Released: October 2019
Director: Rolfe Kanefsky
Not Rated
Run Time: 97 Minutes
Distributor: ITN Distribution
Genre: Horror
Cast:
Tara Reid: Tess Berryman
Richard Greico: Douglas Winter
Jessica Morris: Gina Wilson
Alex Rinehart: Kim Katlin
Robert Donavan: Father Gregory Mendale
Lukas Hassel: Dylan Wilson
Zachary Chyz: Louis Wilson
The indie film scene, despite the quality of some of the films, tends to be a bit of a haven for different kinds of movies, especially if they’re made on a shoestring budget. Back in the day, in order to get audiences to see your indie film, you HAD to have a distributor, no matter what. These days, all you need to distribute your film is basically an online video service like Youtube or Vimeo. If you got lucky, you could distribute your films through Netflix, Hulu or Amazon. What I really love about the indie film scene is the ability for people to tackle something original. You don’t see a lot of originality in big-budget blockbusters these days. Certain kinds of movies work better with a smaller budget than they do with a bigger budget. With horror movies, the small budget forces the filmmakers how to approach effects and story content. Most theater chains will not take movies with extreme violent and sexual content. But with the indie scene and direct-to-video releases, you can really let loose as long as you’re not actually violating any laws. Some of my favorite horror movies of all time are indie movies: The Terminator, Evil Dead, Hatchet, and Revenge among others. Well, we got ourselves another indie horror film for you today: Art of the Dead.
Art of the Dead follows an architect, Dylan Wilson and his wife, Gina as they purchase a set of seven paintings from a local art gallery. Each painting is supposed to represent one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath, Pride, Greed, Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, and Envy. When the paintings arrive at the Wilson family’s home, bizarre things start to happen. Gina begins to act very strangely after staring into the painting of a goat, Dylan’s teenage daughter, Donna, starts getting jealous of a fellow classmate, and Louis, the son, is getting frustrated by being accused of not putting any passion into his paintings. As it turns out, the original artist who created these paintings, sold his soul to the devil so he could live forever through his art. The one man who knows what’s going on, Father Mendale, enlists the aid of Louis’ girlfriend, Kim, so they can save the family before things get worse. There aren’t a lot of movies out there where artwork is the main cause of terrifying and tragic events. Art of the Dead takes a unique approach to the supernatural genre by infusing it with literal artwork. The idea of a painting that’s possessed or cursed is really bizarre concept, but it actually works for this film’s concept. It works better than it has any real right to.
From a visual standpoint, this film looks pretty good. It’s a gory movie, but thankfully, the effects are mostly practical and what CGI there is has been kept to a minimum. It’s actually rare to see that in a movie like this or in any modern theatrical horror flick. Most times, filmmakers opt for CGI blood and forego any practical effects at all. There are effects companies out there that still use prosthetics and gallons of fake blood for the films. The concept of the film is very interesting. Each painting represents a particular Sin out of the Seven Deadly Sins. The painting that’s supposed to represent Lust basically turns Gina into a very promiscuous woman, even though she normally isn’t. Wrath makes Louis get angry easily and lashes out at anybody who criticizes his work, Gluttony sees a worker consume so much that he literally bursts, and Greed has Dylan trying to make deals that will net him more money. As you can see, each incident represents a particular theme. The only other movie that I know of that dealt with the Seven Deadly Sins was….well….Seven. The overall execution(pardon the pun) is very competent.
The acting, though, is where Art of the Dead kind of goes off the rails. It’s not that the performances were awful, it’s just that they ranged from being undersold to oversold. They either didn’t do enough to sell the scene, or they went over-the-top. Certain sequences were fine with the over-the-top aspects. Seeing Dylan go bonkers was certainly amusing, but a lot of it was just really bizarre. I really did like Alex Rinehart as Kim and Robert Donavan, however. Alex gave the character this nice “girl-next-door” vibe but also didn’t make the character an idiot either. Donavan plays Father Mendale, and he’s the closest thing you would’ve gotten to a real hero character. This character had a history with these paintings and tried to warn the family about artwork’s history. He was fairly convincing in the role. Honestly, I did a bit of a double-take with Mr. Donavan, because he looked kind of like Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad. Tara Reid, though, is Tara Reid, and she’s only in the film for a total of about 8 minutes, despite her credit as a producer. I never really cared for Tara Reid as an actress and Art of the Dead doesn’t convince me otherwise. I have nothing against her personally, I’m just not impressed with her work. Overall, the acting is passable, but there’s nothing award-winning here.
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot here with a title like Art of the Dead. You would expect, rightfully so, that a film like this would just come across as a cheap throw-away fright flick. What we ended up getting is something surprisingly good. There’s nothing ground-breaking with what you’re seeing, but this is definitely leagues beyond what a lot of indie filmmakers are capable of doing. There’s definitely a lot of effort put into this film, and it’s a bit smarter than I initially gave it credit for. This is very much an old-school kind of horror flick in the vein of something like The Evil Dead. I think if you look at it from that perspective, you’re going to have a good time. For those enjoy gore, sex and the supernatural, there’s plenty here to satisfy you. It’s not without its issues, but I think the good outweighs the bad. It’s worth checking out. The film is currently available on DVD through retailers such as Walmart and Amazon. It’s also available on Video on Demand through Amazon Prime as well as Comcast Xfinity InDemand.
My Final Recommendation: I’ll never look at art the same way again. 8/10
Thank you for your review of, ART OF THE DEAD. All of us in the cast and crew worked hard to carry out Rolfe Kanefsky’s vision of how the film should look, and the tone he was looking for. It is good to hear that your reaction to our work was favorable. And I agree that Alex Rinehart’s performance was balanced and solid. Thank you for your kind words regarding my work. We are proud of this movie, and your review was very encouraging. Thanks again.