a monster like Adrian can do his dark deeds is also believable.
Most of the film is shot in Adrian’s actual home and on the street nearby. While the fictional Adrian is agoraphobic and refuses to leave his small town, the real Adrian actually lived in Bucharest and moved back home to make his movie. The first actress got so freaked out that she actually called the police for real; the footage of their arrival made it into the final film. More to the point, the third act is so intense, the second so bloody that the end credit disclaimer “No persons or animals were harmed in the making of this film” actually came as a relief to this reviewer who was beginning to wonder if what it was I was viewing wasn’t a Romanian snuff film. Also pictures of the alive and well actresses at the film’s festival debut were also quite reassuring. That’s impressive, especially for a first-time filmmaker.
The intensity level might be a drawback for some. Adrian is rather cruel to his actresses, calling one fat and another untalented. My understanding is that the actresses were not informed in advance of a lot of the things that happened in the film in order to make their reactions more believable. Each of the actresses are beautiful and talented; each one creates a distinct character – the mousy Sonia, the forward Flory and the quick-witted Alexandra.
This is a refreshing and new take on found footage (and incidentally the first found footage film produced in Romania) which is a headline in and of itself. While the issues that are problematic for that genre (i.e. shaky handheld camera inducing vertigo in the viewer, poor lighting) remain, the performances more than make up for the drawbacks. The last third of the film really held me spellbound and I literally had no idea how it would end. That’s the mark of a great filmmaker.
REASONS TO GO: A strong performance by Tofei and the three actresses as well. The blood-soaked second act and tense third act are worthy of much larger productions.
REASONS TO STAY: At times the low budget is pretty obvious. The handheld camera is on occasion nausea-inducing.
FAMILY VALUES: Some very intense peril, strong violence and a bit of profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: In order to maintain a feeling of realism, Tofei shot nearly all of the footage himself. This also helped with budget constraints.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Vimeo (coming to Amazon Prime in January 2017)
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/6/16: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: My Date with Drew
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Arrival
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