Reviews: The Devil's Camera; Virgin Genocide

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2018
Images from the Internet

I have put these two Séan Weathers-directed reviews together because even though they were both released this year, Virgin Genocide is the sequel to The Devil’s Camera. - RG

The Devil’s Camera
Written and directed by Séan Weathers
Full Circle Filmworks
51 minutes, 2018
www.facebook.com/Séanweathers

One of Brooklyn’s-own Séan Weather’s filmmaking shtick is to take a modern news story and adapt it into a murderous spree of gore and glee, such as with celebrity cell phone hacking in The Fappening (2015). As usual, Séan is also the central actor and in this case, also the villain of the piece.

This time, the news item is the subculture of the incel, an online group of ironically mostly white men who complain they can’t get laid, and so develop a deep misogynistic bent, and on some occasions to a murderous level.

The aptly named David Cross is – err – cross that he is a 40 year old virgin. Unlike the genial Steve Carrell character, Cross is triggered and armed. It’s hinted at a possible physical (brain tumor, perhaps?) as well as mental issues, but he definitely crosses the line (otherwise there would be no film, am I right?).

Like Creep Creepersin’s 2011 Peeping Blog, Cross follows women through his various cameras that we see laid out at the beginning of the him (and hence the title; though I wonder where he got the money for all this gear when he’s unemployed… But once again, I digress…), hoping to get somewhere and in his neediness and desperation, turns them off. This of course turns on his triggering of murderous rage.



Séan Weathers

Technically this is a found footage flick, but most of the shots are static (e.g., pre-set up in his apartment), so there’s little Cloverfield or The Blair Witch Project kind of shaky nonsense. There are, however lots of subtle (or not so subtle) nuances in the backgrounds, such as the his camera focusing on the Gillie and Marc Puparazzi statues on a Manhattan street, or a six-pack of Angry Orchard beer off to the side, but in the camera’s eye.

As with many of Weather’s films, being the auteur he is (again, compliment intended), this film is episodic in that it is a series of set pieces stitched together. Most of it seems to be his planning or incidental moments (such as phone calls to his mom), which I actually found kind of interesting, and the kills tend of be messy and quick. The body count is nice, and you can take that comment any way you wish to read it.

Séan does a riveting job as David. Even at his most emotional, for example as he’s pounding on a wall in anger and frustration, or when he’s holding his head in literal physical pain, he never goes into the bizarre like he did in his Scumbag Hustler (2014), a film I liked a lot by the way. As for the fodder (i.e., victims), they tend to run from competent acting to a bit on the wooden side, even if their screen time is mostly pretty short. A rare exception to the time frame is with a beautiful woman (Elma Bayliss) who he meets on the High Line in Manhattan. Bayliss does a great job onscreen.

Of course, there could be a reaction to the film with cries of misogyny, and I can certainly understand why considering all the victims are female, but I would like to interject that this is film is a social commentary on a particular sub-set of dudes who hate women. Even with the woman he professes to love, with a chance of return affection, he spews out gender hatred. Yeah, it could be argued about what was Weathers’ motivation to choose a topic like this, but I’m going to pick the side of an indie, no-budget filmmaker who has the opportunity to film guerilla style when he can (episodic), while he can (short scenes), to make a cohesive story about a deranged serial killer. As he explains to mommy on the phone, “I’m not crazy, I have mental issues.”

For me, the one aspect of this that feels weird, other than all the victims being female (even though it fits the storyline) is that Weathers is a handsome and ripped dude. This is presumptuous of me, but I wouldn’t imagine him having trouble scoring. Hey, dude, that’s meant as a compliment, so chill. Besides, I’m not into guys and I know you’re not either. No, put away that knife! Aaaaaarrrrgggg.

 

Virgin Genocide

Written and directed by Séan Weathers
Full Circle Filmworks
50 minutes, 2018
www.facebook.com/Séanweathers

Of course, it’s the virgin who is doing the genocide, not a genocide of virgins. But I start by digressing…

The sequel to The Devil’s Camera picks up from where it left off, with David Cross (Séan Weathers) being angry and decrying his anger at the opposite sex into his/the camera, portraying himself the victim (lessons from Trump?) as he swears a murderous path for himself.

Again playing with visuals, one woman enters a (real) restaurant on 14 Street in New York called The Crooked Knife while Cross is stalking her. I smiled at that one.

Of course, being the sequel, the violence ramps up a bit, though other than fighting and choking, most of the time we see the results of the violence rather than the contact of non-flesh objects (after so many explicit torture porn releases, honestly, it’s somewhat of a relief). So you get the bloody SFX usually without the need to cover your eyes (if yer so inclined). Though I should point out this is more true of the first film than this one.

What’s also a help is that the names of the characters are mentioned this time, so it is easier (or, as they said in my neck of Brooklyn, more better) to tell who is playing whom. For example, I know it’s Shayla (Talisha Lee) who tells Cross the obvious truth that he will get nowhere picking up women by sticking a camera in their face and being rude. Like most Republicans who voted for the present Trumpville administration, Cross is pushing against his own self-interests into a self-fulfilled prophesy.

One of the subthemes is that Cross seems to be obsessed by the film The Sadist, a 1963 so-over-the-top-it’s-great B-indie starring the underappreciated Arch Hall, Jr.; clips of the film are shown throughout both these Weathers’ flicks.



Sara Rosenberg

Of course questions arise as the film plays out: how far will David go before he gets what he wants? Or after? And is there a comeuppance for his behavior? Well, I ain’t-a a gonna answer any of these questions, you’ll have to see for yourself.

Meanwhile the actresses are, again, attractive with varying talents (though they do better in this film), and there is even a cameo from scream queen Sara Rosenberg (who also played in Weather’s 2016 The New York Butcher).

Weathers really does have a style of his own, and yet it’s grown over the years as he becomes more prolific with his output. The themes may occasionally be similar (serial murderers, serial rapists, serial drug abusers), but still worth the view for the nuances. Or just for the story. For guerilla filmmaking, you don’t hear much from Brooklyn, so let’s remedy that, okay, and see one of his films. It may inspire you to make your own, and that would be a good thing.