THE FACE OF HORROR

Ah, first love. Eleanor loves Edward. Edward loves her beautiful face, her gorgeous body, her money too, for sure. Her as a person? Probably not. And as for her father, certainly not at all. Which is why he kills him to secure Eleanor’s hand in marriage. Meanwhile, Edward’s squire murders the husband of Eleanor’s sister, Beatrice, to satisfy his obsessive lust. So when the two grief-stricken sisters agree to the marriages, they make one condition: that their father and Beatrice’s husband be avenged—unbeknownst to them, by the very men who murdered them.

Marriage, however, does not live up to Edward’s childish, entitled notions of romance. He recoils from anything resembling responsibility: the farm, his sick wife, their child. He quickly redirects his affections toward a lovely, spoiled noblewoman who also happens to be significantly richer. He’s a knight, for god’s sake. He deserves luxury. And once Eleanor stands between him and the life he believes he is owed, he begins reluctantly, then increasingly enthusiastically, to arrange her destruction. He cannot stand her “sad face” anymore. Eleanor thus discovers that the man she loved never truly saw her as anything more than a pretty possession. Her marriage has become a nightmare. Luckily for her, death is not quite the end.

Transposing the classic Japanese ghost story Yotsuya Kaidan to medieval England, Anna Biller once again builds a gorgeous romantic fantasy only to reveal the cruelty festering underneath. Shot on 35mm and drenched in vibrant color, THE FACE OF HORROR is campy, grotesque, frequently funny, and genuinely tragic. Edward may be absurd, but Eleanor’s suffering never is. (SONIA DROULHIOLE)