 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 2018 film Incident in a Ghostland which was written and directed by Pascal Lagyay For people who don't know who Pascal Lagyay is he did a film called a martyrs Which is a French language film and is very highly revered. It was part of the whole French extreme horror movement in the early 2000s. I believe around theirs It may have been like 2005-ish somewhere in there. I don't remember but martyrs is actually a film that I think I will do a review on at some point I am a fan of that film although it is hard to get through for some people it is a very Brutal film in many ways and there's a reason for that Hence how Lagyay is as a filmmaker and some of that actually translates over into well actually a bunch of that translates over into Incident in a ghost land now for people out there Who have shudder it is currently streaming on shudder. I would recommend seeing this film But do know it is a little tough to handle at times potentially for you know some people I don't know for me. It was I'll just put it this way I needed a palette cleanser afterwards because I watched it at night right before I was gonna go to bed and After I got done. I was like that was brutal that was intense And it was good film and I enjoyed it, but I need a palette cleanser now So I just jumped on to YouTube and watched easy going fun videos So that's the last thing I saw before going to sleep because otherwise I could have ended up with some nightmares I'm just saying but check check out the movie. I do recommend it. It's on shudder streaming currently when I'm doing this review So I am gonna be talking spoilers for this one for a lot of the newer films I will not do spoilers, but for this one I feel like I kind of have to do spoilers to properly talk about it So just know that so go watch it then come back and watch this. All right, so Like I said written and directed by Pascal Lagyay who did martyrs, but he also did the tall man Now when I talk about martyrs be careful that you're not confusing it with the American version of martyrs Which is a remake if you want to see martyrs see the original French language Version because from what I hear they took a lot out of the American version and they took out some very pivotal pivotal stuff So French version. This is a shudder exclusive film. Just so people know it was a Canadian and French co-production Which is interesting The stars in this are Taylor Hickson Amelia Jones Crystal Reed and Anastasia Phillips, and I think they did excellent jobs now Taylor Hickson was in Deadpool. That's like her only other big-ish thing. She played the young Vera Amelia Jones What is actually hasn't been anything big, but she's actually going to be in the I believe it's a Netflix show coming this year called Lock and Key which is based on a comic book that was the story by Joe Hill, which is Stephen King's son Which I love that was a great comic series. It's a great story. I'm very excited for the show So Amelia Jones is going to be in that as Kinsey Lock, which I'm all for it because she did a great job in this Crystal Reed played the grown-up version of Beth Oh Amelia Jones was the the younger version of Beth and then Anastasia Phillips did the grown-up version of Vera Now those four women didn't outstanding job in their acting That's one of the big things about this film is the acting is so good now Yeah, I'll talk about this a little bit The one of the really bad things about this film is that there was an injury on the set And it was an injury to one of the stars and that was Taylor Hickson I'd actually I remember it making the news before the film even came out It was this headline that I saw about injury during the filming and it was bad She had a really large cut on her face Apparently there was a situation where and I could see what part of the film it was in it was towards the end where she was Beth the young Beth was like kind of trapped in her own mind and she was at a at a dinner party and her sister Would like ran through it and then she was behind a glass door and she was like banging on the glass door So apparently during that Pascal Lagi the director told her to like bang even harder And she banged so hard that she went the top half of her went through the glass door and it wasn't safety glass It was just glass so she got a huge cut on the left side of her face and You can look up pictures of it on Google images just put to Taylor Taylor Hickson scar You can see the scar from it and it goes from like her chin area back a bunch She had to have 70 stitches, which is a lot and It's always bad to hear these types of things I know you never want to hear that there were injuries on a set Especially not something that bad and that's career altering for someone like her so because of that reason she Fought a lawsuit she sued for them not taking the proper safety precautions including using safety glass and I Agree with that because if you've seen what her scar looks like that is beyond significant I mean 70 stitches is a lot of stitches and that's a lot to go through and that sort of stuff should not happen You have people on set to take care of that Well, unless you're a super low-budget film like you know I've done some filming before and we didn't have a whole lot of safety measures because We have no budget, you know no budget filming independent. Yeah so That's terrible, but getting on to the actual movie separating it from that stuff So it started in a in a super creepy way with that kind of like as they called a candy truck Just like driving erratically on the road And I feel like that's a really good way to kind of set things up because it's this immediate like Something is not just off, but something is extremely wrong and here comes something terrible Literally this truck is like barreling down on them goes to the side of them acting erratically and you're like This is a harbinger of terrible things to come and