lazarillo This phantasmagorical French horror movie is about a young college student who is dealing with troubling memories of her past by studying Freud and experimenting with "lucid dreaming". When her maternal grandmother dies, she joins her mother in her grandparent's country estate where she uses her lucid dreaming skills to uncover dark family secrets.This film somewhat reminded me of the Walerian Borowzyk film "La Bete", but without the shocking imagery or nearly as strong of a grasp of Freudian surrealism. The "Horsehead" monster that haunts the dreams of the heroine may be the literal embodiment of a "nightmare" (or "cauchemare" in French), but horses are such magnificent and beautiful animals that it's hard to make them look too frightening or threatening. The weird imagery and occasionally effective atmosphere of this film is somewhat of a throwback to an earlier era, and it is refreshing in an age where "horror" is often synonymous with tons of gory effects, "torture porn", and shot-on-video "found-footage" bullsh*t. But the images, while pretty and colorful, are a little pedestrian and frankly just not all scary.The movie does get a lot of mileage out of pretty, young French actress Lily-Fleur Pointeaux. I think at least half the audience will be very favorably disposed to scenes where she luxuriates in a bathtub with her magnificent breasts bobbing and glistening (bobbing and glistening. . .). But she also does a decent job carrying the principal weight of this movie, especially considering I've only previously seen her in small supporting roles in films like "Ma Premiere Pas" and "We Need a Vacation".This film could have used some stronger and perhaps more shocking imagery like "La Bete" or the more recent French/Belgian film "Amer", but it's not an entirely unpleasant way to pass 90 minutes.

Cathex Visually this film is at times quite stunning, but beyond that there's not much else to recommend it.Unfortunately one reviewer had to compare it to Dario Argento's work, which then started a trend. In reality it is only the director of photography that resembled Argento in this film, the actual director had some nice ideas but fails to hold the film together. The comparison with such a brilliant director is nothing short of total nonsense.The cinematography was the best part of this movie, providing a powerfully attractive opening scene which exquisitely recreates Fuseli's 18th century oil painting, The Nightmare. After this point however the film is gradually let down by weak acting, a poor script and an overall immature plot.That's unfortunate because it seems this film had potential, taking iconography from sleep paralysis, some interesting ideas provided by Jungian psychology and consistently attractive scene construction. But all of this gets flushed down the pan by a director who seems determined to compromise everything this film could have been with an over reliance on visual effects and music apparently compensating for a lack of any real substance.This film is the work of a great cinematographer and a director that needs to develop his ability, especially his screen writing.

fernandomancinelli86 An absolute joyride of a movie , with twists in its plot so simple but yet so touching , the psyche , the heart. Its all entangled into this huge Beautiful film that whatever everyone might say ....... its a jewel in brute , anybody can do blood and guts but not anybody cant touch your mind and heart in ways like Horsehead does. I wish to applaud the director of photography. The Scenes are wonderfully done , beautiful not so much dialogue but with such scenes .......... it does not even needs to be an actor talking or such but again such a great cast. It has taints of the great Dario Argento , Some of Kubrick and I totally found some Clive Barker at his Best in here with Hellraiser 1986 ........ for those who love Cinema, Please support this movie and if you are disappointed i clearly wont understand why , and you are missing the whole point of the dedication and passion put into this. ITS ART IN ITS MORE ABSTRACT YET BEAUTIFULLY POINTED OUT AND PURE AND RAW WAY. My favorite thus far. 10/10 And if i could give it a 12 i would.

