Michael (18)

Alison Rowat's Review

Actor and casting director Markus Schleinzer makes his directorial debut with a tale few others would go near.

The Michael of the title is a paedophile holding a boy captive in a basement room. Michael, we see, is the outwardly civilised kind of paedophile, one who takes his young victim on day trips and buys him Christmas presents, but he’s a paedophile all the same.

Though Schleinzer approaches the subject in as sensitive and intelligent manner as possible, one is left wondering why anyone would want to sit through this.

Paul Greenwood's Review

In an ordinary suburb in Austria, a man in his 30s lives alone in a house with electric shutters on the window and a sound-proofed door that leads downstairs.

He works in an office and is outwardly a picture of normality, but for the fact he is keeping a young boy in his basement locked behind a sturdily bolted door.

Chilling beyond comprehension, this is an astonishingly well-made yet wholly responsible look at a subject matter few filmmakers dare venture into.

No horror film has come close to achieving its power, and yet nothing is shown, its insidiousness growing precisely because it’s so coldly calculated and measured, and the cumulative effect is deeply distressing.

It’s the year’s most essential film, but if you’ve got any sense you won’t go anywhere near it.