I saw that Shudder had a new movie from David Moreau, one of the directors of that 2006 French movie THEM (ILS). We all thought that one was scary at the time, I seem to remember. He had one last year called MADS that I’ve been intending to see but this OTHER stars Olga Kurylenko, and I enjoy her action works such as SENTINELLE, THE PRINCESS, HIGH HEAT and BOUDICA: QUEEN OF WAR, so I got right to it.

Let me tell you, this is a weird role for her, and a weird movie. Her character Alice returns to her childhood home after the death of her estranged mother. She spends much of the movie hanging out alone and pantsless in the house, smokes an old joint, gets nostalgic for her teenage years, also starts to hear weird noises like there’s an animal sneaking around, also is being spied on by a drone and hunting cameras, also is kind of a nut so she gets drunk and wanders in the woods wearing her Miss Teen USA gown. Eventually she’ll find out what that noise is and also be trapped in a bunker by a teen wearing a mask (Sacha Nugent) and also find out shocking secrets about her past and also by the way for many years someone or something in the area has been eating the faces of animals and people, including her mom.

None of that is the weird part though. That starts in Alice’s introduction back home, having disappointing sex with her boyfriend Charlie (Philip Schurer, “Screaming Man,” THE SUBSTANCE). He’s on top of her, then he falls off the bed like he’s dead, turns out to be joking, dances around under a sheet (like a wisecracking Michael Meyers), continues his routine into the steamy shower, oblivious to the fact that he lasted like a minute and didn’t make her cum. She gets the bad news in the morning and leaves before he wakes up, and even if this is your first ever motion picture you’re gonna wonder why during all this they avoided ever showing Charlie’s face.

My top guess was that there would be some twist that wouldn’t work if we knew what Charlie looked like. But then again, I made the connection that in the prologue about the death of Alice’s mother we never saw her face either – she puts on a compression mask thing. I liked that touch, I think it’s supposed to be a beauty product, but it looks like some bizarre HELLRAISER shit. Added to the faceless Charlie, though, it’s suspicious.

Then Alice gets to the house and there are workers talking to her from outside the door, we don’t see them either. She gets mad at her security touch screen and punches it, so later when people come to the door they’re on a cracked screen, we can’t make them out either. For most of the movie we only see Olga’s face.

And I’m not complaining about that, but it’s such a conspicuous gimmick it’s hard to forget about it. I had to keep wondering if she was a ghost, or the last person on earth, or what. Meanwhile, there’s something odd about her obsessing over childhood stuff, finding the letterman’s jacket of the boy who took her virginity, sniffing it BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN style, putting it on when she’s hanging out in her panties. I get that the death in the family and return to her childhood home are bringing this on, but it just seems weird seeing Kurylenko act like a teen. Maybe it’s not fair to her, but she just has a feeling of eternal maturity to her. Only when they talked about her being in high school in 1999 did I realize that she’s younger than me, but still, she’s in her mid forties. It’s weird.

That’s okay. Weird stuff should happen in horror movies. Here’s another thing. She watches home videos of herself as a teenager, played by Lola Bonaventure (no other credits) but the voice seems to be Kurylenko pitched up, sounding like when adults play kids in the dubs of old Gamera movies. The teen with the mask sounds similar, and much of the non-Alice dialogue – coming from people without their faces visible – is clearly ADR. It gives it a goofy sense of un-reality that I feel like might work if it was stylized and operatic like an Argento movie or something, but it’s not at all.

Anyway, here’s the kicker: none of this is required for setting up the twist. It’s thematic, I guess. Her mom was obsessed with impossible beauty standards, among other issues. Faces are a motif. One beautiful one, a whole bunch that have been munched off. So why not only ever show one actor’s face, I guess? On account of it’s artistic. That’s all I got.

I don’t blame Kurylenko, who gives it her all, and it’s at least interesting to see her doing something different. There is a pretty cool monster (?) and another creepy mask. There is definitely some craziness in the end, but probly not enough to make up for the less intentional seeming silliness earlier.

I thought I reviewed ILS, but I guess I just mentioned it when I reviewed the similar THE STRANGERS. Now that I think about it I do remember thinking it sorta fell apart when you got to the twist (SPOILER FOR ILS) and found out these scary stalkers are just kids. It even seemed a bit paranoid, like a “these kids these days are out of control” type of message, but I doubt it was meant that way. OTHER’s twist is more unhinged, more Tobe-Hooper-TOOLBOX-MURDERS-Coffin-Baby-esque, which is a compliment. It’s heightened enough to make me partly forgive the triteness of all the beauty queen stuff and a bit about true crime Youtubers. Partly. I don’t think this one is very good, but it’s interesting at least.