NOPE NOPE NOPE

June 20, 2017 9:55 AM

CURVE: Clinging to a smooth, curved surface high above a sentient abyss, a girl tries to cover the few feet back to safety without losing purchase and falling to her death.
posted by brundlefly (47 comments total)

NOOOOOOOOOPE!!!!!!
posted by Fizz at 9:57 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I watched a minute of this and turned it off because Vimeo doesn't support captions. Is there any narration?
posted by AFABulous at 9:59 AM on June 20, 2017

There's no dialogue at all.
posted by brundlefly at 10:04 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Nope number 4.
posted by Oyéah at 10:05 AM on June 20, 2017

That was relaxing.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:21 AM on June 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

For some reason I'm reminded of an old sci-fi movie called Cube. There's the horror of what's going on, and then the larger horror of implied scale of everything that had to happen to make what you're seeing, embedded with in it, possible.
posted by mhoye at 10:26 AM on June 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

That was terrifying.
posted by OolooKitty at 10:32 AM on June 20, 2017

After Cube achieved cult status, a sequel was produced, Cube 2: Hypercube, released in 2002. In 2004, a prequel, Cube Zero, was released.

Petition for more regular-solid-based horror films. Tetrahedra? Dodecahedra? 120-cells? The possibilities are (not quite) endless!
posted by BungaDunga at 10:35 AM on June 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

I also found that terrifying.
posted by Caxton1476 at 10:35 AM on June 20, 2017

That's basically how I feel when the wife buys a package of Oreos.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:36 AM on June 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Subtitle: Getting Out of Bed Every Morning in Trump's America
posted by saladin at 10:36 AM on June 20, 2017 [18 favorites]

I felt the ending was great! She pulls the chain out and wraps it around her hand, then... gets enough grip to escape, I guess, because suddenly she is no longer there. So yep, chain FTW, she escaped, that must be how it ended and I REFUSE to listen to other opinions
posted by caution live frogs at 10:43 AM on June 20, 2017 [21 favorites]

Subtitle: Getting Out of Bed Every Morning in Trump's America

We'll put millions of Americans back to work building sheer concrete chasms
posted by killdevil at 10:45 AM on June 20, 2017 [8 favorites]

Actually this would make a fantastic border wall
posted by killdevil at 10:47 AM on June 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Palms started sweating at 0:59. Excellent.
posted by mykescipark at 10:48 AM on June 20, 2017

what
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 10:48 AM on June 20, 2017

Mood Music
posted by leotrotsky at 10:50 AM on June 20, 2017

Not being sarcastic-- probably a joy to edit. The smudges of blood on the opposite wall change and I tend to doubt my initial take on...most things. Is that another layer of inexplicability, or does it imply something I'm totally missing?
posted by lazycomputerkids at 10:55 AM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

All joking aside that was extremely stressful and very well done. Thanks for sharing.
posted by saladin at 10:55 AM on June 20, 2017

killdevil I think you mean border well.
posted by sotonohito at 10:57 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I prefer to believe that there's a ledge a short and eminently survivable drop beneath the "abyss", with an unlocked access door leading away from it. A couple of years later, she's getting a coffee and notices that the barista's hands have scars like her own. "Say, you didn't happen to have..." "Jeez, yeah, what were we thinking, playing around that thing like that? Jeez!"
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:08 AM on June 20, 2017 [7 favorites]

That's basically how I feel when the wife buys a package of Oreos.

Dark chocolate Milanos for me.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 11:16 AM on June 20, 2017

Incredibly cathartic. Thank you.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 11:27 AM on June 20, 2017

Class, to discuss: the final image is meant to suggest a uterus.
posted by chavenet at 11:32 AM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

The smudges of blood on the opposite wall change and I tend to doubt my initial take on...most things. Is that another layer of inexplicability, or does it imply something I'm totally missing?

She's been there long enough to watch at least one other person die.
posted by mhoye at 11:32 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

What a brilliant piece of weird imagination and concentrated tension.
posted by doctornemo at 11:34 AM on June 20, 2017

I feel out of breath and washed out after watching that.
posted by mittens at 11:36 AM on June 20, 2017

I am too afraid of heights to watch this, but I have to know: in what way is the abyss sentient?
posted by heatherlogan at 11:40 AM on June 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

The rock climbers in the house know this feeling. Nothing like climbing 100 feet of overhung sandstone only to find yourself needing to pull up onto a lower angled slab with nothing but grimy, lichen-covered slopers.

Slap. Slap. Slap. Oh no. I can't move up anymore. I can't retreat. All I can do is wait until I sweat enough to slide off.
posted by woof at 11:55 AM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is great! It reminds me a little of Shinya Tsukamoto's Haze, which is more or less an actual nightmare that was somehow filmed. (Tsukamoto also did the Tetsuo films, but the slight element of cheese present in those is completely removed here.)
posted by byanyothername at 12:26 PM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm in the minority. Did absolutely nothing for me.

But I liked the comment about Oreos.
posted by dobbs at 12:32 PM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

I am too afraid of heights to watch this, but I have to know: in what way is the abyss sentient?

