Braid [DVD] [2018]

For a first timer, this is quite an achievement. The director has a strong visual sense that is fully realized by the cinematography of Todd Banhazl. Whether one gets caught up in the story depends on one's own patience or personal baggage. There's a dream-like lack of continuity (my dreams anyway) as it flashes forward and backward through time and locales but it's never dull and one shouldn't lose the thread no matter how much it is braided (pun intended). I will definitely go back to it to see better how the pieces fit. I did see what struck me as influences from films of Hitchcock (Psycho) and Aldrich (Baby Jane) or Curtis Harrington (Games but that may be my own baggage. As to what it's about, I can only describe the set-up. Two young women are fugitives from a police raid on their druggie safe house. They want to make good on the money fronted to them so they opt to visit an old friend, a third woman who lives in a mansion and who has a wall safe. To do this, they must resort to participating in the role playing games they used to do when adolescents. As Sherlock Holmes would say "the game's afoot."