Sommerleigh Pollonais, Horror Head Writer
Preamble: Not a week goes by where I don’t watch a horror movie, but in my humble horror loving opinion not all of them are worth an in-depth review. Quick Slice is where I’ll give you my short-but-sweet thoughts on some of the genre flicks I caught up with.
Review: Nocebo tells the story of a woman Christine (Eva Green from Casino Royale, Penny Dreadful), her husband Felix (Mark Strong from Kingsman: The Secret Service, Shazam!) and their precocious daughter Bobs (Billie Gadson). Christine is a successful clothing designer who finds her perfect life upended when she mysteriously falls ill and none of her doctors can figure out what’s wrong with her. She sees a chance at regaining her health and her sweet family life with the arrival of a Filipino woman named Diana (Chai Fonacier) who promises to cure her. But as anyone who’s seen a commercial for medication can tell you, sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease. The title is a medical term which means, “A harmless substance or treatment that may cause harmful side effects or worsening of symptoms because the patient thinks or believes they may occur or expects them to occur” (www.cancer.gov).
A well-shot movie with a small but talented cast, Nocebo’s lacklustre story is elevated by its talented but small cast of actors. I went into this hoping for so much more than I got considering the talent on display. Instead, what I got was just another formulaic movie with a couple of decent supernatural elements and a plot that would’ve worked better as a short story in an anthology series than a full-length film.
By no means terrible, Nocebo is an exercise in wasted potential that fails to deliver on the scares or thrills a story like this should.
Score: 5 out of 10
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Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever, and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.
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