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The Monster Within
USA 2006
produced by
Blue Kat Boneyard
directed by Jeff Stoll
starring Mr ??? (= Dale Pierce), Gwendolyn, Denise Daleige-Pierce, Luke Menapace
screenplay by Bloody Marvin Flathead (= Marvin Fallon), Dale Pierce, based on a short story by Dale Pierce
review by
Harold Metzger
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This shorter vehicle comes out far better than Blue Kat Boneyard's/Jeff
Stoll's previous Museo Taurino,
with Mr ??? repeating his troubled role, only this time he is prey rather than hunter.
As The Divorcee, he looks like a particularly worldweary individual,
wearing a full beard to replace his stubble as Don Guillermo and with
the formerly wild hair cut close. In this role he has been unlucky
enough to head to smalltown America after a bitter divorce, but his
streak of ill fortune has not ended. He has unintentionally purchased a
house complete with ghosts.
Evidently preparing to commit suicide and join his ghost friends in an eternal orgy, he drunkenly sets up a
camcorder, explains what he has discovered within the house,
emphatically stating the monster within is a single unit, three evil
ghosts acting as one entity inside his supposedly happy home. He then
goes to the kitchen, selects a large buitcher knife after discarding
another as too small, shuts the basement door behind him, guts himself,
then emerges in a trance, evidently a spectral form who is indeed
greeted by his ghostly companions.
There are striking similarities to The Turn Of the Screw in as much as
one is not sure until the very end whether the ghosts are in the mind
of the seer or for real. Likewise, the ghosts do not talk, though they
walk about unseen by their host, whisper influencing things (and probably
dirty suggestions), and observe, waiting for what they know will
soon happen.
For an indy scene, there is one particularly frightening bit of camera
work, equal to anything out there. Our divorcee, in flashback, thinks of
how he might have felt the presence of the
ghosts, then as he opens his basement door, is confronted by one of
them. He screams, shuts the door, then reopens it again to see the
figure gone. By this point, he has already accepted both their presence
and his own pending doom.
The story of how the ghosts evolved is a kinky one. A brother and sister
having sex with each other are joined by a bisexual swinger in college.
When the parents of the brother/sister tag team are killed in a car
crash, they inherit the house and move in, free to do all sorts of sick
sexual things, presumedly for their own indy film business. Then one of
them finds God at a church service and acting in true priestly fashion (sarcasm intended), kills her two lovers
then herself. But as the poor divorcee puts it "They didn't stay
dead."
Being a non budgeter, the sex scenes are spoken of and the ghosts remain
sensual, but clothed. Dale Pierce should have just sold this plot to
Jesus Franco or someone, who would have tittied it up and pissed it up
a bit, to have screen action matching the descriptions given for the
evil spirits as they were when walking the earth. Well, maybe it can be
resold? In the meantime, for what it is, this is not bad.
Curiously, the ghosts are not raving beauties, though Gwendolyn has a
certain vampirish charm to her. They look like normal people, i.e. the
kinds you would find, perhaps, doing this murky shit beyond closed
doors. That makes them all the more believable. They are not
unattractive, any of them, but are not exactly Playboy bunnies. That is
what adds to the believability of this movie.
Many indy films are garbage and especially short films, but for the
budget and what it is, this one is worth a look. The company did a great
deal, with very limited resources. On par with anything from say, Troma.
That ghost behind the door scene (with an interesting blooper in the
outtakes section) is masterful. The lighting is just right, probably by
accident, but....
http://www.CustomFlix.com/223799 for
orders online and http://www.myspace.com/themonsterwithin2007
for info.
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review © by Harold Metzger
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