Where the Devil Roams

Short review: 'Where the Devil Roams' made me really happy. To see a family making independent horror movies is terrific, but these are anything but your average home movies. This one is made with a lot of class. It's extremely dark in the early going, but it isn't afraid to throw in some moments of humour. And it's absolutely funny stuff, but the tone is so dark you can almost feel bad for laughing.

This one was described to me before going in as a slow-burn, but I'm not sure I'd agree with that assessment. There's a hell of a lot of violence and mayhem for a 'Slow-burn". Then the twisted ending is the cherry on top. I enjoyed this movie. 7/10.

I really love the other titles this family has given us. My expectations for a film are rather particular and my tastes are a little exacting. Not many pictures particularly move me. When I heard Wonder Wheel had a new movie, I was genuinely excited. Trying to keep my hopes in check, I still knew they're not going to shy away from making a gripping movie that's unafraid of a supernatural concept. The creepy carnival gig is right up my proverbial street.

But there's so little plot. This isn't a movie so much as an art project and a showcase for their daughter's ability to sing a capella.

I respect what they were going for, I respect what they were trying to accomplish but it's not for me, as much as I really wanted it to be.

And this one is out there. In my best estimate, it is as though they have pureed Alejandro Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre with Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde and distilled that into a feature-long Dresden Dolls music video.

Set during the Great Depression, it's a tale of ukeleles, dronecore, baby shoes, shell shock and side-show extremity regeneration. As with most of their previous offerings, the Adamses have done a lot of lore and world-crafting but leave a good deal of it unexplained. Weird things just happen in their films as if all is normal.

And I am totally fine with that.

They are making films they want to make - which is admirable in its own right.

Is it shot on a budget? Sure.

Is the acting oddly stilted? Absolutely.

But that is the charm. Like John Waters carefree guerilla cinema style. They're just making quirky horror in upstate NY with anachronistic scoring with no fear of taking things in odd directions. And that is what makes their movies interesting and different.

This one maintains that trend.

My patience with their projects will not be wearing thin anytime soon. I will continue to follow them until Zelda gets her big break which I see coming sooner rather than later. I think mom and dad are geniuses artistically and Zelda has undeniable talent. And Lulu forget about it I'm absolutely in love with Lulu and she's so sexy. With that said I really liked this movie and the whole carnival concept I just feel like it was a little longer than it needed to be. From the outside looking it the movie could've ended when the mom and dad were killed and could've probably had a scene or two after to show Zelda either transitioning into her own form of deranged killer or have her discover and transition into this divine good person she never knew she was but always wanted to be, accompanied with her finding her voice and heading towards normal. It could've ended either way but to me those would've been good endings that would've kept us wanting more. After the axe scene where the breathtakingly gorgeous lulu murders the mom and dad I felt a little disengaged as I was expecting that to be the end so I couldn't really get into what followed the way I was up until that buildup. Sort of like when you ride the roller coaster after that first drop it's hard to build that feeling of the first drop again because it's already passed and looking at the roller coaster from the outside you see that the first drop is the big one. Anyway enough of my metaphors. I think Zelda has something else in the making according to IMDB so I will be watching. I will also continue to follow the family until they knock it out the park which I have a feeling they will. Living around upstate New York myself I feel connected to them. I hope they continue to thrive.

Living in a floundering carnival, a group of workers trying to make due during the Great Depression find themselves under the spell of a gruesome object in the possession of a popular act in the carnival with them which forces them into a massive killing spree to find a better life for themselves.

This was a massively disappointing and nearly unwatchable genre effort. Among it's only positive points here stem from the technical qualities on display which are genuinely impressive at capturing a haunting, dark mood. The period setting, the miserable existence working in the type of environment that looks like a soul-crushing existence, and the general lifestyle of the various participants they stumble across in the rampage they commit secures this kind of atmosphere incredibly well. Even with the way this plays out that shows the descent into madness that they fall into, with each of the family members shown to have a special liability that helps to make the plight seem all the more dynamic and ingrained into this atmospheric setting. Coupled rather nicely with the genuinely gruesome and bloody kills featured here which come about not just through the carnival acts but also the incredibly graphic murders they engage in as the sense of the curse carries out, these are enough to give this one some positives. There are some massively disappointing detriments on display with this one. The main drawback here is the absolutely draining and just plain dull pace that this one plays at where it's not really that interesting in the slightest. The tempo is a major part of this where it's just so slow-going and plodding that there's very little chances to do something interesting with a clunk storyline that doesn't warrant this type of length so it's sluggish means of carrying out the family's destructive rampage or the inner workings of the carnival where their work with the sacred heart for their deal is all just so bland and dull it's not that interesting. That factor is the other big factor here, where even though this goes for the type of in-depth analysis on the family it does very little make them endearing or worth following in this type of feature as so little of it tends to just become quite uninteresting. Added with some obvious anachronistic tendencies that give its setting away, these bring the film down overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.