Reviews: Four Gore Films of Davide Pesca
Images from the Internet
Note that
these four films are listed chronologically, rather than in the order in which
I watched them. Also, the screener versions that I saw were low rez and grainy,
but I am sure if you rent the film, it will be in a much higher resolution. The
trailers for all four films are after the reviews.
Suffering Bible
Directed by Davide Pesca
Demented Gore Productions
65 minutes, 2018
www.digitmovies.com/
Although this is not a long film, it was the first
full feature Pesca directed, and ironically, the last of the four films I
watched. The Bible is a very apropos topic for a film centered on gore and body
horror, as the book is filled with genocide, incest, child rape, slavery, infanticide,
and multiple killings of animals (along with talking serpents and donkeys).
Pesca has a certain style that he employs on all these
films, which are short stories stitched together to form a theme. The camera is
often handheld (jerky, but not seasick worthy like, say, 2008’s Cloverfield.
There is also minimal talking, usually dubbed but occasionally with subtitles,
and use of multiple monochrome filters (black and white, blue, etc.), though
sometimes he uses an ultra-chromatic filter for colorful effects. But the main
focus of all his films is the gore factor, which is ripe and rife, often
involving body organs. Pesca does all the SFX himself, and generally it looks
really amazing, considering the budget, which is low-Lira…oops, I mean Euros.
As for the stories, they are there for the gore, rather than the other way
around, and may make you say, che cosa?
There are five stories – or Acts – here, with the
bookends (and between each story) being a naked man and a nude woman,
individually, with bandages on their heads crawl through a forest on their
stomachs. By the end, it’s obvious which Biblical story to which this refers.
As for the stories themselves, the it starts with “Act
1: My Only God.” In this tale, two ex-friends are, well, reunited, for lack of
a better term. Truthfully, I am not sure what story this references in the
Bible. “Act II: San Toma,” as in St. Judas Thomas. A self-flagellating man
(monk?) – an event that was common during the Middle Ages (see Monty Pythonand the Holy Grail (1975) – hallucinates Jeebus appearing on a cross, and he does what a Doubting Thomas
would do, but more so. We learn eating the “body of Christ” (not on a cracker) is
not always a positive thing.
“Act III: In the Name of the Father” is next. A woman
who is sensually attracted to an old book (it looks like a dictionary, but it
could possibly be a stand-in for a Bible) and a cross with the image of Jeebus
on it, does some damage to herself in self-erotic ecstasy. My question here is,
I realize Jeebus supposedly wants us unbelievers to burn for eternity, but does
“he” really want his followers to suffer at their own hands this much, as well?
Seems more Darwinian. But, I digress…
Next up is “Act IV: The Pact.” As might be expected, a
depressed woman makes a deal with a mysterious and devilish woman for riches
and beauty, which cannot end well and, considering the context of the film this
is in, one might add bloody. The piper must be paid. This is my favorite segment
in the film. For the final piece, “Act V: Redemption of the Lost Souls,” we
meet three people, an OD’d junkie, a tuberculosis victim, and an old man who
was homeless, as they meet their judgments. Were they good or were they bad,
and what was their fate? Again, context. There was a brief coda to this one with
a gift that I did not quite understand.
There are no real stories here, just vignettes into bloody
religiosity, which is a comment on the state of spirituality throughout the
last 2000 years, where suffering is equated with religion, to supposedly
understand the suffering “the Lord” went through the days before Good Friday
for “your sins.” Pesca plays on that rather than narration, and is effective in
that mode.
Ironically, most of the people in this film (and the
others) about the Bible are tattooed, which the Leviticus poo-poos on as much
as homosexuality. Again, I digress…
Dead Butterfly: The Prophecy of Suffering Bible
(aka Suffering
Bible 2)
Directed by Davide Pesca
Demented Gore Productions
56 minutes, 2019
www.digitmovies.com/
This film is a
collection of individual scenes related only by their connection to extreme and
distorted versions of Catholicism and religiosity. There is very little
dialogue, but what there is, is in Italian with very clear captions (i.e., easy
to discern; not white on white).
The start is a
woman (the beautiful Barbara Sirotti) who receives a gift (a theme which would
be revisited in another form in “Dust to Dust” from Grand Guignol Madness: Show Your Fear; see
review below) of a liquid in a vial and virtual reality glasses presenting a
Christ-like figure that proves to show the opposite of what is happening in the
physical world (“Heaven’s Doors”). Then a religious woman puts a chained (and I
believed drugged) man through the tortures and then some of Jesus’ last days
before befalling her own fate (“The Saint’s Friday”). Another man burying
something in the woods befalls a bloody end by a possible ghost with a
screwdriver (“The Secret”). After a jewel robbery (including a butterfly
necklace) the older woman victim does a bit of voodoo on the younger woman who stole
her possessions (“Do Not Steal”). In the last tale, a woman is tortured and
beaten by cool looking techno-demons in hell (I believe) for her Earthly
crimes, such as adultery and taking the Lord’s name in vain after a desperate
act (“The Judgment”; see, this is why I am an atheist),
The
gore is explicit and plentiful, as is the top body parts of much of the female
cast. While not as sophisticated as Pesca’s later works, as far as the graphics
(both SFX and digital FX), it is easy to see the talent in the way the film is
constructed. He is also setting up his auteur workings through the type of gore
he employs, and the use of vignettes, or original short stories combined with a
wraparound that is inserted as bookends, and between each tale that is in black
and white, as a man puts sharp objects (hooks, pins, etc.) through his skin on
different parts of his body in self-harming religious fervor (“The Angel”); I
could not watch these parts, in all honesty.
