Popular reviews

• 

  Review by andre ★★★★½ 3

  é um filme bem peculiar que mistura o drama com elementos psicológicos de uma forma muito intrigante.

  taylor e farrow entregam performances intensas, explorando a dor e a alienação de suas personagens de maneira profunda. robert, embora tenha um papel menor se torna memorável e importante pra história deixando tudo mais complexo, a sua interação com as protagonista é perturbadora oque ajuda pro clima inquietante do filme.

  o enredo é melodramático e eu adoro muito isso, retrata temas como perda, identidade e dinâmica familiar de uma forma corajosa com um desenrolar não linear, ou seja, se você não ligar os pontos provavelmente vai se perder.

  o estilo visual chamou total minha atenção, apesar de eu amar uma cinematográfia confortável os…

• 

  Review by laird ★★★★½ 5

  Black Gardens

  "Nobody's just a nice old man."

  Zonked out Liz Taylor and manic nymphet nightmare girl Mia Farrow reside in a Gothic house of psychotic women that is haunted by the specter of sexual abuse. Eerie, weird, and ethereal. Robert Mitchum says the line, "I wouldn't rape a randy elephant!"

• 

  Review by MrSneakyMan ★★★★½

  I have so many questions.

  I'm still not sure what happened and was confused the entire film, but I found it irresistibly watchable. Sublimely twisty and inscrutable. There is not one part of this film where any of the characters are on the level and not attempting to beguile, or lie to, or cheat one another, or themselves for that mater. It's like a Russian nesting doll of deception played out in five dimensional space. Time becomes loose and reality is questioned. Identities build, change and disintegrate like piles of leaves in the wind. The only constant is pain. Loss and reclamation are the elemental forces that drive these ghosts into action.

• 

  Review by comrade_yui ★★★★★ 3

  in every respect one of the most audacious and insane films i've ever experienced, like a campier but less surreal version of david lynch in the way that it paints a deep psychotic existential disturbance in the heart of family life; a movie where you can laugh one second and then be on the verge of tears, this shit is completely hysterical, a work that has to be seen to be believed. the profound tension between movement and stillness here threatens to tear the film apart; losey understands that the heart of the gothic romance tradition lies in the blurring between our fixed categories of life and death, sanity and insanity. secret ceremony furthers this by breaking the barrier between…

• 

  Review by Emalie ★★★★

  freaky psychosexual gothic 'thriller' and features one of my favorite things, which is Elizabeth Taylor trying on clothes and putting on jewelry

• 

  Review by alejaaa ★★★½

  girlhood is a spectrum:
  being a deranged girl in constant search of an all consuming mother figure --- being a jaded woman desiring to slip into another's life and their art nouveau mansion with lots of wardrobe space 😊

  gothic, demented, obsessive, psychosexual, destructive, mummy, me n who me n wh-

• 

  Review by rischka ★★★½

  woozy and weird gothic melodrama that investigates the symbiotic relationship between a mad but wealthy orphan and a blowsy middle-aged prostitute who meet in a cemetery and are soon ensconced in a fabulous art nouveau mansion: a fitting set for losey's baroque sensibilities. the dreamlike spooky atmosphere carries the rather messy narrative enough to keep things interesting. a brave career choice for liz taylor, who has never impressed me much with her dramatic skills, and she has some eyerolling moments here (or perhaps it's just her outfits, hard to tell) but the young mia farrow is nothing short of amazing and how she managed to play this directly after 'rosemary's baby' without losing her mind is a complete mystery to me. robert mitchum has a small but pivotal and suitably creepy role. a real late '60s curio for fans of 'persona' and '3 women'

• 

  Review by Millie De Chirico ★★★★½ 1

  Everyone screams when she licks her back, right

• 

  Review by Justin LaLiberty ★★★★

  "Crazy people never look their age."

• 

  Review by Sat ★★★★

  of course a man has to come in and try to ruin an incestuous not really incestuous relationship between an older woman and her girltoy. can women have anything.

• 

  Review by Chris 🍉 ★★★★★

  I literally cant even begin to process this. So good with Mia farrow and Elizabeth Taylor giving it their all until Robert Mitchum shows up and then it got far more complex in its psychology than I was ready for. Not something I’d recommend to anybody - its very easy to write this off as a weird gothic psychosexual exploitation film with little else to offer and i don’t blame anyone who does - but I think strangely enough this worked for me..... much to think about.

• 

  Review by esther 1

  mia farrow licking elizabeth taylor's back mia farrow licking elizabeth taylor's back mia f