Dante Tomaselli's first feature DESECRATION, though flawed by some poor performances and incoherent plotting, showed a technical polish and visual flair that owed much to the great Italian horror directors. In fact, some viewers even assumed that it was an Italian production instead of a low budget New Jersey indie flick. Responding to criticism of his first film's dreamy pace, Tomaselli picks up the rhythm here and keeps things jumping.
Weirdo cult leader Rev. Salo (Vincent Lamberti) lures five inmates into shooting a guard and escaping from a drug rehab center to his remote house in the country. Salo, his wife Grace (Christie Sanford), and their pet (?) goat (!) have already abducted their own daughter Grace (Lizzy Mahon) and are keeping her drugged. Between all the teens on hallucinogens, Grampa Salo (the Amazing Kreskin!) hypnotizing people, and Tomaselli's habit of skipping around in time, it's difficult to tell just what is really happening here which is exactly as intended. Hopped up on mushrooms provided by Salo, the escapee's leader Luck (Danny Lopes) sees the Reverend and his wife as demons hovering over Grace, and shoots them both. However, strange things continue to happen around the old dark house. Is it all just a product of drugs and hysteria, or is the supernatural at work? And just what is that goat doing running around loose? While we're trying to figure all this out, an army of zombies surrounds the house, and clues start to appear under Grace's bed.
HORROR is certainly far superior to DESECRATION, with much better performances (from some of the same actors even), and more intriguing characters and situations. Plus, it's a much scarier show, with good shock effects that deliver a nice Halloween atmosphere, despite the wintery setting. Tomaselli (who also designed the compelling soundtrack) has a gift for visual poetry, aided greatly by exceptional cinematography by Tim Naylor, and if he gets his hands on better written material he'll produce some terrific work someday. Here, he's still too attached to dreamlike ambiguity recalling David Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY if a dream sequence continues too long, all sense of viewer involvement disappears and it becomes monotonous. The viewer just wants to wake up and get on with the plot.
Illusionist Kreskin, who adeptly plays a demonic version of himself, appears in some "backstage" footage hypnotizing the cast, as he and Tomaselli thought it would be interesting to have him actually hypnotize people in the film. However, in the film it's impossible to tell the difference between hypnotic control and acting. More behind-the-scenes footage, which sometimes becomes tedious, reveals how certain scenes and effects were achieved.
Tomaselli's New Jersey accent chimes in for a director's commentrak in which he explains the ideas he was trying to represent in each scene. Here he's able to reveal a much wider range of influences than the obvious touch of Dario Argento (especially SUSPIRIA), including silent German horror and rock legends The Cars. He occasionally runs out of steam or lapses into play-by-play, and the session would have benefited from some company - perhaps Naylor or one of the leads sitting in. The disc's extras also include an "extended trailer" (which runs over 5 minutes), an 11-minute clip from the original video short version of DESECRATION, a DESECRATION trailer, and a gallery of 30 photos.
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