The final film watched for review this weekend was a real curveball. The Flesh People is an indie horror that featured some jet black humour. Written and directed by Keshav Srinivasan, it was a twisted modern day New York based version of the type of story that sees two oddballs existing together.
Ricky (Jorge Carrión Álvarez in his film debut) is an American immigrant who is in the country to get a medical degree. However, not long before film's start, he has been kicked out of medical school after three years due to getting caught stealing drugs. Needing a place to stay in New York, he has become the roommate of Geraldine (Louise Heller); a lady in the second half of her life, a former stage actress who lives in a rundown apartment in a poor part of the city. The disparate pair discover they have a similarity with the nihilistic outlook of life they share. Both are frauds in their professions, and both are prepared to go to extreme lengths in anything they attempt. Their friendship becomes very co-dependent the longer they spend together. This leads to increasingly deranged situations.
The film goes to some grim places, but never looses the black humour at any point. I liked this began with a present day section before the film then moves back in time to show how that (bloody) present came to be. The situations increasingly got more dark, following a natural path with its incremental nature. The odd friendship between the two leads is the core of the story, with the majority of the 105 minute film being based inside their lived-in apartment. Over wild drug trips, the pair come up with various plans to improve their finances. From performing back-street medical procedures, to selling meat from a questionable and gruesome source, there soon comes a police presence due to their illegal activities. By the end things have gotten all too crazy, leading to a suitably zany ending. The escalation was fun and the infrequent outdoor scenes were always lovely to see.
Make-up effects such as injuries sustained looked great on camera, with some scenes that had me feeling a little queasy. It was great to see the hallucinations of the characters during the drug trip scenes, the most pure horror part of the movie. There was a gradual body count as the film progresses, with some fun kill scenes that included parts where the camera follows the path of the murder weapon, these were pretty neat looking. The plot wasn't designed to be deep and involved or full of twists and turns. Instead it felt more like a claustrophobic gaze at these two lost characters who have just happened by unlucky fortune to come into each others lives. The characters go from situation to situation at a regular pace, which does lead to some of these situations sometimes feeling like a bunch of disconnected skits rather than a continually running story.
The Flesh People featured very well cast duel protagonists. I found some scenes a bit too gross for my liking, though this was an entertainingly depraved jet-black comedic odd-ball movie.
SCORE:
No comments:
Post a Comment