Starry Eyes

A fairly accurate depiction of the life of a struggling actress in Tinsel Town, right down to the part about one having to tear their hair out in a bathroom stall, suck Satan's cock, get zombie herpes, kill their friends with common kitchen appliances, and be reborn at dawn under high-voltage power lines to get any meaningful roles.

This survives its slightly amateur feel and arguably well-trodden theme to offer up something enjoyably fresh. Essoe is impressive in the lead, ably guiding her character through some interesting transformations. Moments in this might prompt comparisons to Lynch, Rosemary's Baby, Faust, but they're fleeting; some of Essoe's performance reminded me of Isabella Adjani in Possession (two films in two days for me have invoked that film). Gets a bit nasty towards the end. Worth a look.

Opens up with 'Black Swan' & transcends towards an 'Under the Skin' style rebirth mashed with the 2nd season finale of 'Hannibal' all under the umbrella of a less dark humoured but a superficially similar tone to 'Maps to the Stars'. That & the slight body horror, I guess is why everyone is making the C'berg comparison, mostly unfairly.. & I suppose the Lynch comparisons come as there's a single fuckhungry producer character with defined creases occasionally shot in medium close up/ close ups.

Unengaging mumble-horror, tired hipster 80s synths, failed attempts to channel Lynch and Cronenberg... the story of flailing 20 somethings in LA trying to get a break probably bears more resemblance to the cast and crews lives than we know. Deluded, condescending and strained by heavy-handed one-note metaphors surrounding the pursuit of fame, the filmmakers relentless, limp attempts to "disturb" expose them to be just as desperate for attention as their struggling protagonist.

This film is a wonderful slow burn that relies on a consistently building tension rather than jump scares to engage the audience and tell a story about ambition and the cost of stardom. Perhaps not the most original narrative, and the film definitely wears its influences on its sleeve, but it is able to stand apart (though certainly not ahead of) its predecessors. And the soundtrack is fantastic.

A slow build from "something bad is going to happen" to "holy fuck, there it is."

Original, unpredictable, and absolutely nasty. Bravo.

God, how fucking stupid and pointless this movie was.

This can be considered as a loose contemporary adaptation of "Faust". The "Hollywood people" as a group act like a religious community of a cultic religion but they are evil and satanic because they survive on the consumption of the bodies they work with (commodification of the bodies and fetish for stars in popular culture), in that sense Sarah proves that she can be one of them when she can sacrifice bodies like them. I liked the colour tone of the film and LA as a grey & dull place.

As metahorror it's effective even before the supremely gory finale, if not quite "INLAND EMPIRE II - The Wrath Of Carpenter". But it's Alex Essoe's performance that really sells it; I can't remember the last time I saw anything like it in a US horror movie.

This wasn't particularly good but it was at least more horror than the Neon Demon.

It's definitely different, I will give it that. It's also entirely unpleasant and unsubtle. I had a few laughs, and a few eyerolls, sometimes I even laughed while rolling my eyes.

Halfway between Black Swan and The Neon Demon (and way better than the latter) with a good dose of its own style and interesting themes. And that dumbbell kill was goddamn brutal. I had the song 'Starry Eyes' by LCD Soundsystem stuck in my head for the entire runtime. Was hoping they would have played it during the end credits, but maybe it was too expensive

An entertaining meditation on just how shitty show business can be with some pretty good gore effects in the last act. My one complaint is that her friends are so mean and so awful that the force of her climactic choice is completely dulled.

There are echoes of other films like Society, Mulholland Drive, early Cronenberg, etc., but as a whole, "Starry Eyes" felt rather fresh and is definitely worth a watch for horror fans. It makes good use of its limited budget and keeps the gore in minimum until unleashing it towards the ending. I found the premise interesting and liked how they didn't spell out everything, but the script could have used some polishing to better connect the different parts and flesh out the characters.

okay movie

On-the-nose and a little tedious.

Definitely interesting, but it got unnecessarily gory toward the end. Pretty average, but it was nice to see some original ideas.

A simple and somewhat predictable plot but well executed without shying away from more violent sequences.

That's just nasty!!!!!!!!

This movie pisses me off because it depicts self-harm and sexual assault imagery and then doesn't justify it. You think it's leading up to something, but no, the story and metaphors are actually just simplistic and dumb. I don't need to see any more Hollywood demon cock blow jobs, thank you very much.

It's amusing as they toy with her to push her further into doing evil acts but once she's fully invested it's pretty mediocre

Nah.

When I find myself saying "get on with it for the love of god" fifteen times within the first 20 minutes, it probably has problems

After "The Babadook" and "Spring" this ends up in my top-horror list. Eerie, gory and a self-willed movie. A must see .... My opinion here : http://opinion-as-a-moviefreak.blogspot.be/2015/05/starry-eyes-2014.html

Finally, a modern horror film that makes me feel *something*. Sure, the slow burn in the first two acts might be a tad too slow, as the film feels like it's rushing to catch up with itself toward the end. A Kafkaesque beginning, a John Carpenter-like end, and all held together by Alexandra Essoe's daring, laid-bare performance. Its theme might be a little too obvious (and is overshadowed by the tide of blood), but the end result is still a contender for best horror film of 2014. Nicely done.

Strange but strangely appealing. I enjoyed Essoe's fragile Sarah, and her metamorphosis.

There's a good face smashing scene, but beyond that, forgettable with bad acting.