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Belle (Syrenne Robinson) is a pretty happy circa 9 year old girl who
wants to start her own YouTube channel sooner rather than later, who has a
great playmate in her little brother Link (Zachary Robinson), and who's
loved by her parents (Sarah Mae Robinson). Sure, her mum acts a tad weird
on occasion, breaks out into uncontrollable sobs and is often found
talking to herself in a sort of trance, but dad's always there to snap her
out of it. But then dad has to go on a business trip, leaving the kids
alone with mum - and at first, everything goes very alright. But after a
couple of days she again starts to uncontrollably sob, even if she tries
to hide it from her kids. Soon though, she's beyond hiding, and also
freaks out Belle and Link by constantly talking to herself, and the
content gets more worrying by the minute. Things get weirder and scarier
for the children though, like when mum throws away all their food, or when
she removes all the lightbulbs all over the house. Eventually, Belle and
Link come to the conclusion it might be the best idea to run away from
home - only they've always been such good kids, they don't really know how
to go about it. Also by the time they decide, mum might already be too far
gone to not be a threat to them ... Now I have to admit the
somewhat forced found footage approach to its material prevents the film
to reach its full potential, as too random/shaky camerawork in connection
with bad lighting at times makes things hard to make out, especially in
the finale - but while for this reason Life of Belle might not be perfect,
it's still a perfectly scary film, especially due to its slowburn build-up
that makes the story more unnerving by the minute. Plus, the leads are all
great, also the kids, and have a great dynamic with one another (probably
because they're a family in real life as well. And the film's refusal to
explain things away makes everything only more disturbing, and makes this
a film that will stay with you for a bit, as good shockers ought to.
If this has gotten you at all interested, this title is
available from screambox.com
from May 17th.
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