ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

In the mood for a highly visual, mind-twisting horror film that is short on dialogue and leaves viewers plenty on which to mull over? Then look no further than writer/director Steffen Geypen’s Belgian shocker logger.

Based on Jean de la Fontaine’s 1668 fable “Death and the Logger,” Geypen’s film opens with a logger (Pieter Piron) stumbling across a mutilated body in the forest, which makes him catatonic on the spot. A forester (Jurgen Delnaet) and doctor (Maya Sannen) investigate, a jogger (Mil Sinaeve) crosses their path, and Death (Mona Lahousse) comes calling.

Geypen shows the unfolding events from different perspectives, some of them free of or short on dialogue, leaving viewers to chew on the surreal occurrences and piece together what’s happening. The visuals range from gorgeous to graphic and unsettling — the latter includes some extreme close-ups of bloodletting — all captured marvelously by cinematographer Jens Vanysacker.

Aficionados of strange cinema — including those with a fondness for the work of David Lynch, Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel, and the like — and other adventurous viewers will find plenty to be keen on here. logger is a dark fable that unsettles and mystifies, and it is bound to stick with viewers long after it finishes.

logger screens as part of A Night of Horror International Film Festival, which takes place at Dendy Cinemas Newtown, Sydney, Australia, from October 17th until October 23rd, 2022. For more information, visit https://www.anightofhorror.com.