(2002)

review by:

5-11-03

Written, Directed, Edited, Produced by: Philip Cook Starring: Mark Redfield, Doug Brown, Fumie Tomasawa

A struggling artist gets in an accident and finds himself in the middle of a war in Purgatory. He gets recruited by a group of dead heroes to fight the bad guys, said villains wanting to use Mr. artist as a portal thingy. And then there's some big demon or something. The Good: Surprisingly good writing, pretty cheesy (yet entertaining) special effects. The lead henchman of Despiser is some kind of black smoke thing, so we see him go through three host bodies during the film. The main things Despiser has going for it, though, are the ass-kicking black guy required in all good movies, and a little bastard Troll pencil topper that says, "You're gonna die, you're gonna die, you're gonna die...." The Bad: They had to go and introduce an alien angle...Cook (the writer/director) does the voice of Despiser, which comes out pretty bad. Car shops in purgatory? Apparently whenever a building on earth is destroyed, it goes to Purgatory, too. Nice plot point: the bad guys are collecting bombs (from the ground?) so they can blow themselves back into the real world. What kind of crappy reasoning leads one to the conclusion, "If I gather some nukes, I'm sure to somehow be resurrected." Ok, maybe I should rephrase my comment on the writing...there's good dialogue, but the plot sucks hard in places. Despiser's major flaws are bad scripting and technical stuff, but the movie's pretty fun to watch. It's obvious that they had a budget of $30 for this film, but they do very well with what they have. This film redefines independent film.

AKA: Cat on a Hot Tin Pitchfork

Rating