Fantasia Fest 2021: Dispatch 5
A year into a pandemic where society ignores scientists' warnings and fails to take it seriously (sound familiar?), The Sadness’ "Alvin virus" mutates into a rabies-like sickness that makes people torture, murder, and rape each other as Taiwan falls into total collapse. (Think David Cronenberg's Rabid mixed with Joe Lynch's Mayhem.)
In the middle of the hardcore dystopia, a young couple can't get a hold of each other, and Jim (Berant Zhu) fights off a neighbor — who initially believes the virus is a hoax to fix the stock market — and many other ravagers as he tries to reconnect with his girlfriend. Meanwhile, Kat is stuck in a train with a creepy old man (simply credited as "businessman") as he sexually harasses her and guilt-trips her for not reciprocating his flirtations. This tension leads to an effectively terrifying sequence where, in Train to Busan-like fashion, the passengers on the subway are trapped with those infected and the perverted businessman's sexual impulses are heightened to unsettling levels as he stalks and preys on Kat and another woman culminating in a repulsive climax.
The movie does not hold back on the blood and gore, but while the set pieces show why The Sadness earns its trigger warning and hard R-rating, writer/director Rob Jabbaz offers little social commentary on the pandemic after the opening scenes. Instead, it mostly exists to showcase the admittedly impressive makeup FX and how far they can push the limits. Much like the rabid zombies that show nothing beyond the extreme expressions of their "Id," the second half drags as the two leads don't have any meaningful characteristics, and the open-world unpredictability is confined to one overrun hospital with an unnecessary expository character.
Still, the gore-hounds and genre aficionados will love the gross-out violence and the design of the zombies, especially their enlarged black eyes. The filmmakers don't waste any time showcasing their "madness," which the film should have been called instead. But they also conform to a host of dystopian clichés instead of sticking with a breakneck pace and some of the most depraved scenes you will see in a horror feature. Grade: C —Cisco Scartozzi
When you’re dealing with the visualization of the subconscious mind, it’s either going to be Inception or goofy as hell. Strawberry Mansion is no Christopher Nolan film, and, believe it or not, that’s a good thing. Diving head-first into its bonkers premise, viewers are immediately assaulted with some extremely imaginative visuals that leave no doubt of the film’s dreamworld setting. Blending reality with the insane and conscious with the unconscious, co-writers/directors Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney do a laudable job making up for their obvious low budget, but as the film progresses and it becomes clear where the story is heading, it drags quite a bit — and for a mere 90-minute runtime, that’s not great. Grade: B-minus —Joel Winstead
(Photos courtesy of the Fantasia International Film Festival)
