by Finnlay Dall
Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Sandra Terrance Lau, Nick Cheung, Fala Chen
Intro:
… the film delights in showing the horrors found inside the mind.
Mental health and horror have always had a tumultuous relationship. When Mary Shelley penned Frankenstein, the arrogant Victor creates life, only to fall prey to a tormenting spiral of guilt, anger and anxiety. Meanwhile, the creature he has created is left isolated, cursed and detested by human society, experiencing an existential depression like no other. From Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe, to Stephen King and David Cronenberg: Artists, authors and indeed filmmakers have used horror to try and make sense of the unknowable nightmares that lay behind our neuroses.
Following that storied tradition, actor turned director Nick Cheung invites us to delve directly into the hell that is our subconscious, as the people of Hong Kong are disturbed by sleepless nights and increasingly violent dreams. However, as more nuanced horrors like The Babadook and Saint Maud have shifted our attention towards a more empathic view of the mentally ill, can the old school – albeit brash – style of Peg O’ My Heart really captivate modern audiences?
Dr. Man (Terrance Lau) is an unconventional psychiatrist. He’s not adverse to digging up information on his patients, or threatening their abusers, if it will help them rid themselves of psychosis. The board may be breathing down his neck, but with results like his, it’s hard to see him being dismissed anytime soon. Yet, when sleepless taxi driver, Choi San-keung (Nick Cheung Ka-Fai) gets into an accident, and his wife Fiona, (Fala Chen) in a manic state, terrorises the locals upon his arrest, Dr. Man faces his toughest case yet. As his own nightmares spiral out of control, the doctor must reconcile with his own traumatic past if he hopes to have any chance of saving the couple.
Despite his profession, Dr. Man seems to be pulled straight from the pages of a police procedural or a pulpy noir novel; a Freudian detective, so obsessed with the subconscious that he has a painting of an iceberg in his apartment hallway. More charming and less abrasive than his noir contemporaries, the genuine care that he exhibits for his patients makes him an interesting protagonist to follow. Although, that’s also why he struggles to maintain said intrigue. He becomes Dr. Perfect: a being with (almost) no flaws, and who receives very little pushback for someone who is supposedly teetering on the edge of sanity, much less of being employed. The nurses who ‘hate’ him find him incredibly handsome, and even when he does finally butt heads with the board of psychiatry – due to his more unsavoury tactics – his own director is there to bail him out at a moment’s notice.
Dr. Man at least has difficulties reconciling with his ageing father, but it lacks the dramatic weight that the filmmakers want the story to have – even if it is emotionally resonant.
Peg O’ My Heart’s greatest accomplishment is its full throttle nightmare sequences. The striking scene of a young woman, suspended by a rusty swing in a room full of blood, is one unlikely to be forgotten. Screaming with each rock back and forth as her feet bathe in red and sticky waters, the girl tries to wake up. But as a giant babydoll’s head cries from the corner of the room, whose tears form the blood that the scene is drenched in, it seems that her torment is neverending. It is only when her mother discovers her in the waking world with a slit wrist that the unnamed teen is given a small moment of reprieve. Equal parts Elm Street nightmare and the Salvadore Dali infused dreamscape of Hitchcock’s Spellbound, the film delights in showing the horrors found inside the mind. And while every vomiting ghoul and charcoaled phantom is stretched thin on an incredibly tight VFX budget, it delivers in amply scaring the audience.
But as you might expect, this obsession with delivering over the top grime and gore leads to a few missteps. Especially when it comes to the casualties of the story. Fala Chen’s Fiona, in particular, falls victim to the “crazy bitch” stereotype, despite Dr. Man’s insistence that she not be stigmatised as such. At one stage, she brutally maims a dog and scavenges its innards like a wild animal. When confronted by Dr. Man, she sprays him with the leftover blood before covering herself in a comical amount of gasoline, with the intent to light herself on fire.
Mental illness and horror may be linked, and it is okay to indulge in exploitation where appropriate, but cross that fine line and you risk alienating your audience. There’s a huge difference between The Substance for example, which sees Elisabeth as a real and tragic human when she succumbs to pressures of beauty standards, in turn becoming a monster of her own creation, and this film’s Fiona, whose crazed regression to a schlocky psycho is not only insensitive but borderline cartoonish. This extends to other touchy material such as the film’s laughably bad depictions of domestic abuse or suicide.
The movie ends with a post credits teaser of a character who was introduced but soon forgotten by Dr. Man. The spoiler is minor, as his inclusion is just as effective as if he wasn’t there in the first place. The film, like the scene itself, is certainly an enjoyable watch, especially after Halloween.