Official selection
Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival 2021
Director
Stef Lernous
Writer
Stef Lernous
Cast
Ruth Becquart, Steve Geerts, Anneke Sluiters, Tine Van den Wyngaert, Dominique Van Malder, Tom Vermeir
Producer
Nick Kaldunski
contact
Abattoir Fermé
Join us after the screening on August 10 at 9:10pm EDT for a live Q&A with Director Stef Lernous.
A keen absurdist sense of humour meets a wonderfully inventive production design in HOTEL POSEIDON, a Belgian feature debut from future cult favourite Stefan Lernous. The film unfolds in a giant rotting, recently inherited hotel, as a series of tableaus and vignettes witnessed by Dave (Tom Vermeir), the passive and zombie-like lead. While mostly non-narrative driven, Dave gets pulled deeper into this nightmare location as the film progresses, which increasingly feels like a liminal entryway to hell itself. The film's unique and atmosphere production design is bolstered by an incredible soundscape and otherworldly camera movements, rendering the single location cavernous, guttural and unnerving. The film's decaying environment serves as a stunning backdrop to a hilarious script, drawing on absurd scenarios and set-pieces for shocking pitch-dark comedy moments.
Deliciously nauseating and singular in tone and artistry, HOTEL POSEIDON stands among titans as a debut that seemingly emerged straight from the gooey mercurial swamplands where life on Earth first appeared. The film's incredible and bizarre cast of characters often feels trapped between evolutionary stages, in terms of destabilizing personification as well as through costume and makeup design. Writer and director Stefan Lernous's wonderfully deranged imagination takes the audience on a strange and surreal journey that only draws you deeper as you watch on. With hints of David Lynch (especially his work as a painter), as well as Quay Brother's flourishes, HOTEL POSEIDON is a remarkable and iconoclastic vision that only arrives once in a blue moon. – Justine Smith
Showings
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