Deus Irae

I saw this at Celluloid Screams in Sheffield last weekend , all the shorts were of a very high standard over the weekend but this one stood out for me , it is actually a full feature but they are trying to get it put out by showing the short first , since i saw it on Friday I've been desperate to see the full movie , its a possession film like no other . There are major hardline but funny priests who physically beat the demon out of this girl , its bloody , gory & lots of fun. The director did an great job , the actors were very brilliant & funny & i'll bet my money on if this gets a release around the world , people will be talking about this for days. 10 out of 10 in my opinion. Check this out as soon as you can at a horror festival near you , its awesome.

Reading the premise of " Trio of Catholic priests are called to exorcise teenage girl " I'm led to be reminded of a favourite discussion of Christopher Hitchens . " I'd have absolutely no problem of having a gay man like Stephen Fry babysit my kids . If however a member of the religious clergy of what ever denomination turned up at my door volunteering to look after my kids I would have no hesitation in calling the police " so a film where a teenager is tied to a bed and a trio of Catholic priests turn up has all the foundations of a tasteless black comedy where the punchlines are as obvious as they are funny

This isn't how things develop however . It is very much dark and gloomy and in some says resemble the works of Clive Barker .. I'm not really a fan of Satanic possession movies - I doubt if QUATERMASS AND THE PIT qualifies but what the production team are very good at here is mixing a dark hellish atmosphere with gore and yucky special effects , special effects that are obviously a labour of love that we used to see yesteryear via whizz kids in the industry like Rob Bottins and Rick Baker . If there's a flaw to this short it's let down slightly by a lack of explanation and exposition - there's female priests in the Catholic church ? and the mood and tone alters at the end in to something made by Robert Rodriguez which seems at odds with the feel of the majority of the production , but it's always nice to see something which the special effects aren't driven by CGI

A mother restrains her daughter in her bed, although both seem calm. A knock at the door sees three priests arrive – not expected but seeming to know where they are and whose house they are in. Placating the mother, they begin to survey the situation as odd demonic figures start to lurk at the edges of this reality – but they will not lurk there for long.

This Spanish short film is pretty much all about one thing – horror, and horror of the gore variety rather than the chiller variety. The setup is good as it mixes The Exorcist lore with the cool anti-heroes of modern films to produce a hybrid film which is both familiar but yet feels fresh enough to stand out a little. From here the film is very much about building up the horror with creatures under the bed gradually becoming a possession which changes everything and will see the motives and aims of the trio becoming clearer. All of this was fine and, even though I am not a fan of gore, I did enjoy how effective the special effects were (all make-up and models it appeared to me). There is an earthy, grungy horrid realism to all of it and in particular the image near the end of the film of two hands "birthing" into our world will stay with me for a while.

The downside of this grunge is that I personally found it a bit too grim to fully enjoy. So, to be specific, the scene where the girl is beaten with a lamp; I get the idea and I liked the use of the lamp to flash light to allow the impressive transformation to occur, but it does start out with a man brutally beating a restrained girl and I found that hard to watch and hard to shake off the tone that scene gave the film. This is the point though because it is a horror and it is not meant to be a PG-13 experience, but that very brutal edge put me off a little. For horror fans unaffected by such things I suspect this will play very well because it is grungy and engaging. It ends in a way suggesting that a feature film is the hope but, much to my pleasure, it stands as a contained short film too – not just a pitch.

I absolutely love Deus Irae and just can't get enough! You can conclude that it's a genre film made by genre fans - fans that respect the genre and more importantly, it's audience. Director Pedro Cristiani and his impressive cast and crew have brought to the screen an amazing eye for detail on this production. Everything it seems, including the kitchen sink, soaks up the scenery in a rich, warm candle-lit embrace. Kudos on the solid production design, gorgeous cinematography, brilliant editing (all those subtle cuts), visual effects, make-up effects and the music. This is indeed a labour of love. Creepy and brutal. I couldn't help but soak in the horror projected on screen, yet grin and smirk in the under-lining dark sense of humour Pedro unleashed on me - did I mention all those little details? (This requires repeat viewings) Even after seeing this thirteen-minute short about twenty times now, I'm still hungry for more. Deus Irae has played at a couple of film festivals to date (Toronto After Dark, CineFantasy - Brazil) with more to come (Fantastic Film, Stiges). Be sure to check it out...