Verão Fantasma (Portuguese) Phantom Summer

This horror musical was definitely not my cup of tea. It is one of those productions that throws everything against the wall in hopes that something will stick and resonate with the viewer. In particular, the project attempts to tackle several different genres; romance, comedy, horror, mystery, and musical. The result, as is often the case with films bogged down in excess, is a bit of a muddled mess that is impressive one moment only to transition into aggravating tedium.

Martin is on a quest. Long ago, before he understood his sexuality or what it could mean for him socially, he fell for one of his friends, a skinny blond boy called Daniel. Not so long afterwards, Daniel disappeared, and nobody knows what became of him. Sometimes he thinks he catches sight of him. He is now hiding in his aunt's coastal house away from everyone. There his cousin also shows up with her boyfriend and other friends. Martin meets Lucas, a neighborhood boy and together they wanna search for the mystery disappearance of Daniel. Slowly love starts to blossom between these two boys. But in the face of dark secrets from the past, it affects the happy gay couple and also Martin's female cousin. The film keeps going between reality, dreams, fiction and opera.

As if already the film wasn't a miss-mash of lot of elements, the last 30-40 minutes transitions into a surreal opera where the lighting, cinematography, and narrative take a sharp turn from the more drama-heavy opening moments. A dramatic fantasy-horror film suddenly becomes a musical out of nowhere and I was like WTF!! The only interesting aspect was Lucas helping Martin come to terms with his sexuality, while blending supernatural elements with the horrors of social stigma around homosexuality. Given that the film itself is not consistent in what other wants to be, the actors are left to keep switching between horror, fear, opera and romance. And in the process they are unable to do justice to their performance. I would blame the makers completely for this because clearly they were not sure as tow hat they want this film to be. As a cohesive narrative, nothing really works and it becomes a very frustrating watch. I finished watching the film and I am still not sure what really was the horror element. What happened to Daniel or the ghost of the aunt that keeps showing up. Honestly once the film went into full on opera mode, I couldn't care less on what was going on. Even the romance scenes between the two was just short besides a few kisses since the focus was more on past horrors. (3/10)

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