Review: Pink Rabbit

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2022
Images from the Internet

Pink Rabbit
Directed by Zetkin Yıkılmış
Yikilmiş Filmproduktion; Gravitas Ventures
105 minutes, 2022
www.facebook.com/pinkrabbitthemovie/

Somewhere in my head, I hear Sly Sylvester Stone’s voice singing, “It’s a family affair…” That is hardly surprising as the star of the film, as Martha, is the director/writer, Zetkin Yıkılmış, her husband is played by her husband, Dominic Yıkılmış (who is also cinematographer), and her kid is played by her toddler son, Emil I. Yıkılmış. Zetkin also fills many other shoes, such as make-up, editing, and art direction. Something tells me this is going to be a micro-budget film. I am truly excited.

From a Turkish background, Zetkin filmed this in Germany, but it is done entirely in English, so for those who are subtitle-phobic, there should be no issue in this department; sometimes heavy accents prevail, though.

We are introduced to the “Pink Rabbit” (Roland Bialke) during the credits – well, his feet anyway – as they stomp on a bunch of flowers. Right from the start, we are told the rabbit is up to no good. And what exactly is the rabbit? It’s an adult male in a bunny suit and exaggerated make-up.

Even from the first five minutes, the film has the feel of a fairy tale. Remember, Grimm’s Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm (1812) also came from Germany, and if you had the chance to read the original (or early translations), as I did, they are incredibly disturbing, often containing physical torture, dismemberment, and death to men, women, and children (for example, you didn’t think Hansel and Gretel were the first children in the witch’s house, did you?). It’s this feeling of “magic” that permeates the story.

Zetkin Yıkılmış

Martha is a harried office worker who has done so much overtime that she has not seen her husband and child in days. But on her way home, on a lonely road, the real journey begins as she is zapped out of her car by the Rabbit (using ‘80s style CGI), and into the dark woods, where she is held captive by a hunter and his father, and covered in white mice (tell me, that does not sound like a fairy tale to you). But like Dorothy Gale, all she wants to do is go home.

The style of fairy tale includes a chapter where a cabin is run by two bad hunters and potential cannibals, Caleb (Jakob Suchentrunk) and his grizzled father, Kain (Claus-Peter Seifert), where they are holding Martha captive. It is almost like they are in the Middle Ages in dress and house interiors (really good set designing), though in actuality, it takes place just after the end of the American War Between the States; what is odd, though, is that they have a huge Confederate “Stars  and Bars” flag hanging in their living room. Is that some kind of political commentary? There is also an odd conglomeration of American Indian/First Nations culture and one bit of modern technology all thrown in the mixer. The language is also purposely stilted to give it a fairy tale ambience (to paraphrase, “Oh, good sir, I just want to go home”).

Roland Bialke

All of the dialogue is spoken slowly, as if being read to children, though profanity prevails, and very carefully enunciated, though the “Rabbit” is over-the-top in facial expressions, and sounds more like Snidely Whiplash as he emotes by gnashing his teeth (would that make Martha “Nell”?). Did I mention that the “Rabbit” also has an alarm clock around his neck like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland?

In other films, the over exaggeration in emoting and movement would be the signs of amateurism, but as a purposeful stylistic choice, it covers a lot of bases, and because of it being consistent throughout rather than one or two actors trying their best, it flows quite well into the fairy tale narrative and motif.

A wise choice is as the scenarios change as she “kills all enemies” (Rule 2 of 3 given by the guy in the pink rabbit suit), the film nicely plays with how much is outside the scope of Martha, and how much is in her head, a manifestation of a possible psychic break after an alleged tragic event (again, real or Rabbit manipulation?). This is nicely exemplified in the character of Police Detective Fox (David Ketter, looking like he just stepped out of a Beach Boys’ cover band).

The SFX (the killings are practical and the titles that pop up on occasion or flashes when there is movement from scene to scene are digital) by Zetkin are extremely cheesy and are as cartoonish as the rest, which is appropriate. However, the set design and lighting are incredibly well done and are a spotlight, and yet still fits into the overall tone of everything else.

I have, quite honestly, not seen any of Zetkin’s other films, such as Planet Zee (2021), so I cannot compare them, but as a standalone, I was impressed by the level of the mixing of mediums of film and fairy tale. Despite sometimes having a bit of an issue with the accents (as I said earlier), especially with Bialke’s teeth gnashing, overall, I had fun with this accepting it as it is and what I feel like the mood it was going for, which I believe was achieved. This is indie filmmaking at its most basic level, a family affair, and I ended it with a smile. It feels like it was left open for a possible sequel, which I would look forward to viewing.

IMDB listing HERE

Trailer is HERE 

Review: Monsters in the Closet

 Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2022
Images from the Internet

Monsters in the Closet
Directed by The Snygg Brothers (aka John Bacchus aka Zachary Winston Brown)
Purgatory Blues LLC; Gravitas Ventures
89 minutes, 2022
www.facebook.com/MonstersInTheCloset

Man, I have not seen a genre film shot in my home town of New York City in a really long time (though I do believe some parts were done in Pennsylvania). I would rather see it in a horror than something like “Blue Bloods,” to see the city streets and lights. You know there are going to be overview city “placement” shots of b-roll footage. And sure enough, one minute in…

This is actually an anthology film that is shot for this release, not cobbled together (I like both formats equally, FYI). It is kinda cool that the wraparound story itself has a prologue. Actually, calling it a wraparound is kind of inadequate, as it is also one of the anthology stories and is the key connector between the pieces. I love when they do that.

