CANNIBAL GIRLS - I enjoyed this early Ivan Reitman film, which has all the hallmarks of a severe case of 70s horror ie. psychedelic montage elements like eyes in close up superposed over breasts, then a failure to make good on this weirdness by abandoning viewer to long stetches of talky wilderness. But there are still plently of moments, most involving either tits, gore, vaguely nauseating meat eating and / or the film's theatrical gimmick, a 'warning bell' which lets concerned viewers know when horror stuff is about to happen and therefore eneables them to hide or maybe just go away and watch another movie. Although it's nothing like 'Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things', for some reason it felt similar atmospherically.
ABSENTIA - Whilst not all of it works, 'Absentia' left me feeling impressed and intrigued. It's about what happens to missing persons when they're missing, and suggests that they fall foul of... well, some kind of insect deity who lives in an underpass. But it's not 'that' kind of film, relying for the most part on a sustained build up of eerie atmospherics. This is really effective, especially in the first part of the film, where the droning soundtrack, odd encounters and images of white light at the end of tunnels all generate an intense sense of unease. It falls down sometimes when it tries to concretise its ambient dread in the form of jump-scares, which occasionally seem clunky and ill-judged. But overall, really interesting approach and recommended viewing.
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