By Marti Dols Roca.

The Incredible Story Of Stone Boy follows Marina and her cousins in a quest to help a young man who having lost his will for living has been turned into a marble statue unable to see, hear, smell, touch or taste (or move or do anything at all basically). With the collaboration of the Wind of the West (a talking cloud with a Southern accent), Marina and company visit the land of the senses and face a series of challenges to bring back the joy of living to their stoned (had to…will come back to that) friend.

The story teaches a lesson about family unit, friendship and positive attitude towards life in general. As a metaphor to portray the difficulty of getting into teenage years but being able to find a way to enjoy them instead of just getting stoned and moody (told ya…) I have to say it works; and I’m being completely honest right now. I really think the parallelism and the fable articulated around it is quite a beautiful way of delivering the message intended.

That being said, I find two main problems with The Stone Boy: first off, the animation by itself is quite basic and not really able to compete against other similar products which look way cooler (using the audience language). It’s true that the visuals, the colours and the aesthetics are somehow appealing mixing child-like motives with Latin-American mythological imagery; however, that is not enough to keep a child’s attention (at all) when you have Peppa Pig (or whatever) one TV station away.

The other flaw I’d point out is the following: the way I see it, this is a movie addressed to little children (pre-school and not much above) with a message that talks about a life stage quite far away from the potential audience one. On the other hand, maybe it’s a good way to start preparing them (so a few years after they will be like: now I get it) or making it easier for them to understand why their older brother has suddenly turned into a block (last one, I swear).

In any case, it’s also worth mentioning that the story and the way it’s articulated makes sense, it’s sweet and it’s as real as a children story has to be. Visuals and cool stuff aside, I’d like to see many Pixar/Disney products sharing those traits…

By Ellisha Izumi von Grunewald.

Don’t Knock Twice comes from Welsh filmmaker Caradog W. James best known for The Machine (2013), a modest British scifi. This time James tackles horror, as he continues to make a decent stab at genre filmmaking in the UK.

The film follows Jess (Katee Sackhoff), an American sculptor trying to reconnect with Chloe (Lucy Boynton), her estranged daughter who has been living in a children’s home for most of her life. The young mother returns with an established career, a successful husband and a wealthy home. She invites Chloe to live with her and asks for a second chance this time with more preparation and stability. Chloe reluctantly agrees, seeking refuge when she accidentally awakens local demonic forces and but the horrors follow Chloe and by extension, Jess. Their new house is too large for the small tentative family. Instead of the luxury of space, it’s just empty space. Feeding distance between its inhabitants and providing opportunity for horror and attack.

The film throws a lot of familiar tropes and creepy imagery at you: a cursed old woman, an abandoned house, cocky teens that tease unknown forces, premonitions, the Baba Yaga folktale, unreasonable police, missing children from the past, the list goes on. It’s an attempt at misdirection but comes across as convoluted and plugs the pacing.

However, the film delivers all this in stylish packaging with great cinematography and haunting visuals.

Katee Sackhoff was unfamiliar to me but is well known for her role on cult series Battlestar Galactica. I took notice of her here, in a good performance without vanity in the tradition of the great horror heroine, vulnerable but resilient.

She’s a recovering addict, now teetotal, trying to reconnect with a daughter she had too young. When she returns she wears her hair in a sharp blonde bob, recalling Amy Dunne’s iconic haircut in Gone Girl (2014). It looks artificial and stiff, signifying an attempt at control that could easily slip. Her character is trying hard but pushed to the extreme. Jess wants to protect her daughter and redeem past failings, and the film heightens the pressure on her attempts.

Lucy Boynton has a good go at her role, suitably scared when necessary but she’s miscast playing younger than her age (recently turned 23 but playing a teenager). Whereas in last year’s lauded Sing Street (2016), Boynton shines as the glamourous ‘older girl’ selling the audience on the beautiful yet troubled girl archetype. In Don’t Knock Twice the costume department works hard to give her the wardrobe, hair and make-up of the average teenager but I don’t buy it.  Hoodys, leggings, a t-shirt with Kendrick Lamar lyrics and cornrows aren’t enough.

