Kalevet
Director: Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
Writer: Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
Cast: Lior Ashkenazi, Danny Geva, Ania Bukstein, Menashe Noy, Ran Danker, Henry David, Ofer Shechter, Liat Harlev, Yael Grobglas, Efrat Boimold
Part of: /slash Filmfestival

Plot:
Tali (Liat Harlev) and her brother Ofer (Henry David) have run away from home, but in the woods they run to, Tali falls into the trap of a psychopathic killer. Ofer runs for help and finds a group of young tennis players who took a wrong turn. The guys – Mikey (Ran Danker) and Pini (Ofer Shechter) – go with Ofer to find Tali, while the girls – Adi (Ania Bukstein) and Shir (Yael Grobglas) – wait for the police. But that’s just the beginning of how things go wrong.

Rabies is a good debut movie, but it’s quite notable that it’s a debut. It’s quite enjoyable, but it could have been a little more daring and more overtly funny.

I loved how the movie plays with horror conventions. [SPOILER] You gotta love a film where the psychopathic killer passes out right at the beginning and doesn’t wake up until the end – and it doesn’t really have an effect on the amount of blood-shed. [/SPOILER] It gives the movie a nice undertone of humor. But this humor could have been made more explicit and it wouldn’t have hurt the film at all.

It was a very well done film. The tension rises nicely and the special effects are good. I can only give my usual complaint about too much shaky cam [bane of my existence]. Down with shaky cam, for fuck’s sake. Nobody needs it and it is just annoying.

The performances are excellent. [I have to admit that, apart from the acting I was quite impressed by how many beautiful people could be fitted into this film. Rarely have I seen such a density. But that’s actually neither here nor there.]

Despite that the movie has a few lengths and as I said before, it’s quite obvious that this is a debut film for both Keshales and Papushado. If it had been their fifth film, it would have been disappointing. As a first film, it promises a lot of good things for what’s to come from them.

Summarising: very worth checking out.