Twixt

Twixt, a late work by Francis Ford Coppola based on a short story he wrote himself, hovers between dream and reality in its narrative. On two timelines, the fates of a young girl and an aging author are intertwined. The latter is almost unwillingly drawn into the story of a long-ago crime. In his dream world, close references to Edgar Allan Poe are made, which can be recognized as an homage to the writer. With Twixt, Francis Ford Coppola created a very personal work, which is evident, among other things, in the way he processes the accidental death of his son within its pages. An unconventional, hauntingly beautiful horror film.

It's an odd little film that goes for a similar 'poetic fairy tale horror' style as Coppola's much more successful "Bram Stoker's Dracula" or Neil Jordan's masterpiece "The Company of Wolves", but only reaches this goal in a few moments. The main problem is the casting of Val Kilmer in the lead, who is not bad, but kind of uninteresting. The whole film is too low key and the production design looks cheap in a few scenes. The effects look simple. The good things are Bruce Dern, Elle Fanning, Alden Ehrenreich, Tom Waits (narration), E.A. Poe references, the humor and especially the nice cinematography by Mihai Malaimare Jr., who is doing some beautiful work on a low budget. Still, it's worth seeing as a minor Coppola film: It's certainly more ambitious than your average vampire flick. The French film magazine "Cahiers du cinéma" even named it the 3rd best film of 2012...