Writer and Director: Dante Tomaselli
Released: 2001
Stars: The Amazing Kreskin, Lizzy Mahon, Danny Lopes, Vincent Lamberdi, Christie Sanford
Rated: R
Id been asking around about Dante Tomasellis "Horror". Since many people have been talking about Dante Tomasellis films around a lot, I got curious and finally decided to see what all the hoopla was about. The responses I got from people where mixed. They were somewhere along the lines of "I was disappointed" and that it was "Dreamlike" or to "not try to figure this one out".
Well I went in knowing that this was gonna be an unconventional type of horror film, not what we are used to seeing on an every day basis, and in the end this helped me in the viewing of the film, and in understanding what Tomaselli was trying to achieve (and ultimately did achieve) with his film "Horror".
The story is about a lot of characters, but mainly about the Salo family. A family composed of Reverend Salo Jr. his wife and his daughter Grace Salo who is constantly suffering from abuse from their freaky zealot parents who only care about their "religion". Not only that but they drug her so she is constantly hallucinating with horrific images that plage her. She thinks she speaks with her dead grandpa and so forth. Through out the film she decides to unravel the mystery of her dead grandfather and she finds out a lot more then she bargained for. At the same time, a bunch of kids escape a drug rehabilitation clinic and end up at the Salo home and end up experiencing a lot of surreal paranormal activity. Thats the set up. The rest of the movie is...nothing less then sheer psychological, trippy, drug induced, surreal terror.
First off we got to try and remember that this is an independently produced horror movie (Read:low-budget)so its strength wont be in its special fx, or its balls to the wall action. Its more quiet in nature, and more cerebral then your typical horror film. It seems that Dante Tomaselli was obviously shooting for a more psychological film that would scare you not from what you saw...but by what you didn't. What your mind could conjure up. Lets face it, whos scared of goats? But when you know that goat represents evil, possibly Satan himself, well, then things turn scary.
In my opinion Horror is a genuinely spooky and creepy film. Its filled with haunting visuals that include flying Halloween pumpkins, melting wax dolls, zombies, and evil demonic goats, all stemming from some really good direction. Unlike many horror films that we see today, which are really just action films with a little bit of horror sprinkled in, this one is above all else a Horror film. That's what it wants to do, scare the pants off of you. And I think it achieves it.
AS far as the story being a bit hard to grasp, well, the way I see it this was done deliberately by Tomaselli, to create a nightmare like feel to the movie, we feel that we are watching these kids nightmares or hallucinations, a flashback or drug induced trip. Either way this flick was genuinely eerie with its images and I gotta give Kudos to Tomaselli for going out of his way to create such gloomy atmosphere on such a meger budget.
OK now lets get down to one of the most captivating parts of this film...Reverend Salo played by The Amazing Kreskin, a real life "mentalist". The scenes where he "hypnotizes" some people inside of a Church, that was scary in a real sort of way. Specially when you find out that it was all really done on camera. Those actors and extras that were hypnotized on the movie, were hypnotized for real. It is creepy to hear them talking about their experience in the DVD extras.
Reverend Salo and Salo Jr. (two religious leaders of a strange cult) were the creepiest parts of the film, though I must admit that I wished they had explored them a bit more, or maybe dedicated more of the film to them. In my opinion it would have been cool to give us more insight on this crazy family of religious fanatics. They are interesting characters, and it would have been cool to know more about them, but I guess NOT knowing about them that much, just adds to the mystery of the characters. They become enigmatic...and what we don't know, we fear.
In the end this films is more towards the Psychological/horror sub-genre, and it's a bit more demanding then your usual film. It stears more towards the artsy horror film, something that is not at all bad and that in my opinion we need a more of. But of course its an artsy film that doesn't forgets that it is first and foremost a horror film. I cant wait to see what other Horrrors Dante Tomaselli has in store for us.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Released: 2001
Stars: The Amazing Kreskin, Lizzy Mahon, Danny Lopes, Vincent Lamberdi, Christie Sanford
Rated: R
Id been asking around about Dante Tomasellis "Horror". Since many people have been talking about Dante Tomasellis films around a lot, I got curious and finally decided to see what all the hoopla was about. The responses I got from people where mixed. They were somewhere along the lines of "I was disappointed" and that it was "Dreamlike" or to "not try to figure this one out".
Well I went in knowing that this was gonna be an unconventional type of horror film, not what we are used to seeing on an every day basis, and in the end this helped me in the viewing of the film, and in understanding what Tomaselli was trying to achieve (and ultimately did achieve) with his film "Horror".
The story is about a lot of characters, but mainly about the Salo family. A family composed of Reverend Salo Jr. his wife and his daughter Grace Salo who is constantly suffering from abuse from their freaky zealot parents who only care about their "religion". Not only that but they drug her so she is constantly hallucinating with horrific images that plage her. She thinks she speaks with her dead grandpa and so forth. Through out the film she decides to unravel the mystery of her dead grandfather and she finds out a lot more then she bargained for. At the same time, a bunch of kids escape a drug rehabilitation clinic and end up at the Salo home and end up experiencing a lot of surreal paranormal activity. Thats the set up. The rest of the movie is...nothing less then sheer psychological, trippy, drug induced, surreal terror.
First off we got to try and remember that this is an independently produced horror movie (Read:low-budget)so its strength wont be in its special fx, or its balls to the wall action. Its more quiet in nature, and more cerebral then your typical horror film. It seems that Dante Tomaselli was obviously shooting for a more psychological film that would scare you not from what you saw...but by what you didn't. What your mind could conjure up. Lets face it, whos scared of goats? But when you know that goat represents evil, possibly Satan himself, well, then things turn scary.
In my opinion Horror is a genuinely spooky and creepy film. Its filled with haunting visuals that include flying Halloween pumpkins, melting wax dolls, zombies, and evil demonic goats, all stemming from some really good direction. Unlike many horror films that we see today, which are really just action films with a little bit of horror sprinkled in, this one is above all else a Horror film. That's what it wants to do, scare the pants off of you. And I think it achieves it.
AS far as the story being a bit hard to grasp, well, the way I see it this was done deliberately by Tomaselli, to create a nightmare like feel to the movie, we feel that we are watching these kids nightmares or hallucinations, a flashback or drug induced trip. Either way this flick was genuinely eerie with its images and I gotta give Kudos to Tomaselli for going out of his way to create such gloomy atmosphere on such a meger budget.
OK now lets get down to one of the most captivating parts of this film...Reverend Salo played by The Amazing Kreskin, a real life "mentalist". The scenes where he "hypnotizes" some people inside of a Church, that was scary in a real sort of way. Specially when you find out that it was all really done on camera. Those actors and extras that were hypnotized on the movie, were hypnotized for real. It is creepy to hear them talking about their experience in the DVD extras.
Reverend Salo and Salo Jr. (two religious leaders of a strange cult) were the creepiest parts of the film, though I must admit that I wished they had explored them a bit more, or maybe dedicated more of the film to them. In my opinion it would have been cool to give us more insight on this crazy family of religious fanatics. They are interesting characters, and it would have been cool to know more about them, but I guess NOT knowing about them that much, just adds to the mystery of the characters. They become enigmatic...and what we don't know, we fear.
In the end this films is more towards the Psychological/horror sub-genre, and it's a bit more demanding then your usual film. It stears more towards the artsy horror film, something that is not at all bad and that in my opinion we need a more of. But of course its an artsy film that doesn't forgets that it is first and foremost a horror film. I cant wait to see what other Horrrors Dante Tomaselli has in store for us.
Rating: 4 out of 5