There I was on vacation when my host suggested we take in this B-Movie festival in Breda. I was resistant, as I hadn't gone on the trip to sit in a movie theater, but I've got to admit that I don't regret a second of this one (especially with Stephen Malkmus' contribution). It probably helped that I had no idea what to expect.SEA OF DUST starts out like a typical costume drama. We've got a young medical student going to help a doctor whose town is being destroyed by a crazy plague (which somehow involves exploding heads). On the way, he stops to visit his fiancé and gets thrown off the property by her father. Traveling on, he finds a girl lying on the road, another plague victim, and takes her along to the doctor's. Yawn, I thought. It all seemed pretty predicable.And then everything went crazy and it suddenly turned into a completely different film. Tom Savini shows up looking like Dracula, characters begin traveling to "the other side" of reality, and the dialog gets increasingly humorous.And just when I thought it had settled into a groove, the picture changes again, becoming really dark and bizarre. I won't spoil it for first time viewers, but there's an amazing sequence about hollow people, lots of chat about the abuse of religion by society, and some over-the-top gore effects. And did I mention Stephen Malkmus? This isn't a perfect movie (in case you haven't figured that out from its appearance at a B-Movie festival), but it's well worth the time for adventurous viewers. Great visuals, cool soundtrack, lots of interesting ideas. The acting is a little zany at times, but I think that's the point.Funny I had to go to Breda to see find an American picture that looked like a British horror movie. You figure that one out...
movie reviews