Gehenna: Where Death Lives (2016)

So, when I saw that Lance Henriksen and Doug Jones were the top billed stars of this movie I immediately thought to myself that someone was cashing a paycheck. Especially Henriksen who has made a career out of showing up for a few minutes to get paid. That annoys the heck out of me, and I don’t know why so many filmmakers think that his name is going to sell the movie. We fans have figured this out. Spoiler alert Henriksen only shows up on the other side of a phone call for maybe ninety seconds in the first five minutes and that is it. So, I was already not pleased with Gehenna: Where Death Lives. Though Jones has more to do, albeit buried under a ton of makeup.

The movie follows a group of some corporate bigwigs and their guides as they check out property on the island of Saipan with the possibility of building a resort. Right away we meet the locals and hear the stories of it being sacred land and that they shouldn’t desecrate it. At that point most rational people would turn tail and locate somewhere else to build. Instead this group finds a creepy underground complex left over from the Second World War and decides, ‘hey let’s check this out’. Do I have to tell you that choice doesn’t end well? Not only is the ground sacred, but it also is home to ghosts and some sort of evil spirit from a couple hundred years earlier when a European angered the local tribes a bit. This is a bad place, a very bad place.

Be warned that I’m going to have spoilers in my review. I can’t really tell you about the best parts of the movie without them and yes there is some good stuff here. As much as I didn’t want to like Gehenna: Where Death Lives it does have moments where it is fun. The underground bunker setting is spooky and leads to many scares. The place is testing/torturing our characters by haunting them with the choices they have made and the people they lost in their past. This makes for some creepy drowned kid and torso twisted dead sister action that looks decent. The evil forces also turn more than one of them against the others and has them do its dirty work.

Doing his five minutes work.

This is typical stuff that most of us have seen already in other ghost movies. The twist here is that they travel back in time to when the tunnels were being shelled by the Americans during World War II. This has them meeting up with the Japanese survivor who then gives them some insight to what happened, as it was them who released the evil. Now we have characters who aren’t just trapped underground but are also lost in time. How does that work, and can they return home? Well the answer is sort of. I can’t really say much more than that without ruining the movie. This is a flick that is all about the big twist, so I don’t want to do that.

Do I recommend Gehenna? This is the kind of movie that you want to rent or wait to show up on a streaming service. It is a fun watch once, but once the big twist is revealed and the fate of the characters shown I can’t imagine it holding anyone’s interest a second time. I picked up a used copy of the movie from my local rental store for five bucks and am planning on passing it along to a friend. In the end I’d say this was a decent flick but nothing special.

© Copyright 2020 John Shatzer

The Perfection (2019)

This Netflix movie was getting a lot of hype. It was supposed to be brutal and super gross, so I figured what the hell I’ll take a look. I honestly wasn’t expecting much as most movies like this don’t live up to the buzz that gets generated by “normies” who don’t have any idea what a real horror movie looks like.

This one is all about a Cello school and the creepy dude that runs it. His name is Anton, played brilliantly by Steven Weber, and while they have many students, he has a special few that get recruited from around the world. It is here where we jump into the story with his current protégé Lizzie meets and becomes intimately involved with a former student, Charlotte, who had left the school to take care of her sick mother. After a night of passion Lizzie invites her to go sightseeing before returning home to Boston. Well some stuff happens that ends up with Lizzie chopping off her own hand. I don’t want to give any spoilers away but what I can say is that Lizzie ends up really mad at Charlotte! But just when you think you know what the story is going to be about there is another twist and then yet another. Basically, this movie keeps you confused as to what is going on until the very end. And now that I think of it the ending doesn’t make a lot of sense either.

Okay that last bit probably makes it sound like I didn’t enjoy the movie and that isn’t the case. There is a lot to like here including the plot and how it keeps tossing curve balls at the audience. At one point you might think that it is a hemorrhagic fever body horror flick. Then there is a bit with some old school rape revenge. Hell, this might be a back to basics psychological story where Charlotte wants back in and needs to get rid of Lizzie. At different points of the movie all of these seem valid, but of course only one is the real deal. This is one of those movies that kept me interested and guessing until the credits rolled.

Bug vomit is a thing... I guess

Where the movie fails, at least for me, is when we get to the gore. Again, there was a lot of talk and hype about how disturbing this movie is. If you check out the trailer and/or screenshots you will see lots of stuff with bugs and limbs getting lopped off. Between that and based on all the buzz I was expecting a really gross flick and we don’t get that at all. Sure, people lose hands, arms, and legs… all of it offscreen! I never say this, but I would have been happier with at least some CGI mayhem. The Perfection keeps teasing you with what is coming only to pull back before we get to the bloody stuff. I guess if vomiting maggots is your idea of “ERMERGERD SO GROSS!” then you will like the movie. But as a gore hound I was disappointed.

Basically, this is a really interesting flick that could have been awesome if it had made more of an effort to be gory. I feel like they missed a golden opportunity with The Perfection. I do recommend checking it out but manage your expectations and don’t get too excited by the hype.

© Copyright 2020 John Shatzer