One of my guilty pleasures is watching films about witches and evil powers. With his full-length feature film debut, writer and director Goran Stolevski brings us You Won’t Be Alone, a film that includes these elements and much more. It is also visually enticing and emotionally moving.

Although this was Stolevski’s first full-length film, he has done a series of short films with emotional themes that loosely tie into You Won’t Be Alone. His short films include: Blood (2008), which involved an affair, a disease, a birth, and a death; Today Is Not the Day (2015), about someone losing a good friend and a couple’s relationship falling apart; and You Deserve Everything (2016), about a doctor having a relationship with an interpreter who works at his hospital.

You Won’t Be Alone is set in Macedonia in the 19th century. We are introduced to Nevena, played by Sara Klimosksa, who is kidnapped by an ancient spirit known as Maria, played by Anamaria Marinca. Nevena is tormented and abused by Maria, and Novena begins to develop her own witch powers, including the ability to shift herself into someone else’s body. Nevena’s abuse at the hands of Maria leaves her in despair and makes her feel disconnected. She’s desperate for a change in her life and ends up killing a peasant girl named Bosilka, played by Noomi Rapace, and shifting into her body to experience life as an actual human. Nevena just wants a normal life where she can feel loved.

You Won’t Be Alone reminded me in some ways of the movie Room (2015). It was similar in that Room was also about a young person who was stuck in in a world of isolation and abuse, and was desperate for a normal life. Fantasy films have often been overdone by the big franchise studios, but You Won’t Be Alone has an exhilarating screenplay and is authentic and creative without being overdone.

I did not expect the emotional component of You Won’t Be Alone, but it certainly added to the experience. Fans of witchcraft, vampires, or ancient spirits will love the surreal aspects of the film. Like many such fantasy films, it has some disturbing moments. But the focus on Nevena striving to find a happy place and escape Maria’s evil world takes it to another level. Three and a half stars for You Won’t Be Alone. 

Cachexia is one of those films that psychologically challenges its viewers. The film involves an experiment going awry that is realistic with an unsettling and engrossing tone. Writer and director Alina Galimullina challenges her audiences by presenting a distressing situation. Taking place around Russia, Cachexia is one of the most real experiences I have seen in some time. The film left me with questions including whether the participants of the experiment will survive.

The film focuses on a group of college students in Russia. They agree to participate in a hunger experiment. The experiment consists of a professor locking the students in a basement for a few weeks to see how they can survive. The professor also broadcasts them being locked in the basement. The students seem excited about the experiment in the beginning, but as more time passes without food or water, they begin to suffer implications which create a dangerous scenario. With the professor’s broadcast growing, his judgments become poorer. Because the students are locked in tight quarters, they suffer various psychological problems and their resentment builds. They begin to hallucinate and are reminded of why they are doing this experiment, i.e., to replicate the Russian famine of the early 1920 in the Volga region.

Cachexia reminded me of The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) only this movie showed more realistic and distressing elements throughout the study. Whereas The Stanford Prison Experiment takes place at a college, Cachexia tests its limits with hatred, frustration, and starvation. Galimullina is faithful to her vision of depicting hunger with Cachexia. It is a vivid and disturbing portrayal that may be hard for some to handle. However, I could not keep my eyes away from this invigorating experiment of a film. Cachexia is so incredibly fascinating.

Cachexia can be found through the Film Girl Film Festival virtually at filmgirlfilm.com. The fest runs through March 31. For those who like psychological tales with some horror blended in, Cachexia is that film. For those who can handle suspense like this, Cachexia is not to be missed. Three and a half stars for Cachexia.

In a post-pandemic world the big audiences are flocking to movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once, which is a comical multiverse film featuring superhero icons teaming up with other superheroes. The film includes plans gone awry, new superhero characters coming around, and many more twists. Unfortunately, although it has a creative style of filmmaking and it starts off strong, the creativity ultimately goes overboard, the film becomes exhausting, and it comes off as over-done.

In Everything Everywhere All at Once, Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn Wang, a Chinese immigrant who has personal and financial challenges. She is struggling with her daughter Joy, played by Stephanie Hsu, and her husband Waymond, played by Ke Huy Quan, as well as her tax lady, Deirdre, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Evelyn suddenly falls into a virtual adventure where she realizes, in different universes, how her life could be if certain potential scenarios in her life happen or don’t happen.

The film did have its comical high points, especially from Yeoh’s performance. It also throws in some slapstick violence and has some silly dialogue that is entertaining.

The film relates a lot to a film that I love, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), which mixed lots of irreverent backstories blended into a multiverse. But unlike that film, Everything Everywhere All at Once has just too much going on—too many additions to the central story and too many unexplained backstories.

I’m not prepared to say that Everything Everywhere All at Once is a terrible experience, and some may be able to handle this crazy universe more than others. One experience was enough for me. Everything Everywhere all at Once is a film that will leave some in awe and others will be bored or confused. The film is clever on many levels, and I enjoyed bits and pieces, but not to a great extent. It just was not as spectacular as I was anticipating. Just two and a half stars for Everything Everywhere All at Once.