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Reviews
Masking Threshold (2021)
A squandered premise on a shoestring budget
This is a master class on how to waste a clever little gimmick and a very intriguing premise. I got suckered in because this was tagged as "fantasy" - so I was hoping that this (pretentious and deeply unlikable) protagonist's forays into amateur scientific research would yield something that contained even a grain of actual fantasy, or really anything cooler than an hour and a half of him droning on and on...and on.
Good job on the macro videography, I guess. Hence the extra star. Sound design gets a C; for something this reliant on someone's inner world of mysterious aural phenomena, they could have done WAY better than the unimaginative Audacity-generated white noise soundscapes wheezing and whooshing their way through the film's runtime. As a sound designer and musician, I felt personally insulted that someone got paid for this (albeit probably not much).
I have a particular hatred of letdown films. When a film is terrible from the get-go, you can at least turn it off before you invested too much time and attention into it to do so in good conscience. It took almost half of the film for me to realize there is no mind-blowing Cronenbergian payoff, just an incredibly lazy and hackneyed "I don't really have the imagination to carry this into any of the million directions it could have gone, so here's something you've seen executed way better a million times" resolution.
Well, Mr. Grenzfurthner, if I ever encounter you at a social function, I am certain to give you an earful. I will drone on and on about how lame this film was, and how you could have done better. I will pepper my tirade with a bunch of obscure science fiction and fantasy recommendations for you to read and watch, subtly indicating my cultural credibility. Oh, and as I do so, I will get uncomfortably close to your face and study your clogged pores. Then maybe - just maybe! - you will understand what it is like to experience this film as an audience member.
In fact, Mr. Grenzfurthner: the only reason I even bothered to write this review is because I hope you will read it...and promptly feel shame for squandering a legitimately cool premise. Heck, if you actually want to hear my incredibly long laundry list of plot suggestions (or just heckle me for being a jerk), do a web search for "tartar oneira" and find me through my ambient psychedelia project.