By Dan Kinem
“His obsession was to create the ultimate horror story… his curse was to live it.”
I expected nothing going into this except for the fact the cover looked slightly better than your normal obscure horror movie. I was pleasantly surprised by how excellent the gore effects were right off the bat, and just how red the blood was. I doubt I will ever see a red quite that red again in my life. It was almost blinding. The film itself actually manages to do some interesting things, too. Through the plot of a writer dealing with constantly needing to meet deadlines for his script, you see his script being filmed, them showing clips from the fictional movie inside the movie, them showing his imaginings of his story in his head, and them showing “real life” while constantly blurring the lines between these. It manages to mix all these elements fairly well, but teteers off in the second half. It seems to get lost in all the things it is trying to do.
(That is how much blood I’m talking about. That’s a girl in the shower getting covered in blood.)
My interest in the film peaked after a scene where a bunch of nuns crucify a priest, rip a piece of flesh off of him and eat/drink the blood from it. It’s a pretty strong image, but the problem lies in that it isn’t actually happening. Right after you see that, you are taken back into the boring life of the real world. And who the fuck wants that? It doesn’t help all the supporting cast deliver horrendous performances, from the wife screaming “Damn you Steven. Damn you Steven. Damn you!” to the kids being moved around like stuffed animals just there to fill space it gets pretty tiresome. In one part of his screenplay there is a weird skinhead female-fronted punk band who plays to the bewilderment of onlookers not only inside the film, but to the bewilderment of us, the viewers. I haven’t laid my eyes on a creature this hideous in a long time. The lead singer and all her minions seem like they are straight out of a John Waters flick.
I am not going to say it is an overlooked gem, but it is worth seeing. You get an interesting plot that is almost pulled off well, as well as some great blood and gore effects. I am just glad to say this blew our sole other Canadian horror film we have reviewed so far, Bodycount, out of the water. That film made this look like the fucking Exorcist. It’s a film about cracking under the many pressures of life and it attempts to tackle some interesting themes so for that I give it credit.
P.S. I love me some Paragon Video. They released so much solid and interesting looking shit back in the day I can’t wait to get many, many more.
