GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

meddlecore I knew I was going to love this film when the opening scene was a mushroom hunt! It all begins, when a man, trying to escape the city, heads off to work on a farm in a remote area of the Swiss Alps.He boards with two shepherds- aging man and his mute nephew.And as they start to get acclimated with one another, the older man shows the city boy his secret project- an absinthe distillery.They start to get totally wasted on absinthe on a nightly basis. Until, one night, they decide they need a woman...and there's only way to do that. At least, so goes the old legend...Three lonely shepherds use a broom, straw, and rags to make the woman of their dreams. And the devil takes pity on them, by bringing her to life. The three men use her to cook, clean, and for their own sexual pleasure...until she takes revenge on them by skinning them alive, and making dolls from their bodies.The three men do successfully manage to conjure a Sennentuntschi. And the two older men, quickly start raping her...in increasingly violent fashion.Until she snaps and kills all their goats...skinning them alive. Striking fear into the men's hearts.And considering this film is non-linear in nature. We have a subsequent timeline playing out. Where we are following a police officer from the local village, as he investigates the discovery of a mute woman who wanders into town. He is trying to find out who she exactly is, and where she came from.And this all culminates in one of the most confusing and convoluted endings I've EVER seen. There is so much sh*t going on at the end...timelines converging; assumptions being made; ruses playing out; and a(albeit foreshadowed) twist that gives the Belgians and French a run for their money...before another, final twist, that is a bit more cliché (but gets you thinking). Even when it's all over with, you are still kind of confused because there is just way too much to take in, packed into a tiny timeframe...it's almost impossible to fully comprehend.The whole part with the priest and girl having a daughter didn't make much sense to me at all...it totally comes out of the blue and smacks you in the face.They should have just scrapped that part of the ending for the sake of flow and understandability.But, even with these flaws, this film is pretty awesome! I would still recommend it, just be prepared to pay full attention at the end, or risk missing something and being confused as all f*ck.7.5 out of 10.

Jonathon Dabell The Swiss are hardly noted for their thriving film industry, but viewers shouldn't let that affect their pre-conceptions about Sennentuntschi: Curse Of The Alps. This wonderfully atmospheric chiller from Swiss director Michael Steiner manages to be a real surprise. That is to say: creepy, mysterious and ingenious in equal measure. Steiner takes a piece of ancient Alpine folklore and fashions it into an absorbing 1970s-set thriller, boosted in no small part by its vast, lonely mountain locale, as well as a clutch of memorable performances by the main actors.The story moves – perhaps too ambitiously – along three fronts. It opens in the present with an intriguing sequence in which a young girl uncovers a long-lost corpse in alpine woodland, guided to its resting place by a ghostly apparition. The second segment shows a long flashback describing a series of unnerving events which brought fear and superstition to the region in 1975. Following the shocking suicide of a priest in a remote Swiss community, the villagers suddenly find their superstitions brought to a head when a young mute girl (Roxanne Mesquida) turns up. Everyone assumes that her inexplicable appearance is somehow connected to the priest's death, except for village cop Sebastian Reusch (Nicholas Ofczarek) who isn't prepared to explain away the puzzling mystery with talk of ghosts and ghouls. The locals express concern that something may also have happened to a trio of herdsmen who live and work high on the mountain behind their village, and urge Reusch to go up to make sure they are safe and well. He does, but when he reaches their high alpine farm there is no-one there. Reusch simply assumes they are out hunting and returns to the village. The third thread of the story, presented as a flashback within a flashback, recounts the story of the three shepherds (Carlos Leal, Andrea Zogg and Joel Basman). Drunk, lonely and frustrated, their decision to make a 'Sennentuntschi' (a woman of straw, given life by the devil) has grave consequences for everyone.Steiner skilfully blurs the chronology of his story, creating a fragmentary narrative which keeps audiences guessing right to the very end. This disjointed rearrangement of narrative and time threatens to become irritating in the early stages, but Steiner quickly wins over the audience with his uniquely unsettling style. Mystery is piled upon mystery, intrigue upon intrigue, drawing the viewer into a labyrinth of perverted fairy-tale and superstitious frenzy The performances are pitch-perfect, with Mesquida in particular giving a riveting turn as the titular creature. Is she a minion of the devil or just the innocent victim of irrational backwoods beliefs? Her wordless portrayal of the 'Sennentuntschi' is absolutely central to the success of the whole film, and she is, in a word, excellent. To convey such a range of emotion solely through eye contact and body language is no mean feat. Ofczarek, Leal, Zogg and Basman all add memorable characterisations of their own, while Ueli Jaeggi rounds things off impressively as a fanatical priest with murky ulterior motives. Sennentuntschi: Curse Of The Alps is a beautiful-looking, cleverly crafted horror film with much to admire. If it is indicative of the future of Swiss movie-making, then audiences have a lot of good stuff to look forward to!

QuirkyCat ...if this is rated so highly by viewers. I think this is a sick movie (and no, I am not a sensitive viewer) but really, if the exploitation of females must be portrayed, rather "imply" it, but don't show it - we see enough violence and crime and rape (especially where I live) so why do we need more of it for "entertainment" sake? Yes, it is reality, but part of society's degradation is from making it all so easy to see. On a more positive note, the movie was well made from a Swiss town and alp-life point of view - very realistic and I think it could have been brilliant if just portrayed in a slightly different light while still maintaining the impact.All in all, a disturbing movie. And a waste of time and money.

BloodyHellSunday I went to see this movie in cinema yesterday. We didn't have high expectations because Swiss movies are usually not as good as I'd like them to be. This movie was different, all the actors did a great job, especially R. Mesquida and A. Zogg, who played some of the main parts were very convincing and the perfect cast for this role. The story was very mysterious in the beginning, the images of the mountains and landscapes were breathtaking and really stunning. Some scenes were quiet brutal and rude, but never tasteless or offending, and even though the movie had that mysterious touch in the beginning, even supernatural, it all turns out to be logical and not unreal in the ending. Also you could never say how the movie ends or where it goes, I like that a lot in movies, when you can't predict the end. The shooting location, a small village in the mountains of Grischuna was perfect, romantic but not kitsch, it shows the real Switzerland, outside of the big cities and everything about traditions and lifestyle of the people was really accurate. The only disadvantage was for me, that sometimes it wasn't quiet clear when certain things happened, like back-flashes or present shots, it wasn't pointed out when what happened. But all in all I am proud of my country, releasing such a great movie I've never expected, I can give it a 9 star rating. I can only recommend this movie to you out there, its worth it.