Grand Guignol Madness: Show Your Fear
Directed by Davide Pesca
Demented Gore Productions; Digitmovies Alternative Entertainment; Home Movies
67 minutes, 2020
www.digitmovies.com/
Right from the
start, the film lets us know where it is thematically heading with the title
card that reads (in Italian): “The sound of the lament caused by suffering is
almost identical to the groan caused by pleasure.” Shades of Hellraiser
(1987)!
The film is an
anthology; a collection of Pesca’s shorts made especially for this release. The
framework is that a woman is kidnapped, and forced, through electrodes, to experience
the terrible things that happen to the people we see in the shorts, while bound
to a chair in a laboratory (“Broken Mind”).
Each story is mostly
silent with musical backgrounds, though what little Italian dialogue is spoken
does not deter from the stories. They involve the likes of a gift to an online nude
model gone wrong (“Dust to Dust”), a nature-loving photographer deciding to go
all Dexter on some litterers and polluters (“Save the Planet”), a strip-off
contest going horribly wrong (“The Competition”), an obsessive body builder misusing
steroids (“Muscles”), a lonely woman who is out to capture a man’s heart (“The
Heartbreaker”), and a model in underwear who is posing for a photographer has a
negative reaction to the many exposures to the flash of the camera (“Shot my
Soul”).
Each vignette
has its own style and look, usually through a mostly monochrome or hyper- chromatic
filter. The major themes seem to be revenge, stripping, tattoos and fingers in
wounds, with an occasional side order of someone holding someone else’s organs.
The effects
range from a bit cheesy to very effective, and there is a lot of it as it is
the point in the whole exercise, hence the title, which is based on a theater
in Paris that ran from 1897 to 1962 that specialized in realistic shows of
graphic horror. The title is effective, and it is an interesting watch for a
gorehound.
Night of Doom
Directed by Davide Pesca
Demented Gore Productions
61 minutes, 2021
www.digitmovies.com/
For this
story, Doom is the name of a powdered drug that seems to be similar to Bath
Salts in that it causes violent psychosis. According to a newscast, the crime
rate is up 40 percent and the drug is rampant in Italy, where this is filmed
(it is dubbed into English; note that the trailer below is in its original
Italian). While the topic of addiction to Doom is not mentioned, it is (for me)
assumed by the desire for it.
That being
said, this is as much as about the drug as it is focused on sado-masochism, and
snuff entertainment. While not an anthology film, there are a series of
vignettes that overlap, and some return, making this somewhat narrative, but
also being a bit esoteric in how it is presented.
There are lots
of primary colors used for lighting, specifically blue and red, and the camera
work is quite imaginative, sometimes with nearly psychedelic green screen
backgrounds.
The largest
part of the story focuses on a televangelist who, in the name of the Lord, is
into B&D, S&M, erotic asphyxiation, and yes, of course, Doom. A bit of
it is for himself, but most is for his loved one that he leaves bound and
gagged while he is away from home.
The drug is
the spine of the film, but the meat and bones is a commentary about religion
(heavily leaning towards Catholic; though would Mother Mary have had painted
nails?) and S&M, and how sometimes they philosophically satisfy the same
needs; though not blatantly stated, it is presented as such in a more subtle
means. And that is the only subtly in this film’s actions.
One thing I
will mention as far as men and women, they are similarly treated badly, and
equally being the perpetrators of the violence (except there is a much better
chance that the women will be dressed sexually, if at all).
Amid all the
violence, there is a touch of humor here and there, such as the presentation of
Miss Bathory Body Lotion that is presented as nearly an inserted commercial.
That’s a bloody good joke (pun intended).
I especially
like that the person ending up being the main character is not who you might
expect, but certainly this actor is the best of the batch. This is definitely
low budget (you even get to see the boom mic in one shot), and Pesca managed to
do a lot with a little.
This film
could fall into the artistic Transgressive subgenre, and I have seen a lot of
body horror, but I have to say, thematically, I was more interested in the drug
end than the S&M, which is something I have never found appealing. The film
is well-made and creative in camera work, visual effects, and SFX – especially
on this budget – but even though I enjoy gore effects, which are done well
here, the torture stuff was a bit much for me at times. Ahh, I’m getting old.
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