Lithuania, 2022
Review:
JA Kerswell
Admittedly, my first Lithuanian slasher movie, PENSIVE, both satisfies expectations and confounds them. A graduating high school class parties at a remote cottage, where they drunkenly desecrate strange wooden statues in the nearby countryside. Soon, someone in a mask and carrying a chisel arrives to break up the party in the bloodiest way possible. The film is a clever—if not entirely successful—melding of folk horror and teen slasher. While it won’t be for everyone, the unexpected direction it takes in its closing third at least marks it out from the crowd.
Marius (Sarunas Rapolas Meliesius) seems nonplussed about graduating—unlike his fellow classmates, who are excitedly looking forward to a big party at the lakeside house they have hired for the weekend. His future looks bleak and full of conformity, with his father telling him he should plan a career in insurance and his mother barely noticing him. He is also aware that he will soon lose his chance to express his feelings to his crush, fellow student Brigita (Gabija Bargailaite). However, when the planned holiday hire turns out to be a scam, Marius overhears a phone call from his mother about a remote cabin she is a realtor for and decides it is his opportunity to shine.
As the graduating class nears their destination, they are puzzled by a lifesize, humanlike statue carved out of wood by the roadside. One of the students, Saule (Saule Rasimaite), says she had heard a legend about a man who had lost his family in a fire and whittled statues of his dead relatives. Once they reach their destination, they find the cabin habitable but badly charred inside from a long-extinguished fire. Nothing, however, puts them off their plans for partying into the night. Later, a couple of the revellers find a circle of similar, creepy-looking wooden statues in a clearing. They bring them back for firewood and drunkenly abuse them with knives and axes. The only person not to take part is Marius, who returns one of the statues to the clearing in disgust at how disrespectful his classmates are.
When the group finds three of their friends gassed in a sauna, they think it is a tragic accident, but before they can call the authorities, a hulking, horribly burnt masked figure attacks and starts to kill them en masse. A small group manages to escape and tries to retrieve their phones to call for help …
PENSIVE certainly conforms to the build-up of a typical slasher movie, complete with 45 minutes of little happening outside of partying and light character building. The arrival of the killer is sudden, if not unexpected (we know it is going to be a slasher movie, after all). What isn’t so expected is that this psycho bursts straight into the cabin and kills off half of the class in a matter of minutes. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t really do anything particularly interesting with its villain, as the dots have been laid out in advance for us to join them up. It teases a supernatural angle with the fact that the classmates suspect they are being killed off in the manner they abused the statues. However, the folk horror elements are unfortunately not particularly developed beyond the basics.
Rather, where perhaps the real interest lies is the shifting sands and loyalties of the small group trying to survive the night. It might be a commentary on the self-obsession of youth, but it is rare to find a subgenre film where the audience’s sympathies for a certain character take a 180 turn and then back again (more than once). It also features the novelty of a friend who is so off their face that they just won’t shut up and who becomes a potentially dangerous liability for the other survivors. In this light, the film’s alternative English title, WE MIGHT HURT EACH OTHER perhaps makes more sense.
The film is beautifully shot and benefits from fluid camerawork and a subtlely effective electronic score. Whilst it might frustrate those looking for more conventional fare, PENSIVE scores points for doing something a bit different within its subgenre framework.
BODY COUNT 17:
Female 8 / Male 9