"Laurin" is a Hungarian / West German co-production from 1989, so shortly before the Fall of the German Wall. At 80 minutes, it is a relatively short movie and it is among the most known career works by director and co-writer Robert Sigl. I think with this brief runtime, the film has pretty good focus, it is not scared of crucial plot developments, even the death of central characters and the film also succeeds on a visual level. With that, I am of course referring to costumes, sets, cinematography. I think it is a combination of all these good aspects that make this one eventually worth watching, even if moments of true greatness are missing perhaps. The actors, the young ones as well as the grown-ups, are doing a good job too and add their fair share to this becoming a success. Overall, the film works best as a mystery thriller with some solid horror aspects at times as well. A lot is hidden in the shadows here and the filmmaker succeeded in letting the audience care for what to find there. It is also quite easy to care for the title character here played convincingly by the young Dóra Szinetár. A bit of a shame her career has not really worked out too well afterward, at least on an international level. And even if this is mostly a German-language film, I personally somehow felt it more to be Hungarian, perhaps also because of the majority of actors' nationalities. But no matter where they are from, it still stays a decent outcome and I recommend checking it out. Competent achievement. Go see it.

As of late, I've noticed that several of my favorite films fit into a very specific genre for which there's no prescribed name. If it had one, it would probably be something like, "coming of age while the supernatural lurks around the corner."

The best examples of this very unique genre include the Czechoslovakian surrealist film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, The Lady In White, Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural and, while not explicitly otherworldly, movies such as Alice Sweet Alice, Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane. All of these fit this mold in their own ways, with the only modern film I can pick as relevant being The VVitch.

That brings us to the West Germany film Laurin. A film that has been rarely seen outside its native country - which always lends the lure of the occult to the proceedings - it's a perfect example of these films.

Laurin is a nine-year-old girl who lives with her grandmother in a quiet Bavarian town. Since the death of her mother - whose relationship with Laurin's father was primal and lusty, as evidenced by them nearly making love in front of her - and the seafaring disappearances of her father - which increase after her mother's death - she has retreated into a world of school time drudgery punctuation with moments of sinister make-believe. By night, she finds herself haunted by visions of a dilapidated castle owned by a man in black and his sinister dog, where each window finds a child trapped and clawing at the glass. These waking dreams find themselves standing side-by-side with a true nightmare: her friends and classmates are disappearing, one by one.

I've always been struck by how these films apply the supernatural to the worries that the journey from adolescence to adulthood creates. As one's body and feelings toward sexuality change, so too does how we see the world. And while the terror of child abduction is very real, to a child, the only form of explanation must be a fairy tale monster.

Laurin is a sumptuous affair, one that contrasts the dreary and washed out world of adulthood with the kaleidoscopic fantasies of childhood; the kind of dreams that only Mario Bava could properly light, color and frame.

Without revealing the end of this film, the sunlight rising that would often proclaim victory over the Satanic feels rather hollow. As Martin Mathias, the hero of George Romero's Martin would tell us - much further along than adolescence - "There's no real magic ever."

I've often wondered about the time in my life when I went from having my destiny controlled to being in charge of it myself. The questioning that ensued and learning the fact that adults didn't have every answer is perfectly essayed here. In my experience, horror films remain the most honest of all genres. Despite cloaking our fears in the capes, cowls and fangs of the nosferatu, they hold up a mirror to ourselves. Whether or not you appear in it is up to you, dear reader.

The whole movie takes place in Hungary with an entire Hungarian cast. The director is German Robert Sigl and this was his first long movie. In a short documentary on the DVD it's explained why he decided to film in Eastern Europe and not in Germany. Germany at the time still divided between East and West was for beginning directors too expensive to make a film. It was much cheaper in Eastern Europe (not that much later the Berlin Wall would eventually fall). Hungary had a location that fitted for the movie. Sigle opted to have the cast speak English to give it an international appeal. The movie never made it to the theatre and was shown as miniseries on TV. Quite a pity as it would have looked great on the big screen. The documentary shows how the cast gets pronunciation lessons and that surely helped. The kids in the movie, I think their voices might have been dubbed afterwards.

Laurin, a girl around the age of 10 with a incredible pretty face, has not so much speaking lines as you would expect from the character bearing the movie title. But despite that it's definitely her story as almost everything seems to happen through her eyes. And if she isn't there to observe she has those dream sequences which reveal her bit by bit the dark things happening in her village. It's those scenes that are the strong part of the movie together with Laurin wandering around in the village looking for clues to solve the mysterious disappearance of a boy her age and even more mysterious death of her own mother. She has a lonesome life living alone with her grandmother, her father being for months away at sea. Her best friend is the neighbour kid Stephen being overly protected by his mother (his father is dead) and usually the target of bullies at school. When the kids at school get a new teacher who resembles Laurin's father things really starting to get interesting.

I truly enjoyed the movie. Don't expect anything scary nor creepy or jump scares. The movie is more of a mystery than horror yet contains a few disturbing scenes for the eyes of a young child. Dóra Szinetár as Laurin together with the other cast members really pulled it of well. The ending I thought was really clever.I really got to applaud the writer for that and the director for having it put on screen so beautifully. The story takes place in the late 1800s, the scenery and costumes fit perfectly well there.