BY ALEX DAVIS (2012) DIR. JIMMY SCREAMERCLAUZ USA, 95 mins Honestly, I don't even know where to begin with this movie. I actually missed a review week because I was making an effort to pull apart the surreal, twisted cinematic canvas that is Where The Dead Go To Die. I mean, I've watched plenty of films that have made me think and stayed with me long after the fact. But here I've just been trying to figure out what I can say within a review that would honestly give you an impression of Where the Dead Go To Die. In hindsight, I should have been ready for something pretty bizarre given that director Jimmy ScreamerClauz was one of the team behind the utter mindf*ck that was Kuso. While that film was made up of a host of different components in a multi-part anthology, WTDGTD links together three stories in Tainted Milk, Liquid Memories and The Masks The Monsters Wear with interweaving characters and a finale that makes some effort to explain the connection. I suppose I'll just have to say it – I genuinely don't think anything I can say here will quite prepare you for this one. It feels like one of those nightmares that you wake up from that is so weird and dark that you just can't shake it for days, except that you're sharply awake and it lasts for an hour and a half. The visuals are so intense, horrifying and unique and can cut sharply to leave you completely confused and disoriented in trying to keep up with the plot threads, and the content of the three chapters themselves depict such depravity and corruption. Safe to say this is not animation as you know it. I'm going to talk a bit about each of the three chapters, but I feel that I have to address two things that commonly come up in reviews of this one – the quality of the animation, and the voice acting. I've been considering this one pretty in-depth, and it's fair to say that the animation is often extremely rough and ready, the lip sync can be pretty off or simply non-existent at times and some of the voice acting isn't all that great. I don't think any of those are undue criticisms, but I was left wondering – would it make the film better if it was more polished, or created with a much bigger budget? Do you want this tapestry of night terrors to look like something Pixar spat when you fed it after midnight? And the conclusion I came to was no – in fact I think if you were to make the animation smooth and sharp it would very likely lose something. The raw oddness of the characters' movements and faces adds to the nightmarish quality of WTDGTD and is part of what makes it a movie you're likely never going to forget, for better or worse. And the animation in some of its more unorthodox moments is genuinely great – always original, often haunting and sometimes nothing short of nauseating. Having mulled it over aplenty I think even if you were going to remake this movie you would have to keep that style and feel of animation. Anyway, the movie begins with Tainted Milk, where we follow poor old Tommy, whose parents are arguing incessantly while his mother is pregnant. He goes to talk to The Lady In The Well for advice, but finds someone else entirely. Enter Labby, a sinister black dog with red eyes voiced by Jimmy ScreamerClauz himself who is probably the star of the show. The way the lines are delivered was genuinely disturbing to me, a weird mix of human cadence and dog-like panting. Anyway, Labby tells Tommy his brother is going to be evil and that his mother's milk – and all mothers' milk – is tainted for the second child. Labby certainly exerts a powerful influence over the characters, and what follows is a hideous scene in which Labby rips out the fetus, kills the father and proceeds to – actually I won't spoil one of the most disturbing moments of the whole film. It's pretty infamous, and I'm sure if you read anything about the movie (or have seen it) you;ll know what I'm talking about. That's followed by Liquid Memories, our most psychedelic installment, which follows a mystery man as he drains the memories from people's minds in order to change them in the past, which can also alter the present. The plot is ostensibly him trying to save his dog Scruffles, but good lord do we go off the rails in this one. I doubt you'll see anything more visually crazy than this in all of your life – and any regular readers will know the kind of thing I watch on a weekly basis, so that's no mild statement. The plot is pretty loose here, but it is incredibly hard to take your eyes off it as we pinball from one sickening tableau to another. We close with The Masks The Monsters Wear, and it's no hyperbole to say this is one of the most distressing half-hours of cinema I've ever had to sit through. This is right up there in the most harrowing endings stakes for my money. The story follows Ralph, who has the face of a dead conjoined twin attached to his head that his parents won't have removed because they still think it's alive. There's an upsetting scene at the dinner table where Ralph has to feed it, but that's just for starters as Ralph falls in love with Sophia, a young girl caught up in an abusive household and a child pornography ring. Some of the stuff in here really, really rattled me, I won't lie. Yes, it is animated, but still this was mighty hard to watch. Labby once again is there to guide Ralph to a grisly conclusion, and a cryptic finale that set me off thinking afresh about the whole film over again. How to summarise? It's fair to say that WTDGTD won't be for everybody, and in terms of pure uniqueness and true shock factor it's probably right in there with the likes of Lucifer Valentine's Vomit Gore Trilogy. In many senses that's my nearest comparison – it's equally hard to compute, equally tough to watch and equally will likely sicken and turn off as many viewers as it will engage and fascinate. Similarly, despite all that, you simply cannot take your eyes off it – I was transfixed the whole way through, whether I really wanted to be or not. When I say it's entered the most disturbing film list I carry around in my head, that might give you some idea – I suspect a lot of viewers would struggle to handle this one.  HORROR NEWS: DREAD CENTRAL ORIGINALS PRESENTS: FIRST TRAILER AND POSTER BREATHE LIFE INTO THE GOLEM |
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