Ladyworld — Ladyworld( Blu Ray)
Ladyworld was the second feature-length film by writer & director Amanda Kramer- and it finds her bringing together a group of suburban American teenage girls trapped in a house after one of the numbers birthday party. It seems there was an earthquake or similar catastrophe- so all the doors & windows of the house are blocked. The film follows the slow but sure decline of the girl's sanity, as they return to a more animalistic & feral state.
The blacked-out opening credits opens with a rumbling earth sound- then all-out noise texturing, so from the start your put on edge. As the film starts to roll we meet each of the group of eight girls, all of whom are fairly vapid, vain, and self-obsessed- as time ticks on their phones run out of juice, they eat the food left from the party, and slowly but surely attack & degrade each other. Adding to the tense/ edge of the whole thing, there’s no formal soundtrack- instead, we get blends of hovering & simmering female voices, which are either set to droning washes, dense weaves of pressing noise, or sourly pitched sweeps. I’d say you’ve got to enjoy artier & dialogue-heavy thrillers for this to click with you
The teens performances are a little stagy, then later rather over the top & obnoxious. I can certainly see what Kramer was attempting to do here, create a taut & emotionally fraught thriller which constantly has the watches nerves on edge- sadly I found none of the teen girl characters very compelling or interesting, and largely finding them more than a little grating/ annoying. I guess been a male genre fan in his 40’s I’m not the target audience for Ladyworld- but the problem is, it’s too arty & often atmospherically shrill to appeal to a passing teen audience….so I’m not sure who it’s focused at- that said the film has had some very good press, so it’s certainly found an audience.
The Blu Ray picture is as expected for a more modern film is good & balanced- aside from teaser, theatrical trailer, and image slideshow, there are no extras here. In finishing, I’ll say Ladyworld wasn’t for me, but I can see it could well appeal to those who like more female-focused thrillers, with a taut & tense art-house feel to them.