Pulpmovies Reviews

Next time someone tells you that horror films are unimaginative exercises in throwing as much gore as possible at the screen, sit them down, produce your treasured copy of Desecration and make them watch it (some initial force may be required).

To be honest, I would have to agree that most horror films are unimaginative exercises in throwing gore at the screen (it’s a lot easier to gross an audience out than it is to actually scare someone), and of those that aren’t, far too many are of the “clever, ironic” variety - Scream and it’s descendents proving that, if an idea’s worth doing once, it’s worth being done to death. The operative word, of course, is most. It’s true, I think, of all genres that much of what is produced nowadays does little (and often, nothing) more than rehash older ideas and even plots; a state of affairs that leaves movie watchers in general and horror fans in particular ploughing through acres of formulaic mediocrity. So it’s a rare treat to see a film that is not only original, but also reminds you of why you started watching films of this genre in the first place.

Desecration is a genuinely unnerving film. Director Dante Tomaselli is a fan of Dario Argento - and, both visually and musically, it shows. But this is no cheap copy (okay, at $150,00 it’s cheap, but there is enough ambition and talent here to get every cent of the budget onto the screen).

The plot is simple, if not very linear, and kept well in the background allowing the story to be told primarily through imagery. This means, of course, that any three people will give you three different explanations of what the film is about. Personally, I always find it incredibly refreshing to find a film that actually makes me think rather than forcibly spoon-feeding me every plot point.

The film starts on Bobby Rullo’s (Danny Lopes) fifth birthday with his grandmother, Matilda, ascending the stairs towards the nursery and the sobbing child. Here she finds Bobby’s mother dead in the balloon strewn room.

We then jump forward eleven years and a few miles down the road to find the teenage Bobby a resident at a Catholic boarding school. It is here that he manages to accidentally kill a nun (Christie Sanford). More accurately, something uses him to cause the death of the unfortunate nun - or maybe this is just my reading of it.

Either way, the death of the nun triggers a sequence of increasingly surreal and hallucinogenic events as the forces of Hell start to hunt Bobby down. And it’s the surrealism of this film that makes it such a visual treat - the Church is not only unable to help, but actively seeks to extricate itself from the events. Christian symbols - and concepts - are inverted. Childhood becomes, not a time of safety, but a place to be escaped…

Of course, nothing is perfect and I do have a few criticisms of Desecration. The scene in which the nun that gets it gets it ran for a bit too long, giving me enough time to see the limits of the special effects budget. Also there are a couple of weaknesses with some of the characters and acting - specifically, Irma St. Paule’s performance as Matilda was way over the top and I found that Bobby’s Father (Salvatore Paul Piro) simply didn’t ring true.

But these are minor criticisms. More serious was the abruptness of the ending. The film simply stops without reaching any sort of conclusion at all - this abruptness is the only reason I gave Desecration four stars and not the five I was intending for most of the film.

Desecration is a great film and one that I have watched twice in less than a month. Buy it, borrow it, see it - you won’t be disappointed.

A final note - with the screener for Desecration, I also got hold of a five minute trailer for Dante Tomaselli’s second film, Horror. I can’t wait to get my hands on this one.

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