I did watch it, and I'm also unclear on how the abyss is sentient. Unless the director expects that one has watched Solaris and paid a lot of attention and this is... the sequel?
posted by Shepherd at 1:20 PM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

BungaDunga:
Petition for more regular-solid-based horror films. Tetrahedra? Dodecahedra? 120-cells? The possibilities are (not quite) endless!

...approaching Sphere, no?
posted by pashdown at 2:19 PM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm in the minority. Did absolutely nothing for me.

It's just someone suffering for ten minutes and then probably dying. If that was my kick, I'd probably get it more effectively by watching the Saw movies.

I also felt that this really undercut itself by starting from a minimalist aesthetic and then going over-the-top with the foley. It was definitely an intentional choice, but perhaps every close-up of the actress' slipping hands being accompanied by a sizzling-bacon sound effect was not actually a good choice?
posted by tobascodagama at 2:34 PM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I am too afraid of heights to watch this, but I have to know: in what way is the abyss sentient?

I did watch it, and I'm also unclear on how the abyss is sentient. Unless the director expects that one has watched Solaris and paid a lot of attention and this is... the sequel?


I guess it was the abyss mimicking the woman's blood stains on the opposite wall.

Not sure why, tormenting her maybe?
posted by antiwiggle at 2:36 PM on June 20, 2017

This is pretty good for what it is, despite some stuff I didn't like (I could have done without the shots of the waves in the beginning, and it's hard to get a sense of the space, probably because of technical restrictions, like the fact that the bloodstains she's seeing are on the opposite wall is something you kind of have to figure out by yourself, there's not a single shot relating her position to what she's looking at, apart from the final empty shot and the background formations that you have to assume are the same as where she's sitting, also the color correction goes wonky just about when it starts raining for some reason).

The description does seem weird, though, both the "sentient abyss", which originally piqued my interest, but doesn't seem to be explored at all, and also something as simple as "a girl tries to cover the few feet back to safety"... Where? There's clearly nowhere to go that's safe. If they mean she's trying to scoot up, then I guess so, but that's more like a few inches.

So I guess it works on a really primal level, just the feeling of being stuck in a really precarious position, and that really hits you in the gut (and the actress is good, and really sells it), but the attempt to make it more intellectual and deep by implying some vague horror/sci-fi setting and a back story of some kind mostly fails.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:05 PM on June 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

I just took it to be an allegory about depression but what do I know?
posted by komara at 5:38 PM on June 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Good
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:15 PM on June 20, 2017

I just took it to be an allegory about depression but what do I know?

Exactly how I interpreted it.
posted by neonamber at 6:26 PM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

The film didn't do a lot for me, but it did make me want to know more about where it was filmed. I'm guessing it was filmed using a disused dam or powerplant spillway maybe? I have seen one irrigation canal spillway with a somewhat similar curve, though less vertical.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:53 PM on June 20, 2017

Dark chocolate Milanos for me.

Double chocolate for us.
posted by notreally at 7:21 PM on June 20, 2017

I'd happily watch a feature-length version of this if it's done with care, there's more to explore - should she shuffle across to the corner for more traction? Get her foot out from under her or not? Try to gouge out a crevice with something? What's happening opposite?
posted by malevolent at 12:31 AM on June 21, 2017

Sooo... basically it's a scene from the original series of Star Trek where some hyperintelligent alien traps Kirk in the Death Pit to see whether Humans Have The Right Stuff, only letting him go when he's worked out what to do with a paper clip and the pelt of a Rigelian okapi. (Only half-joking - try watching it to this cue)

It is very nicely done, and combines visceral primate fall-out-of-tree terror with enough moody surrealism to let you paint your own metaphor. (Sentient abyss? Wot? The planet that mirrors your fears and dreams back to you sort of thing?). I'm no fan of horror movies, and this is about as much as I can take before the fact that I don't like being scared overcomes my involvement with the artistry; a better ending for me would be for her to have pushed herself up and off in a graceful dive, exerting her agency to confront the unknown.

Alternatively, something involving a sentient abbess.
posted by Devonian at 6:22 AM on June 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

I had to jump to the end

I see what you did there.
posted by scratch at 7:43 AM on June 21, 2017

I guess it was the abyss mimicking the woman's blood stains on the opposite wall.

The implication of the stains and the screaming is that the situation the woman finds herself in has played out before, or perhaps is playing out simultaneously for others on the other curves we can see in the background. At least one of the screams reads male to me, so I think it's more of a situation where multiple people are or have been trapped in similar circumstances, and the abyss or whatever is showing her what happened to them via the bloodstains and screams.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:50 AM on June 21, 2017

Another possibility with the blood stains is that much time is passing, and we're seeing just the snippets between the deaths. She's witnessing several people die right across from her.

Good grief, that idea just raised the film to an entirely new level of horror for me. My heart is beating faster just thinking about it and it is not as if I am that afraid of heights.

Well done.
posted by antiwiggle at 2:19 PM on June 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

I did just notice something: "a *girl*"?

She's not a girl, she's clearly a woman. The Vivmo description is, regrettably, being subtly sexist.
posted by sotonohito at 9:22 AM on June 26, 2017