7/3/20 - Verotika (2019) - 1/10

A cinematic sin, pushing the limits of acceptability. Anyone can make a film, but that doesn’t mean everyone should. This was a Sisyphean struggle to endure, but the boulder of it weighed in my brain forever more. The photography and editing is not just amateur but tangibly awful. One might think it is a choice, a willing and intended subversion of the art and precepts. But it did not seem in on the joke, despite it bordering and often crossing over into laughable. Not only is the execution off within every element, conceptually it is extraordinarily amiss. Aimlessly put together, shoddily considered, and with the production & acting of a want to be late night skinemax. If only it could have reached such lofty heights.

The fetish gear budget and a few (and only a few, because it is either decent or atrocious) of the horror special effects are the only redeeming qualities whatsoever...well, there is no redeeming; maybe more vaguely passable or trying to legitimize its existence. Perhaps they could have heaped some moolah into acting classes or dialect coaches, for these accents are simply THE. WORST.

To find poetic license and inspiration from nihilistic detritus can be...challenging. Especially when there can be no tongue to put in cheek because it has been cut out. What banishes this to the unforgivable pits is it’s sincerity in delivering true quality but completely missing the target at every juncture. It is truly bad, but not “fun bad”. That’s not to say that I did not belly laugh at the strange or the abominable, but the enduring impression is of sterility. It is without purpose or pleasure, a true old school “zombie film” - completely non-self aware and unable to break the chains of its madman witch doctor master.

All in all, I loathed it.