The penultimate day of the Sitges Festival surprises us with It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This by Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti, Cloud by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and The Soul Eater by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo

Penultimate day of the Sitges Festival which made us get back into the habit of running between the Meliá and the Cinema Prado to see The Devourer of Souls by the duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, a special session because it is accompanied by a question and answer session.

But first there was a morning session to see It doesn’t get any better than this in the Tramuntana Hall. The screening began with a speech by the director who explained the film to us, but who also played with the audience by proposing a sort of ritual to immerse themselves further in the story. The film made by the protagonist couple, Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti, transports us to a couple of years ago through Found Footage, but also plays with ghost houses. and what appears to be a strange ritual that attracts people from the street to observe the house without doing anything else.

The premise is interesting and the introduction made before starting the film seemed to promise us an interesting film. But as the show progresses we realize that it ends up becoming a bit of a joke and joke, especially the overly long and meaningless ritual scene, I would swear it comes to 5 minutes, after It is also full of exaggerated sounds and the main character’s screaming and laughing becomes unbearable as she can’t say an entire sentence without laughing.which ends up making the film seem too amateurish.

Visually it has interesting ideas and some nice shots, but knowing that it is a found footage there are superfluous scenes such as those recorded with the cell phone. so as not to interrupt the dynamic according to which it is a found footage of a “damned” film. It’s a shame because the film is full of interesting ideas, the people looking at the house, the graffiti or the supposed idea that triggers the chase in the final part, but in the end it doesn’t know how to solve such a mess and ends up resorting to a very simple different path.

Then they also played one of the most anticipated shows of the Sitiges Festival, but it is in the Órbita section, Cloud by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japanese director known for films such as Warrior, TreatmentYes Tokyo Sonata. The auditorium room was completely full waiting to see what the filmmaker will surprise us with a plot that seems simple, but we all know how the author spends it with his twists and the development of the themes of his films. This time Cloud focuses on a boy who is dedicated to reselling items online, but everything starts to go wrong when his actions start to impact his personal life.

Expectations for the film were very high due to its track record at previous festivals and its great reception, but in Sitges it seems to have been experienced differently due to how it felt at the end of the screening. Cloud It has a very interesting premise on the relationship of digital in our reality and the repercussions it has on our lives. Also knowing the director you can expect something more exciting and with some interesting twists, but The film has two very different segments, the first the plot of the protagonist selling and looking for a way to make a living and the second focusing on the consequences of the protagonist’s actions.

Kurosawa also puts a lot of care into photography with a constant presence of blue in almost all of his shots, also using the Windows background as a resource to highlight the color even more. Beyond the special cinematography that the film features, it starts to taper off as it progresses and lasts just over two hours. Although the last third is quite interesting in its management of tension, some moments become very comical in a film that has a very serious weight and is devoted to a thriller until the end.

Finally, it was one of the most awaited moments, the screening of The Devourer of Souls by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, who at the end of the screening was accompanied by a round of questions and answers with the directors. The Devourer of Souls it’s an interesting leap in the filmography of the director duo that brought us Inbeing a crime thriller with horror touches about a small French town that is the target of a series of macabre murders At the same time, the legend of a demonic being stalking the city’s forests begins to revive.

The film was a great surprise, much appreciated. after a series of films that didn’t quite sit with audiences, but with The Devourer of Souls They came up with a very interesting story that grabs you right from the start for the mystery of the pair of characters and the intrigues that are opening up about what is happening in the city. For fans of the French directing duo who are expecting a film full of blood and violent scenes, we must warn you that the film doesn’t go that far.but it has a couple of interesting scenes and the gore doesn’t disappoint.

The story is very interesting and develops at a good pace during the almost two hours of film. Furthermore, the question and answer round was very entertaining and the directors lovingly conveyed their love for cinema and their films and gave us a lot of information about its production. They also added that there is a longer version of the film with more gory scenes and that it could satisfy viewers who expect more revenge in the final stretch. of the film.