it certainly is when you pair that up with what? basically calls out the whole film where they stop at the at the gas station and I believe it's Vera is reading the article. I think it was Vera or maybe it was Beth I can't remember who but one of them was reading an article about how there was this this couple going about Invading homes killing the mother and then keeping the kids there and living there for a while And so basically when that whole conversation goes on it tells you exactly how the film is going to play out it tells you the entire film and But it kind of confuses you a little bit on how things are actually going to turn out because it kind of does that switch and There's a lot of spoilers here. So please only go further if you are If you have seen the film so that whole big twist that they do where she's What you think is reality is actually her just having been trapped in her head because she's kind of trying to block out The horrible hell that she's going through in real life. So she's kind of like aging in her mind and keeping herself locked in a daydream and sent in a sense to be able to mentally deal with her terrible life. So But that that serves to kind of like Confuse you as to what is really going on but the article is what really tells you what happens So it's a it's a kind of cool for foreshadowing The old house in this looks appropriately creepy and cluttered with creepy dolls. I mean This is this is one of those movies that brings a lot of things that people find creepy and scary together and that's dolls old Creaky creepy looking houses and I was in home invasion. That's the other one. I was like I've had it and then I lost it Yeah, and home invasion those three three things are scary enough on their own Put him putting them all together and you get a movie like this, which I would I would say there are plenty of people out There who would say this is a scary movie. I didn't find it scary I would say for me it was more like very tense and intense at times. It's very it's also very primal and brutal and that's just kind of Pascal Lagy's aesthetic how he shoots things He makes things seem less theatrical and more realistic in how they play out and that was very beneficial for how the Intrusion the home intruder portion was filmed because that made it particularly intense like it felt Like real acting it felt like this is what how it may very well be not super stylized in Hollywood Film ish and I think that for that reason it was very effective disturbing and Significantly more disturbing than what that kind of more stylized Hollywood look would be like but it's effective for that reason The doll jump scare did get me there actually a few jump scares in this that actually did get me It's hard for me to be hit with jump scares But I didn't see them coming in this film because it didn't strike me as that type of film And they did it in such a way that it just ended up getting you it was effective So I like it when you can actually pull off a jump scare because they're so overdone that it's hard to actually be effective with them anymore The sibling issues feel pretty realistic at least what's going on in the beginning where you know they have a bunch of problems with each other who hasn't had those types issues with their siblings when they're growing up and It just sometimes in film it can just feel very contrived and like overdone or not done enough But it felt good like the writing on it was nice. It felt real Which helps to kind of set up How how much more important their eventual bonding is over their terrible situation and obviously abuse So the home invasion like I said the home invasion shot very well super intense The amount of fighting back that the mother had in it was Excellent, it was very badass. It was very well done very put together it definitely made you feel like there was a chance that they were gonna make it and You think that's what happened initially because then you transition over to what's just going on inside of Beth's head and you don't know that until much later and Yeah, so you think oh man, they really fought them off So I was thinking wow this is amazing that they would really go to this level with this film because they usually don't do that Like it's always like a bunch of people die. It's not a terrible home invasion happens and then Everyone makes it. It usually doesn't happen that way It's usually at least someone gets killed or you know horribly disfigured or maimed But so I thought it was very bold move, but then you find out in the end It wasn't I mean it was for the moment, but it wasn't actually in the end because it's Not actually what happened It was just all on her head It's yeah already talked about the article Not sure why they would stay in a creepy house I'd put down now I put that no down when I didn't know What was going on? in reality of you know, I mean Beth and Vera Being held captive as each human dolls basically and being crazy abused So when I thought that just what was going on in Beth's head was reality I put down not sure why they would stay in that house with such a terrible trauma tied to it Yeah, that doesn't make sense, but in reality. They obviously didn't have a choice. So I'm usually not good with films that have things just ending up being in the character's head since it's so well trodden ground But this one actually doesn't in a very effective way in a very creative way, and I didn't see it coming It's all about how you set the story up ahead of time You know there are those types of stories where this is the path they choose to go down But they don't lay the story out all that well and you can see it coming and you just get that eye roll Even before the moment happens with this movie. It was definitely not like that I feel like they set it up really well They really tricked you into thinking what was going on in Beth's head was actually what was happening And then when it makes that switch, it