Ever
since the death of his mother, young entitled Jakob Rivi has refused to talk.
For some reason, his sculptor father Klaus considers this a problem, rather
than a consolation. More nurses have been fired at the Rivi estate than Trump
West Wing staffers, but the oddly intense Verena might be different. However,
she might be dealing with supernatural matters outside her area of expertise in
Eric D. Howell’s Voice from the Stone (trailer here), which screens
during the 2017 Frightfest in the UK.
To
call the Rivi’s home a manse or a villa would be an understatement. It has
crenellations. It has also seen better days. Much of the masonry is chipped and
cracking, unfortunately including Jakob’s room. Ever since the death of his
pianist mother Malvina (doesn’t “mal” usually mean bad?), he has supposedly
heard her speaking to him through the aperture in his wall. It seems he is
afraid that if he starts talking, she will stop.
Enter
Verena (presumably named after St. Verena, the patron saint of nurses and
lepers, don’t you reckon?). At first, she is having none of Jakob’s spookiness.
Yet, as her protective mothering instincts start to kick in, she begins to
suspect there maybe something to it after all. The more driven she is to help Jakob,
the more she and Klaus feel their powerful mutual attraction. She even starts
sitting as a model for his unfinished statue of Malvina after he realizes how
much they look alike. Yeah okay, if he says so, but not really.
Based
on Silvio Raffo’s Italian novel, Stone clearly
echoes Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca and
Henry James’ Turn of the Screw, but
it is really stingy with the sinister elements until late in the third act. There
is at least one uncanny plot twist supposedly hiding in plain sight, but it is
distractingly obvious (especially considering one late 1990s blockbuster is
famously constructed around a similar revelation).
What
works here is the atmospheric, Hammer-esque 1950s costumes, sets, and
trappings. Castle Rivi and the family mausoleum are terrific gothic locations, but
Emilia Clarke and Marton Csokas are no Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. Of
the two, he fares the better, mostly just brooding and glowering like Edward
Rochester’s less imposing cousin. The work of Clarke, (a Game of Thrones fan favorite) is rather lightweight, but she tries
to compensate by opening her eyes impossibly wide. It is hard to imagine anyone
would confuse her with Caterina Murino, which is why the audience starts to
pine for Malvina along with Jakob (let’s just say he looks awkward on-screen
and leave it at that).
Stone looks great, but
it has no passion or sense of urgency. It is a strange choice for Howell,
considering the grittiness of his Oscar-shortlisted short Ana’s Playground, but one could argue both films fully capitalize
on the architecture of their settings. The ending almost redeems Voice from the Stone, but there are much
better genre films at this year’s Frightfest UK, including Psychopaths, Sequence Break, Game of Death, Mansfield 66/67, The Villainess, Devil’s Gate, Meatball Machine Kodoku, and the short film Bad Heads. Here in the U.S., it is
already available on DVD, but it has its UK premiere this Friday (8/25), as
part of Frightfest.