THE SCRIBBLER

2014 / Director. John Suits.
Review by Glenn Cochrane.

I do not recommend watching THE SCRIBBLER while exhausted. I have been running on empty all day and tonight I chose this film poorly. That is not to say that it's a bad film (to the contrary) but it is to imply that my brain is completely fried from having watched it. It is a total mind fuck. The film takes place inside an apartment complex, which houses recovering mental patients. We follow a girl named Suki as she recuperates from an experimental electroshock therapy to rid her head of multiple personalities. She is given a portable device to continue her treatment and with each hit she begins to evolve and which of her personalities is her true self becomes ambiguous. A spate of suicides also plagues the apartment complex and a mysterious girl roaming the halls casts a whole other shadow over the story. THE SCRIBBLER didn't make a whole lot of sense to me while I watched it but as I reflect upon it now it is starting to pool together like liquid metal morphing into Robert Patrick. I enjoyed its perplexity and being in an exhausted state of mind I didn't bother myself with the comprehension. As soon as I realised how confounding it was going to be, I switched my brain off and let the aesthetic and the fantastic textures wash over me. I guess you could say that I basked in this film. The set design and colour schemes are gorgeous. The music is overstated but works nicely with the surrealism and the performances are good, although not outstanding by any means. If you're familiar with films like PRIMER or PHASMA EX MACHINA then you will have a good sense of THE SCRIBBLER. Throw in some thematic similarities with DARK CITY and THE MACHINIST and you've got a smouldering pot of mind-fuck. I cannot wait to watch it again with a clearer mind and a better comprehension of what I've already seen. 

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