My contribution to The Oregonian's team coverage of PIFF Week 3....
"The Revenant" has been scoring early raves on the genre-festival circuit, and with good reason -- it may announce a cool new voice in horror-comedy in writer/director/effects-whiz Kerry Prior.
Prior's story -- which is played for lower-key laughs that an overt comedy like "Shaun of the Dead" -- concerns a soldier (David Anders) killed in Iraq who inexplicably resurrects, hangs out with his amoral stoner best friend (Chris Wylde) and decides to use his newfound thirst for blood to fight crime, with horribly mixed results.
The story's a little shaggy (at least on the "Revenant" workprint, which is what I saw) -- subplots involving Bart's girlfriend and resurrected criminals get inconsistent attention in the film's second half, and without going into detail, the ending sort of feels like it's from another movie entirely. But the film still scores -- and scores big -- on Anders and Wylde's considerable foul-mouthed buddy chemistry, Prior's sharp eye and deadpan humor, and some truly inventive splatter gags (including one awesomely crass bit involving a disembodied head that's too good to spoil).
Prior will be on hand for a Q&A after the film's "PIFF After Dark" screening at Cinema 21 on Saturday, Feb. 26. I can't wait to hear him talk about the soon-to-be-infamous severed-head bit.
_____
B; United States; 110 min. (11:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 26 at Cinema 21)
The Oregonian's PIFF Week 3 coverage (Friday, Feb. 25, 2011)
Comments