Invalid – review

Director: Dustin Mills

Release date: 2015

Contains spoilers

I should have disliked this, a low to no budget flick that suggested it was “a new psychosexual thriller fashioned after Italian horror films”. It was certainly setting itself a lofty goal and one it might well have regretted.

Well it is a psychosexual film and I can see where there was an attempt to emulate the great Italian horror films, in framing and lighting. In this it was clearly a fan emulating rather than the real thing, though that isn’t always a bad thing. However, despite reservations and some of the effects, I found myself actually rather enjoying this.

care instructions

It starts with Agnes (Joni Durian) on a call and suggesting that she can’t do *it*. It is looking after her vegetative brother, Andrew (Brandon Salkil). The person she speaks to insists she can, she has to, after all he is family. We then see her getting instruction in his care from Doctor Daryll (Dave Parker), she is taking over from their mother who has died; and there she is, all set for his care. However, the weirdness starts pretty much straight away.

Joni Durian as Agnes

She falls asleep and hears him shouting her – which wakes her up. Dismissing it she takes a shower and we see his eyes widen as he whispers (telepathically) “So pretty”. Eventually there is a banging at the bathroom door and a yelled command to let him in and, eventually, she screams. Wrapping a towel round herself, she goes to his room and he seems to be as he was left but, as she leaves, he grabs the towel.

animated moment

As she pulls herself out of the room the door slams and she collapses. The film moves into an animated segment where Andrew and Agnes converse. He is dying, he tells her. He has been reaching out to her with his mind for some time, he didn’t seem to be able to reach their mother. He tells her that he needs blood, specifically the blood of women and, even more specifically, dead blood. She agrees to get it for him.

syringe of blood

Now the dead blood was odd, often the vampire genre makes dead blood a no-no. However, when we see her give him blood the first time it is a hypodermic full and she could have stolen that without killing, or even provided it herself. The dead blood specification means she has to kill. The film does a great job of keeping the narrative off kilter, be it remembering abuse that was suppressed or the identity of the person on the phone, the filmmakers keep the viewers perception slightly skewed and thus build in a nice element of is he really talking to her or is she just psychotic and hallucinating.

stabbing sfx

Where the film fails, most fundamentally, was in the sfx. There isn’t much – trick knives and blood effects are the primary ones. The blood, mostly, is too day-glo and, whilst that might have worked in 70s horror (including the Italian greats) it doesn’t work here. Wounds are essentially a line of the fake blood, where the knife has supposedly penetrated, and look just like that – a few extra dollars spent on some more realistic wounds effects would have added so much to the film.

siblings

Yet, as I said at the head, I enjoyed it. The performances of the leads weren’t stellar but were just what the film needed. Joni Durian’s delivery, especially, added into that off-kilter feeling I mentioned. This film set itself up to emulate the greats – it is certainly a love letter to them and emerges as an unexpectedly entertaining flick. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK