Review: Parts Unknown

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2021
Images from the Internet

Parts Unknown
Directed by Richard Chandler
Boston Film Family; Wild Eye Releasing
117 minutes, 2018 / 2020
www.facebook.com/PartsUnknownMovie/
www.bostonfilmfamily.com/
www.wildeyereleasing.com 

There is a natural correlation between professional wrestling and horror cinema. Just seek out releases from Mexico, even from the 1960s. Sure, lots of films use actual wrestlers in tough guy roles. For example, in mainstream there are Dwayne Johnson “The Rock,” “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Terry Bollea aka Hulk Hogan; but there is also an impact from luche libre made in indie films, such as Gene Snitskey and Samu Anoa’i.

William DeCoff

For this mash-up, its William DeCoff, whose multi-title winning wrestling name was Sean “Battleship” O’Reilly, playing scarred patriarch Hermann Von Strasser (perhaps a nod to DeCoff’s mentor, Fritz von Erich?). He angrily struggles with his place in the modern tech world, where people at matches are more focused on scrolling their cell phones than on what is happening in the ring. I understand this: if you go to a taping of a live television production, be it a talk show, game show or “Saturday Night Live,” you will see people in the audience watching the monitors rather than the real-life action happening a few feet from them. Fascinating to see. But, as always, I digress…

It seems the angrier Hermann gets, the more his western Massachusetts accent flairs, which is delightful, especially in moments when he says things like “We’re all paht of this now... capisce?!” Then again, he says cringey stuff like, “I gotta get some money from the Jew,” meaning sleezy wrestling promoter Gary Wilkerstein (Ralph Regine). It’s plain obvious that nearly the entire Von Strasser family is pretty, well, not nice people. While patriarch Hermann (DeCoff) is a piece of work and his insane/infantile brother Harvey (Alexander Hauck) is a murderous ruffie-rapist who wears a MAGA hat to show just how mentally “off” he is, the scarily insane one is cute, pill-poppin’ sister Kitty (Sarah Michelle), who has a vein of evil that is to the core. Just look at her eyes and the way she twirls her hair… oh, and how much she gets off on people getting killed, even kin. To be fair, though, most of the characters are pretty scuzzy, though one possible shining star of decency may be wrestler Lacey (soapmaker Lizzie Havoc). Let’s see where that goes.

Lizzie Havoc and Sarah Michelle

So, what happens to this evil family when they are asked by some diminutive demonic creature called The Holiness (voiced by wrestler Jake “The Snake” Roberts and embodied by Christina Costello, who is 5-foot tall, the same as my mom; but again, I digress…) for blood sacrifices? Hermann complies, making a deal with the demon with “I live for blood.” And a murder spree is on its way. But honestly, from the time before this, it’s pretty obvious that they don’t need to promise a demon, they’re pretty violent from the beginning.

Christina Costello

I believe this is taking place in 2033, from a radio announcement, which would explain the neon lighting everywhere that’s right out of Café Flesh (1982). In fact, there is a lot of this that reminds me of that film, as well as the director’s (Steven Sayadian) follow-up, Dr. Caligari (1989), including the synth score and the camera angles/editing. Like Café Flesh, this is a film, on a secondary level, about voyeurism and the audience’s lack of ability, which is appropriate in today’s world, never mind 2033. An example of this is a wrestling match between Lacey and Kitty, which becomes downright brutal, yet the audience is cheering it on in flaccid fascination, reminiscent of a theme from Garfunkel and Oats’ “Sports Go Sports”: “You watch genetically superior people/Do things you never will.” There’s a nice nod to Gladiator (2000) to put an emphasis to this.

Alexandra Cipolla

To add onto this story, there is Mary Price (Alexandra Cipolla, who was also good in The Trees Have Eyes, 2020; reviewed HERE) as an undead police detective and possible goddess on the trail of the killer family for justice and revenge. And damn, I’m not even half way through this film.

Lizzie Havoc

While this isn’t necessarily a sequel to the director, Richard Chandler’s previous film, Witch Hunters (2016; reviewed HERE), there is a connection, as they both take place in the same universe of witches and demons, with a character from the previous film, Dominic Damarus (Chandler) making an appearance, and Lacey is the daughter of Sheriff Tormada in that film. There is also a cameo reference to an earlier Chandler film which I have not seen, Gilgamesh (2014).

As is common with Witch Hunters, there appear to be no separation of acts, and the action flows constantly, be it wrestling or physical havoc involving guns, knives, and even a wood chipper. The gore is fun and not necessarily over the top in looks, but the action is at times brutal and the mere suggestion of it is enough to make most (especially women) squirm. There is violence perpetrated by everyone and on everyone, but it’s particular when it comes to women, which I won’t go into detail. Speaking of women, there is lots of skin exposure (one male at a distance), especially the northern territory, be it cleavage, under-hang, or just toplessness. Men are killed, but women are sexually harmed. I’m not going to take a side on the argument, but I am sure there may be bound to be one if you see this as a couple.

My issue with the film, mostly, is just the pure length of it, at three minutes shy of two hours. Sure, the acting is all over the place, and the storyline sometimes gets convoluted, but that’s the nature of indie cinema and you can take it or leave it, but the sheer length is… well, it could be edited down a bit without losing any of the piledriver impact.