Michael Mohan
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Connections, in both directions
But there are several scenes where Immaculate feels like it's spinning its wheels, with its distinct nods to other films—from Rosemary's Baby to Suspiria (both Dario Argento's and Luca Guadagnino's)—merely devolving into predictable jump scares.
One look at Cecelia’s journey into the Italian countryside, and it’s impossible not to recall the similar trek that Jessica Harper’s Suzy Banion took to the dance academy in that latter Dario Argento film; it doesn’t help that Will Bates’ score for Immaculate calls to mind Goblin’s famous Moog synthesizer music for Suspiria, either.
In that respect, I was reminded of the American dancer who joins the dancing academy of Suspiria, made in both the 1977 Dario Argento version and the 2018 Luca Guadagnino remake by an Italian rather than an American.
Credit to writer-director Michael Mohan’s “The Voyeurs” for swinging for the fences in an erotic thriller with clear echoes of films such as “Rear Window” and “Body Double” and “9 ½ Weeks” and “Eyes Wide Shut” and let’s throw in TV series such as “The Twilight Zone” and “Night Gallery” and “Black Mirror” as well.
The masked scene is like “Eyes Wide Shut,” but Stanley Kubrick would’ve sooner directed an episode of “Blue’s Clues” than this dreck.
Credit to writer-director Michael Mohan’s “The Voyeurs” for swinging for the fences in an erotic thriller with clear echoes of films such as “Rear Window” and “Body Double” and “9 ½ Weeks” and “Eyes Wide Shut” and let’s throw in TV series such as “The Twilight Zone” and “Night Gallery” and “Black Mirror” as well.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Voyeurs is Body Double for those of us who wish there were 50 more 50 Shades of Grey movies to ruthlessly mock.
It won't be revealed here, but if you saw the 1988 film “The Vanishing,” it's something like that.
Mohan’s visual style is wedged between the Conjurverse’s Nun series and pensive Italian giallos, as Christian’s camera slowly and obediently rolls past cathedral pews illuminated only by candlelight. There’s a gothic holiness to Cecilia’s new residence, complete with underground worshiping chambers where congregations wearing red cloth masks gather. Immaculate aims to frighten as the mood turns from divinity to damnation, drawing influences from Dario Argento, Roman Polanski, and even Neil Marshall’s The Descent.
Notice the poster for Michelangelo Antonioni's “Blow-Up,” a similar far more well-rounded movie about witnessing life from afar, through lenses.
Writer-director Michael Mohan’s “drama” tries to be a modern “Rear Window” (emphasis on “rear”), but Hitchcock it ain’t.
There’s reasons why eroticia films from “Poison Ivy,” and “Basic Instinct” to “Wild Things” and “Cruel Intentions,” have sustained themselves over the years; it’s their ability to offer a semblance of shock value, while also keeping audiences on edge.
It instantly brings to mind more impressive films like Rear Window (and even Disturbia), but adds a sheen of sexuality that those films merely hinted at.
All the while, Mohan delivers routine shots of eyes, and often cuts away from them to close-ups of eggs being sliced open so their yolk can spill out – sub-“Un Chien Andalou” symbolic images meant to underline the potential danger of sight.
There’s reasons why eroticia films from “Poison Ivy,” and “Basic Instinct” to “Wild Things” and “Cruel Intentions,” have sustained themselves over the years; it’s their ability to offer a semblance of shock value, while also keeping audiences on edge.
There’s reasons why eroticia films from “Poison Ivy,” and “Basic Instinct” to “Wild Things” and “Cruel Intentions,” have sustained themselves over the years; it’s their ability to offer a semblance of shock value, while also keeping audiences on edge.
There’s reasons why eroticia films from “Poison Ivy,” and “Basic Instinct” to “Wild Things” and “Cruel Intentions,” have sustained themselves over the years; it’s their ability to offer a semblance of shock value, while also keeping audiences on edge.