Fugue Movie Review
Fugue Movie Review
Rosemary's Maybe
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If you enjoy classic, female-driven supernatural films like Rosemary's Baby… and you also can appreciate carefully-crafted indie horror, then Fugue just might fill the bill for your next dark and stormy night's movie-viewing.
Fugue, directed by newcomer Barbara Stepansky, follows the misfortunes of Charlotte (Abigail Mittel), an artistic young woman who's recently suffered a bad accident. The accident caused Charlotte to lose her memory, but starting over in a new home with the support of her loving boyfriend Howard (Richard Gunn) seems to be just what the doctor ordered… that is, until Charlotte finds out her home is not new and her boyfriend isn't so loving after all.
As Charlotte's memory returns in bits and pieces, she is shocked to find buried secrets that were probably better left undisturbed. But of course, once such a tantalizing mystery is presented to her, the young woman can't resist trying to solve the puzzle. Why is her house so strangely familiar? Who is the female apparition and why is the piano so important to her? Why do the neighbors all seem to know Charlotte, and why is Howard so insistent that she leave the past nine months alone?
To anyone who's seen a lot of movies, the answers will be obvious. Still, it's a lot of fun vicariously living through Charlotte's fears and foibles. Stepansky and her screenwriter Matt Harry have created characters who possess more than the usual one dimension — Charlotte (well-played by Mittel who wisely never takes the histrionic route), is an intelligent woman with interests, talents and a tactile mind. Howard is her slightly older, more life-experienced counterpart with a shade or two of gray to his makeup and motivations (Gunn's believable as a college prof, complete with the bushy eyebrows, spectacles and sense of entitlement).
And speaking of makeup… all the ghostly and sci-fi effects, with a few tiny exceptions, are practical. And better-yet, they're very well done. In the beginning, they're subtle but super-effective (such as a scene where Charlotte is gardening and unearths a human tooth), then as some science fiction elements come into play they're more ramped up yet still much more Ray Bradbury than Michael Bay. The art direction and cinematography are excellent — above average for an indie horror flick; the filmmaker's care and concern is obvious.
My only minor complaints about Fugue are the limited acting abilities of some of the peripheral cast, and a need for tighter editing here and there (especially in the dialogue scenes). Still, the plot-twists keep on coming and that's a good thing — every time my attention would start to drift, it'd be ripped back into focus by yet another revelation. Slow-burn and eerie until its incendiary and somewhat gory ending, Fugue is worth a look.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson