Review of Sauna (2008) by Vaibhav W — 25 Apr 2010

The most genuinely creepy horror film since Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Cure". Another film that was often described as Takovsky like but still very much a horror film. Tarkovsky is used here as a synonym for "slow". Though the swamp and some of the actors may have you flashing back to "The Zone" from "Stalker", the desolate "Sauna" standing in the middle of the swamp is just as reminiscent of the black monolith from "2001" (though the sauna itself is bone white). This movie comes closest to capturing the tone and style of Thomas Ligotti's philosophical horror, cerebral, multi-leveled, and emotionally punishing without sacrificing it's fragmented nightmarish logic. Visually and aurally a pleasure to watch and I've been pondering it's mysteries; those man was never meant to ponder, ever sine.

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