dromasca What would you do or rather what would you not do to protect your kid if faced with the situation that she or he has done something very wrong? When do mistakes that everybody makes at the teen ages turn into something very different and very abhorrent? Is the line of demarcation between sanity and insanity, between being a normative person and a monster that clear? These are some of the questions one keeps asking while watching 'We Monsters' ('Wir Monsters' in German) directed and co-written by Sebastian Ko. I knew nothing about this film maker, according to IMDB this is only his second full feature film, and it's quite good.It's a thriller, and a good one, so I will avoid telling too much about the story. Two separated parents come together to help their daughter in a critical moment of her life. There are enough surprises and changes of perspective to keep the interest of viewers alert from start to end. There is also a quite serious collection of subterranean themes like responsibility, borders of parental love, teenage revolt and communication between generations. All these come together in a more than satisfactory manner.The film is supported by solid acting by the whole team of actors, but especially by Mehdi Nebbou in the role of the father and Janina Fautz as the teenage daughter. A slightly higher dose of cinematographic effects would have turned this film into a horror movie, but film director Sebastian Ko seems to have chosen to stay within the limits of a realistic psychological thriller. I found it good as it is. The horror version can be left for the American remake.

SnoopyStyle Paul is driving his 14 year old daughter Sarah. They pick up her best friend Charlie. The girls go off into the woods for a bathroom break. After awhile, Paul looks for the girls to find Sarah standing on the edge of a dam. She tells him that she pushed Charlie to her death. Sarah seems shocked and unaware. She is still angry at her divorced father's absence and his new girlfriend Jessica. Paul tells his ex-wife Christine and they struggle to handle the revelation. Charlie's volatile recovering alcoholic father comes looking for his missing daughter.This is a nice indie noir. It's a nice morality ride down. It starts off with an interesting psychopath daughter which turns into a fine teenage rebellion. It would be great to have more intense thrills and I don't understand what they're doing with the backpack. It seems obvious to dump the backpack at the dam especially since they go back there anyways. Did she think that it would dissolve? The filmmaking needs more style to increase the intensity. Otherwise, this is a great little noir.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Wir Monster" or "Kalte Tage" or "We Monsters" is a German(-language) movie from 2015 and it is the so far most known work by writer and director Sebastian Ko. I cannot say I am familiar with him or with any of the actors in here really, even if I may have heard the names Nebbou, Tscharre and Hammelstein already on one or two occasions. But the main character is played by Janina Fautz. She plays a teenager who struggles with her parents' divorce and commits a horrible crime as a consequence. This is really only the first few minutes though as everything afterward is about how the girl and the parents deal with what happens while we also get to see a touch of police work and find out about the parents of the deceased girl. So you can definitely call it a psychological crime thriller. The film runs for slightly over 90 minutes and there is a major plot twist briefly after the 50-minute mark or so I think.I personally enjoyed the watch here. I was impressed with Fautz and I think she can have a solid career in the industry. It is obvious she is really experienced already despite her young age. Mehdi Nebbou was really good too and also gave a physically convincing performance that reminded me of Dominic West at times. Makes me curious about more stuff from him. The other actors were pretty convincing too and made the most of their material, the ensemble cast is easily the film's most positive aspect. As for the action and the plot, I have some criticisms. I liked it for sure for the most part, but the longer the film went, the more absurd it became I have to say. And the way the movie ends with yet another shocking plot development is really nothing to be proud of. Quite a shame. With a better second half and maybe more subtlety instead of showy dramatic sequences that did not really work for me, this could have been one of the best German movies from last year. It is still good to let me recommend it, but it is not as great as it could have been. In my opinion, there were a couple parallels to the more known film "Benny's Video", only that it is not as graphically violent as the Haneke film. But still, if you enjoyed that one, you will maybe have a good time watching this one here as well. Thumbs-up from me and I hope Ko can build on his success here in the future.

JvH48 Saw this at the Leiden (NL) film festival 2015. Interesting to see how a blatant lie came about, gave rise to more lies, and how it all escalated into something that nobody really wanted yet proved inevitable. The premise that Sarah pushed her friend Charlie from the bridge, may seem unrealistic, but it came forth from reasons deemed logical by Sarah from her viewpoint. It could have been a stolen boyfriend, or spreading lies about her, or some other reason important enough for her to make this push an easy solution. When Sarah's parents hear about the accident, they go at any imaginable length to hide the awful truth and to protect their daughter against the outer world. Later on we learn that what really happened is all very different from what we got presented from the outset. That being precisely the core business of a thriller, it is very commendable that we did not outguess it until very late. In other words, the story was well built and kept us in tension all the time, eagerly awaiting the next turn of events to surprise us.