just it brings everything down Like you at least that it when you're seeing what was going on in Beth's head You at least had hope for her and you were like oh well She's living a better life, and then you realize nope the mother got killed and both the sisters are living in this pure living hell Being just beaten and it's only a matter of time before they're dead And it's just it looks so bleak like there's absolutely no hope and that You know repeats itself a few times because then there will be like a glimmer of hope and then it's taken away and I mean well done so the scene with Beth as the doll is another one of those scenes that's Extremely intense just like the what I was talking about the actual home invasion part is extremely intense the part with Beth as the doll trying to stay as still as she can not cry not incur more of the wrath of this of this homicidal maniac and Also try and find a way out was just very well done and part of that actually has to go with also the music accompaniment and Just this overall sound design which was phenomenal in this film There were so many components to this film from a technical standpoint that were very very very good The moment when they do actually get out and they get away and they get to the police officers And they're gonna help them and then they both get killed is an unbelievable gut punch at that point I I really like felt like my stomach kind of sank when that happened in the film and that's another thing to kind of talk about I usually don't get as immersed in films that way that I like feel something like that like my stomach Drop or or feel particular intensity with scenes So it's it's a it speaks volumes to the quality of the film and the storytelling that I got that sucked into it so Very good, but yeah, you just literally felt like at that moment when you get that gut punch of those officers getting killed that there's no hope that it's gonna end very very badly at the very end because Pascal loggy. I could go that way. He's that type of filmmaker in my opinion So that's all I kind of have to say about the actual events of the film the directing and cinematography of this was awesome It looked amazing and like I said the music to go with it the sound design to go with it so so good the acting was so so good There's a lot of really good things there the And I wrote actually the acting I think raised up to the level of the story because the story is Relatively strong. It's not the best story, but it was executed in a very good way, and it was relatively unique So I did quite like it the film Films very brutal and violent as can be expected from a loggy a film His stuff is very much feels primal and very very raw And I felt like this film was very much that for people who don't know martyrs was actually unbelievably brutal unbelievably primal and raw and so much so that when I first watched that film I was feeling Not physically but mentally sickened by the amount of violence and brutality in it And I literally said with to the person I was watching it with the first time There better be a point to this because otherwise it's just too gratuitous And I'm very turned off And then there was a point to it and I liked it. So but that's loggy a that's just his his thing So it's not a um movie you just throw on You kind of have to be in the right mood martyrs and incident in a ghost land I will say both of those films. I haven't seen the tall man by him, but I would like to because he's a good filmmaker So going to some more of the themes So this tackles two degree survivors guilt in the mental portion when you're when you're in in Beth's perceived reality that she creates for her in the future There's a lot of survivors guilt that's shown in that Even though they all ended up surviving mentally. They all didn't survive in that realm, you know Um Beth was acting like everything was fine. She had a little bit of trauma, but she was pretty good. Obviously Vera was Living a very hellacious life being assaulted by ghosts In in that scenario and the mom was seemed like she was doing relatively okay but she was an alcoholic at that point and she was chain smoking all the time so You know the least affected was beth and she she was the least affected in the actual invasion physically She wasn't um It's kind of alluded to that maybe Vera was raped at that point Don't know for sure, but she was at least beaten at that point Beth was not and then the mother obviously she went through the most physical stuff because well, she ended up dying But even before we knew that she was actually dead. She went through a lot of physical stuff Vera loses Yeah, I already talked about the ghosts are the lingering trauma and the physical harm Vera suffers are the internal wounds being made visible That's what I wrote down in the part where it's just You know in best heads still For themes so let me read that again because I think it does apply The ghosts at that point are the lingering trauma And the physical harm that Vera suffers are the internal wounds. They're being made external so you can visibly see Her internal struggles So I think it plays like that When things end up switching to reality you see that Vera can't leave her situation Mentally and beth has actually found a way to zone out and mentally escape that situation But obviously that ends up changing because beth when she's kind of like snapped out of it by Vera Is it she feels guilty at some point and she's like look my sister is Present going through this hell this this present reality of awful And I feel like in order to be there for her in a sense We should go through this together and she then makes the decision to abandon her mental Her mental utopia in a sense which is a a A moment of speaking to the bond of sisterhood where you see it It's not very strong in the beginning the trauma and the invasion and the horrible stuff They go through makes them unbelievably strong in the end and you