Reign of Chaos – review

Director: Rebecca Matthews

Release date: 2022

Contains spoilers

Give director Rebecca Matthews her due, she and her partners in crime are pumping out the low budget films (Matthews has, at time of writing, 51 producer credits since 2016 and 15 director credits since 2019). I have looked at a couple of them before… Hellkat was flawed but was also interesting, and Bats was pretty poor. I’ve also watched a couple of flicks that weren’t suitable subject-wise for this blog. I get that they are low budget affairs (and the filmmakers have done much more than I could ever do) but in Reign of Chaos we have a new low to come out of Proportion Productions.

Mark Sears as Chaos

We start with a narration talking about Chaos (Mark Sears) wanting to take over the world and releasing a plague upon mankind… Ok this wraps everything into Greek myth and suggests that he was opposed by the Gods (the descendants of Nike are the ones who can stop him). Its just… what’s he been doing for a few thousand years? That’s never answered.

a joiner

So the Guardian, Rhodri (Peter Cosgrove), leads three sisters into battle against Chaos and they get their arses kicked. Only one sister, Alina (Rita Di Tuccio), survives. So it’s off to find more girls then… Which he does in the form of Lindsay (Georgia Wood) and Nicole (Rebecca Finch). Now, bear in mind the ‘plague’ is essentially a zombie thing with those bitten becoming Joiners (now it might have been more interesting if the bite made them experts in woodwork but I assume it is because they’ve joined Chaos).

Peter Cosgrove as Rhodri

So Rhodri finds Lindsay who’s just fighting a guy who offered to trade food for sex in an underpass. The fact that she then goes off with Rhodri essentially without question and leaves the food is hinkey to say the least. As for Nicole, we first see her scavenging food and losing it to a desperate woman – mostly because she gets a psychic flash, when they touch, showing how the woman will die. Following that she goes home to suburbia, where electricity is apparently still on and dad (Mike Kelson) is ill (she gets a flash of his death) and mum (Kate Milner Evans) is worried about starving (but not about the fact that the house hasn’t been barricaded).

Rhodri and Nicole

She is found by Rhodri during her next trip looking for food, who helps her out with a Joiner. We don’t see the killing stab hit home – but it looks to be around the heart. Later he mentions always taking a head or heart shot with Joiners. She is a little more resistant than Lindsay was to the idea of going off with him, but not that resistant and soon follows him to a hotel – for the purpose of making a brew it would seem. Then she takes him home to meet mum – having discovered she is adopted and mum always knew she was special… Off then to meet the other two Nike descendants and enter the world’s worst training montage. So why is this a vampire film?

the heroes

Well, the Joiners are a bit zompire, I guess, due to the fact that heart shots kill – though they are mostly standard, mindless zombies. Rather, it is because of chaos. He bathes in the blood of the Nike descendants and from doing so is gaining power (and will soon ascend to be a God). This makes him a vampiric entity of some sort. He also suggests that his minions will drink the blood and, whilst the Joiners are minions, I think he meant his sentient sons.

catsuits of the apocalypse

So the post-apocalyptic world doesn’t seem too post-apocalyptic (we do get a scene of buildings ablaze in London but I suspect they are burning through embarrassment at the bad fire cgi). Apparently, as nothing looks too grimy, the heroes still have access to washing machines, the Joiners must repel dirt off their clothes and Rhodri has a stock of latex catsuits that he can fit to random women he meets. The fight choreography is weak, the acting not great – melodrama is the order of the day, with Rhodri channelling his best pirate into his accent, and there is a supporting role that is one of the most wooden performances I’ve seen for some time. Still, there was an effort made, at least. 1.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK