Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes - FrightFest 2021

Frankly the less you know about this one the better which would make this much easier. But then there would be no fun in that for me.

Margot (Luisa Taraz) and Dieter (Frederick von Lüttichau) are on their way to inspect a large country house that they have inherited. Though its actually Margot who has through her wealthy family that is a sore issue with Dieter.

On inspecting the pile they find that it is badly dilapidated and to get up to speck for sale would cost a small fortune. Dieter is at his obnoxious best when discussing the house giving a running commentary on its condition. That is until he gets to the cellar and is scared out of his wits. Having dropped his keys and too scared to go back down the couple spend the night there.

All the time the audience are fed images and sounds making it clear that they are not alone. Until that is we lulled into a horrifying sequence only to find that we have been watching a film production. Directed by super ego Gregor (Jeff Wilbusch) with his script consultant wife Eva (Anna Platen). There’s friction as Eva doesn’t like the ending. From here the film rolls in a different direction best not said too much about.

Kevin Kopacka directs (co-written with Lili Villányi) a kaleidoscope of images and sounds that look back to Italian exploitation accompanied brilliantly by prog and psychedelia that is reminiscent of the 70’s and 80’s depending on what you were doing.

It also dabbles with the cult leader phenomenon of Manson and Jim Jones through the megalamanical Gregor, who at one point has people eating out of his hand so strong is his hold on them, and we begin to wonder where this is going. And there are several similar such points in the latter part of the film.