see that Wrapped up when they're both being kind of taken out on the gurneys by e m e m s And they're looking at each other and saying I love you So that's kind of like the full circle of it the 180 180 degree change in their relationship um In the end beth chooses to be present in hell And so she's not abandoning her sister. That's just kind of another way of putting it So that's kind of all I had to think about it But at the time and then I thought about it a little bit more right after the movie and I was like You know knowing Pascal Laugier and knowing what he said about his film martyrs This one felt inspired and and personal Just like martyrs was and when I had read an article about when martyrs was about Laugier had said that it was a a a visual representation of Depression that he went through just awful deep horrible depression And he wanted to put out on a film in a visual medium What he felt like having terrible depression And so that made sense And so I thought a bit more about that after watching incident in a ghost land and I thought I bet there's something deeper to this and if there is what would that be so This is just me spitballing I wrote knowing Laugier I wouldn't be surprised if this whole film is a metaphor for the idealization of screenwriting and filmmaking And the abusive and hellacious reality of it i.e. the intruders being the studio barging in And assaulting your story and changing it So just uh, you know just a theory I can see it from my standpoint You may be sitting there right now going I don't I don't know if I really see that but where I'm going with that is There there's a Big emphasis put on Beth and stories and being a storyteller and writing and her inspiration being hp. Lovecraft Which a lot of people who write horror stuff. That's what it's all about Um is going back to like one Main author that's their driving force So they obviously show that in this and then the amount of focus that they put on the typewriter At the very end of it. I thought was a symbolic thing So that kind of got me thinking there's got to be something else because you wouldn't just do that for no reason It's in the film for a very particular reason. So that got me thinking I was just like, oh, you know, I could see this as an internal mental creative process And what beth was going through she was creating the story in her mind because she's a great storyteller Just like creating a script is creating a film and directing it And you have an idea in your head of how it should go and how ideally it's going to be just like beth does with her life But then you're snapped back to reality And what's actually going on is a home invasion that puts you through hell and alters your life terribly and your story It changes your story And so in hollywood, I know that I've heard plenty that that's kind of how it is Like you have your script you present your story. They say this is a great idea And then they just mess it all up and they're like we love this But we're going to change this now that we purchased it from you We're going to change this and we're going to gut this and we're going to add this And they totally change it and it's held for you as a filmmaker And also just the whole process of going through directing a film from what I've heard The studio tries to put their hands on things so many times Direct where you need to do things or not do things and it just becomes Terrible rob zombie talks about it a lot in interviews about how much he hates hollywood And how he would just love to do a bunch of independent stuff Georgie ramiro kind of talked about that stuff towards the end of his life as well It's a well-known thing the other thing is I I know for a fact that A lot of the french extreme horror filmmakers from the 2000s early 2000s They had a really bad time with american hollywood They Got known for their french extreme films and then hollywood tried to bring them in And they got there and they got Pretty disrespected and abused and thrown around. I mean uh one coming to mind xavier yens Who had done the movie frontiers, which is a good film when and he he did the um hitman movie And he shot it as an r rating then the studio jumped in and said No, it's gotta be a pg-13 and he said I didn't make a pg-13 film It is an r film and they're like, okay Well, if you won't do it, then we'll pay someone else to come in and cut it down to a pg-13 And that's when he walked away. He disavowed the movie. He said this is not my film So xavier yens did that film, but he asked to have his name taken off of it I don't know if it's still attributed to him or not The maury um maury and bestio. I think the guys who did the film inside In france they came over and they got kicked around a lot. I know they were attached to the hellraiser remake at one point And they were trying to get things going with that and the studio got way too involved and then they got kicked off So they got jerked around with that It's just the whole thing. So I wouldn't be surprised if log ye had a lot of that going on as well So sorry for the kind of going a little too far, but hopefully some people found that interesting But anyway, that's it for this review. I do have to give a star rating on Incident in a ghost land so out of five stars with a half star in play Um, it's not the best film, but it is quite good. I'm gonna go four stars on this It's up there four stars. Definitely recommend it to people. It's yeah, it's good But thank you everyone for checking this out. Please do me a quick favor hit that subscribe button That's the way to motivate me to keep going. I love seeing new subscribers And I also love seeing comments. Let me know your thoughts on this film dissenting thoughts on it ones that confirm what I've said whatever you think whatever you feel And uh, yeah, we'll talk you can do the thumbs up, but the big things to subscribe Thanks everyone for checking this out though and until next time keep it brutal