Vivarium

11/20/2019

‘Vivavirum’ slots in neatly next to Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe’s ‘Greener Grass’ and Richard Stanley’s ‘Color Out of Space’ to form a loose trilogy of deeply surrealist releases in 2019 that skewer our perceptions of suburbia and the family unit. Director Lorcan Finnegan has brought to life a disturbing, thoughtful and bleakly funny mutant of a movie. - Jake Watt Read Jake's full article... https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-vivarium-what-makes-a-house-a-horrific-home

3/28/2020

Pretty pointless movie. Signed up to review because I couldn't believe the rating this received. Yes, you get a weird realtor and a creepy kid but other than that you just watch the couple basically repeat each day hating being stuck. You're not going to learn anything more about the weird freaks or why they're doing what they're doing and will end up feeling like you just wasted your time. Yeah, I get it's supposed to be satire but pass.

4/13/2020

> **_Review on Horror Focus_** This indie sci-fi thriller Vivarium from Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan is many things, one definitely being quite the head-scratcher. Not because of it being an intellectually challenging story, or one that is laced with twists and turns to create an unpredictable viewing, but a film that delivers a narratives so peculiar that it is like something you've never seen before. Take this with a pinch of salt, as there's certainly aspects which don't make the landing of such an ambitious plot, but let it also be known that Vivarium contains some impressions visual and narrative storytelling, enough to forgive some of the mid-act waffle that cripples the films momentum. Finnegan gets the ball rolling with power, keeping the story taught enough that we are th

7/13/2020

Amazing watch, will watch again, and can recommend. Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg (both from "The Art of Self Defense") are amazing in their roles as an abducted couple force to raise a child. This is an amazing premise (see "Solar Opposites" for something similar), and one that is extremely hard to discuss without spoilers. This is a wonderful mix of tropes. There is a prisoner / abductee trope, there is "adoption of a strange child" trope, there is a "troubled couple" trope, there is even a mystery trope. I'm fully of the opinion that the right thing to do in any abduction situation is to not reward the criminals with what they want because there is no reason that while they have all the power that they're going to do anything to benefit the victims. We get see an exploration

8/6/2020

Sci-fi thriller, just not _"on the edge of sit"_ type. Lorcan Finnegan remakes his short film **Foxes** and adds a life message to it.

8/23/2020

It's a movie whose premise had promise but was never thoroughly explored. I read the generally high praise in the reviews for this movie and admittedly, I was fooled. I'm convinced that at least the individual here who likened part of its premise to the animated series, "Solar Opposites," while not being entirely off the mark, neglected to mention that unlike Solar Opposites, there is no payoff with Vivarium. Unlike Solar Opposites, we don't know why Vivarium exists. We don't know why people are expected to raise these mysterious hominids. We don't know what their purpose is, other than to entrap first home buyers, like some kind of otherworldly predatory lender. Is it a euphemism for unscrupulous property developers? Who knows? Only thing I know is that by the end of it all, I felt