Powerful

Just perfect...

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

This movie is so creative. I was stimulated by the otherworldly feel of the "Visions of Suffering". Lots of vignettes, special computer effects, as well as practical makeup. Perhaps the most effective part of the film was the sound effects and the really creepy music. There are parts where you won't be able to take your eyes away from the screen. Loving that. Honestly James Wan should watch this and learn.This movie is pretty dark and the pacing is slow. As soon as the movie starts you get to watch the protagonist's nightmare. It's pretty intense, loving that too. There is so much the movie accomplished without the desperate James Wan flash. If you want something genuinely interesting and different, give this one a watch.

Title, promising. Cover image, intriguing. Plot synopsis, very, very alluring. Then you watch it. And your interest fades. And you realize, that you are in the presence of a filmmaker who's not only immature, but is wholly void of confidence in his abilities.Visions of Suffering is a two-hour music video, but the music is bad. High School student film bad. Its attempts at creating an atmospheric and ominous score are thwarted by the stock sound effects, repetitive queues and really bad Gothic rock. Recently there was a movie made by members of the band Lordi, and in an interview done for Rue Morgue, it was said that "There have been so many examples of how not to do it, if you have a scene with monsters or any villain, if you want to ruin the mood completely, just put (on) some heavy metal." And while I don't particularly care for Lordi's music anyway, the message is more true than I can vouch for.Sometimes its the juxtaposition of sound and image that creates a great mood, or scene. In the case of VOS, the image hardly stays focused for more than one minute, with a radical jump cut happening every 1-15 seconds, in a ploy to create within the viewer a sense of disjointed nightmare reality. And over these fast choppy images is... fast choppy techno/soundscapes. In the end, all it creates is annoyance.When you realize the special effects in the movie are amateur at best, you start to think that the jump cutting is an attempt at hiding their poor sfx. But even if you appreciate the sfx, you still have to consider the pointless camera angles, the cheesy color manipulation, the repeated shots of meaningless actions, and bad bad lighting.It is not good enough to film something "scary" and present it to the viewer and say "isn't this scary?" I can show you a creepy picture of my grandmother eating mincemeat pie and say that, and sure enough, you might think it's creepy at best. But to show it to you repeatedly, with no build up, no suspense, and no logic as to why it's scary, you are simply looking at a grandmother eating mincemeat pie. No sleep lost over that horrifying sight.Then we come to the white elephant of the film. "Dream Logic". Yes there are "visions" of weird things. Weird things shot in a small forest which, apparently, is the only place these weird things exist in these "visions". Yes, there are waking nightmares and "creepy" old people who say cliché things about vampires and dreams. Yes the story is disjointed and chopped up ala punk rock editing style. But let me ask you this... Why did Freud write so much about dreams and make so much sense as he did so if dreams make no sense at all? Why did Jung devote a life to symbols and mystic psychology if the dreaming subconscious mind has no ebb or flow? If dreams and nightmares are really this nonsensical then these men wasted their life.I am not saying this movie is a disgrace to these men, not at all. I am saying that this film has no excuse for its lack of coherence. Vampires and Demons have their mythologies and Dreams have their subconscious roots. And to make a film about these things and completely ignore all that, is just plain dumb.With its half baked philosophy on the waking world and the dreaming mind, its embarrassing use of CGI to describe psychedelic experience, its bad acting, and its fear of revealing itself as shallow and uninspired, this movie is one long excursion of "Isn't this scary?"

"Visions of Suffering" is a vast improvement over "Nails" in every way possible.The plot of this complex surreal piece is pretty hard to follow,but the film is loaded with scenes of hypnotic beauty which contrast with ugly and disturbing horror.I was torn apart from reality and found himself in the world full of nightmares,murders and drugs.The visual effects are very well done and extremely grotesque.The acting is natural and Alexander Shevchenko is outstanding as the tormented main character.I can't believe that such genuinely trippy film was made in Russia,where independent filmmakers are not respected.A hallucinogenic nightmare.9 out of 10.

I was pleasantly surprised with Iskanov's first "major" release, NAILS - and VISIONS OF SUFFERING continues the director's twisted and nihilistic views of the world and "reality" on a larger, though for me personally, less impressive scale. Not that VISIONS is a "bad" film - it's just not going to garner any real mass-appeal, and there were some negative sides that I just can't shake, regardless of how original the film is.As far as storyline - it's hard to pin-down on this one. We have a guy who suffers from horrific nightmares when it rains, and he comes to find (with the help of a helpful telephone repairman) that the world is full of "vampires" that can invade your dreams - and any mention or acknowledgment of them can cause certain doom for those fool enough to speak about them. Unfortunately for the repairman, he doesn't heed his own advice. So basically - there are 2 parallel and intertwined story lines about dream vs. reality, and a somewhat more "classical" idea of these strange "dream vampires" who follow some of the traditional concepts that are commonly thought of pertaining to vampires. The rest is a mix of hallucinatory and sometimes grotesque images that play out like a fever-dream, often not following any coherent "plot" or storyline...Good things: Iskanov has an EXTREMELY distinctive style that is original and fresh that will more than likely be appreciated by fans of "experimental" splatter/horror films. I'm personally not a huge fan of experimental style films - but Iskanov is one of the few exceptions. His visual and storytelling style is very unique and although his films are full of incomprehensible moments - the basic plots of both VISIONS OF SUFFERING and NAILS are a bit easier to follow than many other experimental/art-house/cyber-punk films I've seen before. Iskanov is (for the most part) able to successfully blend these genres into a workable and interesting, if somewhat challenging film. I'm also impressed on the amount of visual "flair" that Iskanov is able to pull off with what is obviously a very limited budget and little-to-no classical film training. Major downside to VISIONS: IT'S WAY TOO DAMN LONG. Of course, that gripe is a personal preference - some may enjoy the long and drawn-out, "feverish" feel of some scenes - I personally thought the film could have been cut by a full half-hour and been streamlined into a "sleeker" experience for the viewer. At about two hours and five minutes - it was just too much. I found myself fast-forwarding through some parts towards the middle of th film. This was enough of a gripe to me to knock it down several points. Unlike NAILS which felt pretty sharp and focused all the way through, VISIONS lags towards the middle which caused me to lose track of what was happening, and negatively impacted the viewing experience for me. Overall - Iskanov seems to be a strong new director to watch for who can definitely bring some truly nightmarish visuals to the screen, which is a breath of fresh air in this day and age of sloppy SOV trash that plagues a lot of the "underground" horror/splatter scene. I'm highly interested to see how Iskanove tackles the subject matter of Unit 731 with his upcoming PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE, and would also be interested to see if he could pull off something with a more "traditional" narrative...7/10