My suspicions were confirmed when I watched her in another low budget, atmospheric horror The Blackcoat’s Daughter (known as February in the UK). Set in a boarding school where two girls are left behind over winter break she plays the haughty older girl to Kiernan Shipka’s sensitive freshman. Maybe it’s the preciseness of her features and stare that age her. In Don’t Knock Twice she delivers the confused angst and vulnerability of a teen but I think her days playing an adolescent are numbered. It doesn’t help that the character seems like it would be more suited to a child, who would sincerely believe in the curse chasing her.

Not great, but not offensively bad. The convoluted story is driven by the strained mother-daughter relationship and masked by a strong performance from Katee Sackhoff and exquisitely shot UK location.

Don’t Knock Twice (2017) Directed by Caradog W. James. 1hr 33mins.

By Marti Dols Roca.

Percy Fawcett was one of the greatest explorers Britain has ever produced. Alongside his partner Mr. Costin and later on his own son Jack, Percival regained the credit his family name had lost due to his father’s liking for booze and gambling. Military honours and glory were amongst his ambitions, as it’s portrayed in the film, however those claims were set aside once he stepped on the Amazonian jungle for the first time: he was tasked with mapping a border between Peru and Bolivia as the “neutral British” referee in order to avoid an almost certain war between the two Latin-American countries.

From that moment on, Percy would not stop his expeditions through the Amazonian jungle and soon got obsessed with a lost city he would call “Z”. Some claim this was Fawcett’s own El Dorado, but taking into account the number of times he ended up being right despite his British fellowmen reluctance, seems fair to give the man some credit for his romantic dream. Moreover, infrastructures, pottery and other runes were found many years after his death right on the spot where he claimed “Z” would have stood. Be that as it may, Percy’s epic life met his ending in an equally epic way when he and his son Jack vanished into the most remote and unexplored part of the jungle for not to be seen again. Their last adventure was waiting for them…

Now, the humble opinion of the writer of this article is that such a magnificent story deserves an equally magnificent film. And in the humble opinion of the writer of this article, it’s not quite like that. To be fair, everything that’s been said until this point is shown in the movie; therefore, just to discover, get a better insight or hear this great story again, it’s worth going watch James Gray’s film. In addition, there is a range of very interesting and dramatically powerful topics the movie addresses such as: women’s role in that über-manly world; the laissez faire attitude towards the slavery and dodgy business that took place in those regions right in the beginning of the 20th century; or how the true nature of a man is unveiled in the most extreme situations. There are many positive things to take out of The Lost City of Z; especially, the bravery of the producers taking into account how few “adventure movies” we see lately. Actually, only for that reason the movie deserves some attention: we love adventure movies! Give us more!

The truth is on what Mr. Costin (Robert Pattinson) says to Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam): “We are too British for this jungle”; I would add: “You are too handsome for this movie”. There are two main issues that don’t allow this story be shown in all its glory and truth: the unfortunately unavoidable Hollywood touch, i.e. the good guys are handsome, brave and honourable whereas the bad guys are fat, coward and despicable; and the surprising lack of jungle, native tribes and dangers in a movie that is basically about jungle, native tribes and dangers. Assuming the risk of being too picky, the feeling is that we get a lot of overacted arguments in the Royal Geographical Society, war scenes (it’s just a long sequence but it’s screen time that could be spent in something more related to the actual thing the movie talks about) or Robert Pattinson playing the fun, drunk and witty sidekick (true story). When we could be learning much more about the relationship between Fawcett and the natives, the new animals he discovered and the tremendously dangerous task he was embarking in.

The result is an entertaining movie that is not as entertaining as it should considering its genre; an epic story that is not as epic as it should considering it’s based on a true epic story; and a good way of learning about a really interesting person through an OK movie.