Christ am I regretting spending fifteen squid on this Lars Von Trier 'E Trilogy' boxset. I absolutely adore all of his other films (aside from The Idiots) but The Element of Crime proved to be a tedious exercise in style over substance and Epidemic somehow manages to be even worse.
Devoid of any style or substance, Epidemic painfully depicts the writing process of a 'horror' film between Lars and his writing partner Niels. It's an interesting meta idea but the whole thing feels chopped and forced together. The film looks messy just by looking at it with it's shoddy camerawork, grainy black and white photography and a strange 'Epidemic' watermark which remains in the corner the whole way through, like you're watching some sort of pirate copy.
It may only be 1hr 40mins but it feels longer than the extended version of Nymphomaniac. It's nonsensical and boring, I can imagine that the majority of the film was adlibbed. There are a few fantasy sequences which are shot nicely but that's about it. The ending was also intriguingly startling as we watch a woman have a never-ending hysterical turn in the style of Isabella Adjani in Possession.
Unless you're a big Lars fan who can't help but be curious about his first three features then don't bother watching either Epedemic or The Element of Crime. I can't imagine why you would anyway, although I do recall Epidemic appearing on a list of the scariest horror films. Can't understand why though, this is not a horror film and is not scary in the slightest. Skip.
Devoid of any style or substance, Epidemic painfully depicts the writing process of a 'horror' film between Lars and his writing partner Niels. It's an interesting meta idea but the whole thing feels chopped and forced together. The film looks messy just by looking at it with it's shoddy camerawork, grainy black and white photography and a strange 'Epidemic' watermark which remains in the corner the whole way through, like you're watching some sort of pirate copy.
It may only be 1hr 40mins but it feels longer than the extended version of Nymphomaniac. It's nonsensical and boring, I can imagine that the majority of the film was adlibbed. There are a few fantasy sequences which are shot nicely but that's about it. The ending was also intriguingly startling as we watch a woman have a never-ending hysterical turn in the style of Isabella Adjani in Possession.
Unless you're a big Lars fan who can't help but be curious about his first three features then don't bother watching either Epedemic or The Element of Crime. I can't imagine why you would anyway, although I do recall Epidemic appearing on a list of the scariest horror films. Can't understand why though, this is not a horror film and is not scary in the slightest. Skip.