Harmony CorinDigital IP-focused technology and film studio Edglrdhas until now given two functions, both directed by Korine himself: the infrared, twisted techno dance party of “Aggro Dr1ft“And the first person’s shooter”Baby invasion“Both care between infinitely boring and sickly convincing, voyeuristic video games disguised as movies. But video games in a sentence where the viewer instead has no control, completely in the slave to Korine’s vision.
Colombian-American photographer Quiet Make their own bid on Edgld’s goal to redefine the media with its function debut, ”Sad neighborhood“After a long collaboration with Puerto Rican RAP star Bad Bunny. It is the most narrative project that does not yet come out of Edgld’s stable about button press projects, and yet” Barrio Triste, “which premiered in The The The Thea Venice Horizon’s episode for groundbreaking filmmakers before they go to TIFFStill feels more like a video art installation than a movie that requires your attention in theaters. The type of project here, a KVAS-founded horror film set in the 1980s Medellín when the city is terrorized by crime and possible extraterrestrial creatures-that would play in a behind-cast sidebar at a museum, where you would look in for a few minutes before moving to another gallery.
This one is told in hectic style, edgeless and raw to the nubs and meanders through teamless Colombian street paths. With an alternate calm and shaking, and never departing, points by Barcelona-based electronic musicians Arca, “Barrio is sad” is really a hypnotic experience-in the sense that a hypnotic trance may also be intended to calm you to sleep.
Stillz makes his own cinematography and writing (if there is a script it seems to have been abducted from the movie by foreigners) and shot on LO-Fientrian video reminiscent of the most basic horror movies. Whether the pixel -quality image quality – where what we often look at is a lot nothing when a group of teens steal a broadcast journalist camera to catch their own experience – was a trick for movie magic in the post is unclear and, I guess irrelevant.
The 1980s attitude, which is given Stillz’s background as Colombian, is not entirely inexplicable, as the Gen Z film creator works with memories and stories about the city that precedes him. But what is missing, however, with intention, is context.
When film Opens, a news scene on the camera forwards information about extraterrestrial lights that are said to fall from the sky in Medellín, in people’s homes and with a metal sound. Then a Marauding package attacks him and steals his crew camera as they get off to another heist. A tense jewelry robbery, punched by Arcas gradually doomy points that eventually become unbearably clangor and scary, is orchestrated with lively realism. But you may want the camera to slow down a bit, or that one of the kids running it had more movie experience.
But the erosion of a sophisticated visual sensitivity or palate is completely the point of Stillz’s feature debut, and that it is next to Heist or Horror or foreign films makes it for the most narrative driven still of Edglrd’s project. Although the narrative promise turns out to be a red herring for the largely plotless, winding payments that follow. A late scene where the cameraman (let’s call him) peels up the sniffing, graffiti-sprayed corridors in a sloppy apartment building up to the roof at night reminds of the climate cellar descent of “The Blair Witch Project.” Nevertheless, the gain on the other side is much less chilly, although the film’s Swan song sets set some fine special effects and supernatural atmosphere.
Regardless of which EDGLRD’s Formula is-and it seems to be an keen to build internal IP that can be broken for projects in other formats, whether VR or actual video games or to enter the AI engines are still. In “Barrio sad” it seems to happen in real time. The collapsing crime films and possible foreign-abduction wires such as wings around the empty skeleton in this film center, never really coherent, and interviews on the camera with a number of the criminal teenagers offer no emotional position to grab.
There is beauty in the ugliness of “Barrio sad”, but the film feels like a half -started meaning, a bacterium of an idea that does not bloom. More in the future I am safe, but Stillz’s movie does not justify to wait for it.
Rating: c
“Barrio Sad” premiered at the Venice Film Festival 2025 before playing TIFF. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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