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Simply Perfect

Great Film overall

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A Brilliant Conflict

This phantasmagorical French horror movie is about a young college student who is dealing with troubling memories of her past by studying Freud and experimenting with "lucid dreaming". When her maternal grandmother dies, she joins her mother in her grandparent's country estate where she uses her lucid dreaming skills to uncover dark family secrets.This film somewhat reminded me of the Walerian Borowzyk film "La Bete", but without the shocking imagery or nearly as strong of a grasp of Freudian surrealism. The "Horsehead" monster that haunts the dreams of the heroine may be the literal embodiment of a "nightmare" (or "cauchemare" in French), but horses are such magnificent and beautiful animals that it's hard to make them look too frightening or threatening. The weird imagery and occasionally effective atmosphere of this film is somewhat of a throwback to an earlier era, and it is refreshing in an age where "horror" is often synonymous with tons of gory effects, "torture porn", and shot-on-video "found-footage" bullsh*t. But the images, while pretty and colorful, are a little pedestrian and frankly just not all scary.The movie does get a lot of mileage out of pretty, young French actress Lily-Fleur Pointeaux. I think at least half the audience will be very favorably disposed to scenes where she luxuriates in a bathtub with her magnificent breasts bobbing and glistening (bobbing and glistening. . .). But she also does a decent job carrying the principal weight of this movie, especially considering I've only previously seen her in small supporting roles in films like "Ma Premiere Pas" and "We Need a Vacation".This film could have used some stronger and perhaps more shocking imagery like "La Bete" or the more recent French/Belgian film "Amer", but it's not an entirely unpleasant way to pass 90 minutes.

Visually this film is at times quite stunning, but beyond that there's not much else to recommend it.Unfortunately one reviewer had to compare it to Dario Argento's work, which then started a trend. In reality it is only the director of photography that resembled Argento in this film, the actual director had some nice ideas but fails to hold the film together. The comparison with such a brilliant director is nothing short of total nonsense.The cinematography was the best part of this movie, providing a powerfully attractive opening scene which exquisitely recreates Fuseli's 18th century oil painting, The Nightmare. After this point however the film is gradually let down by weak acting, a poor script and an overall immature plot.That's unfortunate because it seems this film had potential, taking iconography from sleep paralysis, some interesting ideas provided by Jungian psychology and consistently attractive scene construction. But all of this gets flushed down the pan by a director who seems determined to compromise everything this film could have been with an over reliance on visual effects and music apparently compensating for a lack of any real substance.This film is the work of a great cinematographer and a director that needs to develop his ability, especially his screen writing.

A stunningly terrifying visual experience like no other. The cinematography was breathtaking along with the haunting musical score. I have never been so entranced by horror film before and that is just what Horsehead did to me. I was captivated by the whole film and was locked into this lucid nightmare. The film was a dreamy jolting ride into the dark side of our subconscious and nightmares. There were mesmerizing colors and frightening images shot with such beautiful detail that it echoed the great Dario Argento. I do not need to get into the plot to say why the film was good, but the actors did a phenomenal job accomplishing this beautiful believable visual nightmare. I recommend everyone give this film a chance and prepare for an enticing visual nightmare for all the senses. I simply describe the film as the acid trip of your worst nightmare.

By certain aspects, "Horsehead" made for me thought of the Dario Argento's Inferno : both movies have in common to be enigmatic, fascinating, of a total pictorial beauty, but also to rather hermetic and difficult to access. Horsehead risks hardly to embarrass and to divide the spectators. The movie is not indeed an entertainment popcorn and will ask a real effort of attention and especially an emotional participation and a total dumping in its universe. Horsehead indeed takes the shape of a nightmare in the shape of mysterious puzzle, plunging her heroine into a terrible, dreamlike, fantastical, gory and erotic universe.Following the example of "Lords of Salem" (Rob Zombie - 2012), Horsehead is for my part one of the most interesting proposals of the fantastic movies seen for a long time.(sorry for my English...)