angiris As my supremely long title highlights I view this as a complete mess.I've read the above reviews. 9 out of 10. Fair enough. Can I ask why? What makes you think this film's story...and lets start there... can compare to some of the BEST films ever made? Because these reviews sure don't express why that is. They just praise it. Slap a tall rating on it. No indication as to why specifically... I'm gonna tell you exactly what you're gonna get here. And I'm not dazzled or smitten by the "artisticness" of this film. This "masterpiece" takes place in our main protagonists mind for 95 % of the entire film. As we all know dreams as well as nightmares consist of immaterialistic states (no solid fundament) Now...imagine a 90 minute film like that. The film is all over the place. We got symbols of nature, of chaos, of death, of religion both biblical and satanic. This all sounds interesting right. Now...imagine all this without a red line. THAT...is where the fun stops. You will have no clue as to what is going on for 70 % of the time during each scene. In regard to putting this film into perspective I'd like to highlight a little film called Haunting of the Innocent.This is ALMOST the level of sheer chaos I'm talking about. I am so tired of films that are pumped with "artictic features" to make it strike you as if the director as well as writer had great plans for it WHEREAS the execution is nothing short of mad pandemonium.In the start of the film we are explained about 1 big feature of her dreams in a way. The horse. Its meaning as a messenger of death and more. Ferryman even. But shortly afterwards we are pushed into the deep end of the pool where were struggling for breath. The film phases back and forth between her various dreams. We jump in small lengths of time.Alright. Here's what you'll see basically. We see all these various scenes jumping from mythological and biblical torture to swimming, to drowning, to near lesbian intimacy during a bathtub scene, to a demonic horse headed creature stabbing people for...reasons... to a wolf walking around without any clear point or purpose (since its her dream) And then we got a red riding hood scenario (Im not joking) Except the wolf is the good guy and it gets killed by the horse demon thing. And during this dream! You got the main protagonists mother trying to stuff her full of pills. Then she goes back to dreaming or having nightmares... and the freak show continues because....well... In the words of the show must go on? She then goes on to find a key to SOMETHING inside the wolf's body. She goes on to this big church she's near and walks inside to find the her mother giving birth to her and another child whilst Satan or someone is cursing the birth. Ultimately she uses this key which transforms into a massive object to kill the horse monster, then twist it to unlock his body to open a door which leads her to a copy or twin of herself. Probably her lost sibling we saw from her dream. Then the entire film ENDS...filming the sibling get reborn and our protagonist die.THE ENDThat, ladies and gentlemen... is my own personal definition from this moment on of what a true, certifiable mind blown experience is like. And I don't mean that positively in any regard. Holy mother of god.Now. I'd like to highlight I know the symbolic meaning of many of these animals. I appreciate the concept of compiling in a particular context. But I cannot approve of something that is executed this manner. It is mindless and utterly incomprehensible for most of the time and you will at no point be introduced to the greater meaning of ANYTHING of this. We are...(and I have no other way of putting it)... ALL over the place in this film. And as any good grammar teacher would tell you; You must have good structure and a red line through the stuff you've written because you gotta make sure people can understand it first and foremost!. Well you wont find that here. You might get smitten by what the director many included features and mind numbing visuals but you gotta ask yourself; is that really what you wanna take away from a film? Opium to numb your brain thinking you love what you just saw due to the effect? Or did you just watch an utter mess with absolutely no rime nor reason to it WHICH has zero replay value on top of it. Incomprehensible madness, ladies and gentlemen. Incomprehensible...madness. Its my opinion that if you watch something like this and you're like: ohhh and ahhh. This is some sorta masterpiece for sure. The music, the scenery, the symbolic meaning of the creatures we are introduced to is blowing my mind. I bet you are dazzled by the sheer chaoticness of this mess and not fully understanding what you are dealing with so you just rate it high because...you think its a masterpiece without TRULY grasping what you're dealing with. I cannot stress the meaning of "non-sensical" to critically significant extent. Anyway, my dear readers. That is the film. That is horse head. Evidently horse head has a symbolic meaning to it. A jail-ish symbolic gesture of a sort though I have never heard of anything of the sort. Apparently the Director and Writer have so thats fine...You have this review based on my own personal experience watching this plus some more. Judge for yourself. Have a good one guys. I gotta get some air and re-evaluate what I'm doing with my life.