Jasmin Flores

Raymond Castle (Tom C. Niksson, aka Tom Cikoski), an annoying writer of horror short stories and collector of things macabre. I am sure other viewers than myself will be looking at the merchandise in the background and saying “I want that,” or “I have that.” The posters on the wall are for sexploitation obscurities like Rock ‘n’ Roll Frankenstein (1999) and An Erotic Werewolf in London (2006, starring Erin Brown, aka Misty Mundae.

The premise of the film is that Castle has used black magic to make his stories come to life if they are read aloud (a well-used and beloved trope, such as “Beetlejuice!” “Bloody Mary!” “Candyman!”). This results in his estranged daughter, Jasmin Castle (Jasmin Flores, who co wrote the wraparound with “Snygg”) coming into the picture as she tries to figure out just what is going on. Playing an audio file version Raymond created of his stories on his computer (titled – you guessed it – Monsters in the Closet), we start off with the short films.

For example, the opening salvo is a humorous and gory partial first-person POV zombie apocalypse, as we see a woman becoming a zombie from the perspective of said flesh-eater. We hear her thoughts in clarity as others see her as a creature. This was done, albeit in a different effect, in Wasting Away (aka Ah! Zombies!!; 2007). While this idea has been done before (e.g., the short “2 Hours” in 2012, sans humor), but this is smartly written and designed. As promised, this brings you-know-whats storming the Castle house.

Now, under – er – normal circumstances, one would stop with the stories right there, and Jasmin is too occupied to listen to more, so an unexplained disembodies hand (borrowed Thing from “The Addams Family” perhaps?) climbs the keyboard to start the stories going again while Jasmin has her space continuingly clustered by creatures of various sorts and the tale telling is on autopilot.

Other stories include an annoying couple (Carmilla Crawford, Luke Couzens) buying their first fixer-upper house and the slow build-up of tension and violence turning into a bit of body horror/torture porn as they try to bring it up to snuff with limited experience (“Well, I did have shop in High School…” he states). In another, a rich, out of touch and racist father (Phillip Green) and spoiled daughter, Tiffany (Jordan Flippo) – obviously modeled after Donald and Ivanka – who argue about a camping trip; she talks about mistakes she will make in the future, such as eating pizza with the wrong fork, a line that made me stop the film and laugh, having grown up in Italian Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, home of the best pizza, where slices are folded when eaten, with no utensils needed…but I digress… She is not the sharpest stick in the woods because of the stick up her jealous ass, leading to some dire actions in a version of Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” (1924) – shades of Don Jr. and Eric. While no one gets shot on 5th Avenue, the philosophy remains the same.

Of course, they save the best and funniest for last. Seems Dr. Frankenstein (John Paul Fidele) and the Mrs. (a hysterical Valerie Bittner) – note that the film calls her “Mrs.” rather than “Ms.,” not me – live in…well, I won’t spoil the best joke in the film. After an accident, the “mad” doc does his Frankenstein magic and viola, etc., et. al, and so on, ad nauseum. It nicely uses purposefully cliché classical tunes like Edward Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” and Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” to give it a Universal Pictures oeuvre.

It is smart that the film casts a wide net in genres, with many classical monsters in one form or another, but in completely different contexts and sprinkled in witty writing. Raymond’s between-story ramblings sound a bit ad-libbed and peculiar, even here, but I’ll swim with the fishes (or elephant sized chickens…see the film).

While there is no nudity in the film, there is a bizarre sex scene and a whole lot of cleavage. The gore and blood are plentiful. The practical SFX runs from really gross and dripping, to cartoonish and, well, mannequin limbs. There is also some digital blood spurts added as well, "splashing" the camera lens. But that’s the thing about having a foundation of comedy, which hear varies from the dark to the whoopies!, and that is that it gives room for the cheese to ferment, and becomes more accessible and acceptable. If they used, say, a mannequin arm in a Saw film, for example, that would not fly, but in something like The Mask (1994), it makes room for drawing outside the lines.

Tom C. Niksson

The film looks pretty good. I was a bit concerned about the opening, honestly, with it’s use of primary lighting (red, blue, cyan), thinking it may be leaning heavily towards a Creepshow (1982) vibe, because this starts actually looking a bit like that, being an anthology and all, but as we move along, that type of dated lighting is curtailed and it is easier to focus on the stories rather than it trying to be “art.” That being said, there are some lovely shots here, that are atmospheric and artistic, but it doesn’t bludgeon you over the head (pun not intended) with it, but it is used sparingly throughout.

The previous film by “The Snygg Brothers” was Beaster Day: Here Comes Peter Cottenhell (2014), which I honestly have not seen, but I am going to at some point as it is on Tubi (the image of Peter Cottenhell is Raymond’s screen saver). Two things about the “Snygg Brothers.” The first is the “Snygg” collective is like the Ramones, where in the credits there is a bunch of first names followed by the other, such as Vincent Snygg. The Swedish word snygg means “handsome,” but I’m guessing in this case it may also be an acronym, like [??] New York [??] Group. As for the director, it is a pseudonym for a man who is basically known for directing adult fare, both soft and hard, but obviously has enough talent to give us, at this point two horror films that are nicely offbeat.

[Added later: I finally saw Beaster Day on Tubi, and while it is as stupid and silly as can be in a fun way, some of the writing is actually quite hysterical, and Fidele, who plays Dr. Frankenstein in Monsters, steals the film with his role as a mayor who is prescient in Trumpian political spin.]

IMDB is HERE