THE CANAL by Ivan Kavanagh

Film archivist David (Rupert Evans) is having a tough time. He thinks his wife Alice (Hannah Hoekstra) is cheating on him with Alex (Carl Shabaan), one of his clients at work. This doesn’t exactly create positive vibes in their marriage. Then David’s colleague Claire (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) gives him a reel from the archive that shows that the house he and Alice are living in was the setting of a gruesome murder in 1902; a crime of passion that was caused by… suspicion and jealousy. From that moment on, David feels a strange presence in the house. On top of that Alice disappears and the police are pointing to David as the main suspect.

It was the intention of director Ivan Kavanagh to make a visceral and sensuous movie. He has pulled this off with shining colors. This Irish genre gem reminds you of Argento’s Suspiria and, in its tendency for surrealism, of Un Chien Andalou and Lost Highway. We admit that we love to be generous with lofty references, but in this case they’re right on the spot.