Michelle reviews the latest Astron 6 film.
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| "I'm crushing your head." |
Director team Astron 6 (there are only five guys in it though, go figure) have become one of my favorite creators of horror films in
the past few years. They work with miniscule budgets to produce some of the
most creative and hilarious indie shlock films to grace the screen. Continuing
the tradition that Troma started in the ‘80s of shocking and gross
comedy/horror, Astron 6 is one of the last bastions of exploitation cinema in
an increasingly bland genre. Their earlier work was geared more towards ‘80s
homage with Father’s Day and Manborg representing different styles in
that era of horror. With their newest creation, The Editor, they are tackling an incredibly specific style of
horror: 1970s Italian “giallo” slasher/supernatural films.
We follow the plight of a once renowned film editor named
Ray Ciso (Adam Brooks) who after an unfortunate accident is maimed. He is now
only able to edit low-budget trash flicks as a result, but things start taking
a deadly turn on his newest film project. Now, one of the main tropes of
Italian horror is style over substance. Most of the time the plots don’t make
any goddamn sense, but everything looks so sophisticated that the audience
doesn’t care. The Editor pays homage
to this by having a ridiculous and nonsensical storyline (that is played for
laughs) though it does have some character development and twists and turns. It
has echoes of the surrealism in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond (1981) but with the macabre murder mystery style of Dario
Argento’s Suspiria (1977).
The look of the film is perfect at emulating that bright and
oversaturated color palette of ‘70s Italian cinema. There are lots of primary
colors used in each scene (especially blues and reds) and the lighting is
excellent with great use of lines and shadows. The gore work is brilliant with
loads of practical effects used for each kill. Giallo films are known for
having “beautiful death” which means that though each kill is indeed grisly, it
still maintains its art and splendor. The
Editor doesn’t take this concept seriously, but in the end some parts of it
are still gorgeous. I watched this with someone who was not familiar with the
films that were an inspiration to this one, and I did notice that most of the
references went over his head, which I think impeded his enjoyment of the film.
That can be a problem with making a film homage, the viewer needs to have
working knowledge of the genre as a whole. In this regard, The Editor doesn’t really work as a completely stand-alone film.
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| "Chainsaws are FUN!" |
One of the most hilarious aspects of this film is the sound
design. Everyone that talks has been dubbed over (with their own voices) and
the lips and the sounds don’t quite match up. It’s exactly like watching an old Italian VHS copy of the film and had
me laughing all the way through. The musical score is amazing as well with
cheesy orchestral string synth work a la Fabio Frizzi or Riz Ortolani. Like
everything else in this film, it perfectly encapsulates the atmosphere of the
time period. Being a fan girl of giallo films myself, I was digging this movie
hardcore, but I could see how someone who wasn’t “in on the joke” could find it
to be exasperating to watch. So, if you like this kind of stuff then I highly
recommend it, but if this is your first foray into Italian horror then I would
try to watch some of the classic films in the genre first.
Score
-Michelle Kisner
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