Review: Videotheque aka Videoteka (2024)
By William Pattison
This time I’ve got a Serbian anthology film…
Fleeing the police, a small-time thief hides in an abandoned
video store. Stuck for the night he decides to play three strange films.
I have to say that I really enjoyed the wrap around story,
which is about a thief who ends up stuck in this royally creepy abandoned video
store. The video store actually reminded me of a real cringe video store I used
to frequent in the 80s, though a bit dusty and dirtier.
(Warning: Spoiler Alert)
The three stories are really well done, though I have to say
the first story Dangar is a bit anticlimactic to me. It tells the story of a tribal
man who is saved from drowning in the ice by an old man. The old man has a
blind daughter. The tribal man ends up killing the old man and burning the
daughter as a sacrifice to his gods. You don’t
really get any reasons for this. The second story is a very Twilight
Zone style story about a young man who works at a sandwich shop and has a
beautiful girlfriend. One day he meets a man who drives a BMW. The guy
introduces him to his boss who is a rich man. The old man somewhat jokingly offers
to switch with the young man because the young man wants to have the good life.
So, the young man ends up waking up in the old man’s body.
The third story is about a cop who has a slight obsession
with an underaged girl and is married to a pregnant wife. The cop is in the
middle of a situation where a suspected serial killer has escaped jail and is
on the loose The girl is related to the murdered guard and the viewer is lead
to expect that the suspect isn’t the
killer but the cop.
All the stories are well produced and shot. The only
unfortunately thing is these stories are all in Serbian with subtitles, so I
ended up getting a headache having to try reading the dialogue while watching.
Also, this film is a lot like our VHS anthology series, but with better written
stories and a lot less gore. I will definitely recommend this film, if you can find
it since it is a Serbian film. I will only suggest you keep some aspirins on
hand for the headache from the subtitles you will get.
