Something about those horror anthologies (I didn't forget about calling them portmanteaus it's just I'm not that snooty. Wait until I start calling them omnibussesseses) this year in the Countdown to Halloween. Today we have Dr. Saville's Horror Show and I have to say I was not very enthused by what I had read about this one but in the interest of always giving a film a chance I gave it a shot. So the film starts with a man in a bar waiting for a plane. While waiting, a woman asks him to go have a little interlude with her. He tells her he would accept but he's married and just trying to get home. Turns out she works for Dr. Saville and the man ends up in a weird looking torture chamber. Dr. Saville wears a mask that looks similar to the one worn in Silence of the Lambs but not exactly. He tells the man in the chair, Michael, he is there because he must be punished for what he has done. But the issue is he hasn't done anything. Dr. Saville punishes before you can even do the deed you wished for. Michael didn't cheat on his wife but apparently he was going to. Saville goes by the old adage if you think about it you've already done it.
The first story, Consume is about a woman who is to get married and wants to loose weight in order to fit into her wedding dress. She decides to try an experimental weight loss plan and things go wrong. While this one is slow it has some really gruesome moments that I enjoyed. Second story is It's Complicated, about a man who cannot seem to find the right girlfriend. He gets something called an Aqua Pet that turns into a full grown woman when put into water. She quickly wants to make sexy time with the guy. He is so happy he asks her to marry him after what seems like only a day or so. After she agrees things take a weird turn as her true nature takes over and things get gory quick. The woman playing the Aqua Pet was just different looking enough with an accent that I couldn't quite place to make her seem otherworldly. Pretty good second story.
In between the stories, Saville continues to torture Michael, and honestly the connecting story is the weakest part of the film as it never feels like the purpose of the wraparound is fully achieved. Well, without feeling forced that it. So we go to the third story titled Break. A man protects his house during the onset of the zombie apocalypse. With him is his daughter and also his son. The son has turned into a zombie and the man must make the horrible decision to put his son out of his misery. It doesn't come easy for him but he does what must be done. Taking care of his daughter isn't as easy alone either although his wife is still alive out in the world somewhere. He gets a phone call from his wife before his daughter begins to get sick. Things don't go how you would expect as there is a twist to this ones ending. The interesting part is this story is also connected to the second story so that makes it even more interesting and adds depth to the stories. All in all this was much better than I had expected it to be. I will give this three and a half talking tape worms out of five. I also have to tell you that another dog was needlessly killed in this one and if not for that it would have been very close to four out of five.
Wasn't expecting that high a ranking!
ReplyDeleteIt's probably not that high but I always over score anthologies which probably brings this realistically down to about three. Maybe a re-watch a couple of years or so would be a different grade.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the fair review.
ReplyDeleteWe filmed the entire thing for about $9000. Much of our cast and crew, including myself, were first time filmmakers. We filmed the three shorts in 2019 and were scheduled to shoot the wrapround March 23rd, 2020. A week after COVID lockdown happened. The set was built and we were ready to go, but production was shut down. July 1st we get an email saying the studio housing our set was shutting down and we either shoot by July 31st or we lose everything. We had no money left to tear it down and rebuild. The set had been sitting for four months, in Phoenix, with no AC. When we got on set, there was significant heat damage we had to repair and went from a crew of 40 down to 6. We had to shoot socially distanced and the wraparound suffered for it. We lost some cast who had moved out of state and we had last minute rewrites. The ending of the film had to be rewritten to adapt to the changes. The film is dedicated to a long time friend who was to handle global distribution, but sadly he passed suddenly two months before release. We found ourselves in the awful position of grieving a friend and business partner.
As far as the dog goes, I understand and respect the criticism. it was something I battled about keeping in the script. The entire last act went through numerous rewrites. As a parent and dog owner, it was not an easy short to write. Audiences tend to react strongly to children and animals getting hurt and I wanted to cause a conflict with how the audience reacts to that character. When the twist happens, my hope was to change how we feel about his plight and actions. Is it brutal? Certainly. Unnecessary? I can argue both ways. It adds to the emotion and shock of the scene. And the condition was if it stayed in, nothing gets shown on camera. I didn't want it to be exploitive, if that makes sense.
Again, thanks for the kind words. As with all indie films it's grassroots getting word out. The film is by no means perfect, but we're proud of what we pulled off. Hopefully we build bigger and better with the next film.
Cheers,
Craig w. Chenery
(screenwriter and producer)