I had the pleasure to see Cannibillies at the world premiere at Nightmares Film Festival '16 in Columbus, Ohio, where it screened as the closing night film in front of a completely sold out crowd. Absolutely deservedly so. Reviewing this is sort of hard, since I don't know where to start. There is so much greatness about this, it's hard to describe it all without writing a novel. Let me try though.
From a technical standpoint, the film does everything right. The camera is slightly shaky at times, it seems there was a lot of hand held camera operation going on, which for me, fits this film perfectly. Actually, "shaky" is not the right word at all. The camera just has movement in it, which in my opinion adds a lot of atmosphere to the film, as it makes you feel like something wicked is going on, it's like watching it through a slightly nervous eye. Paired with the soundtrack, this makes for one hell of an atmosphere.
Which leads us that point: The soundtrack. Holy f***. This might be one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in any indie film, ever. There are a lot of distorted synth sounds, dark hums, and generally an ambiance of complete creepiness, which creates one hell of a mood. Absolutely masterful and I hope I can hear the soundtrack on its own at some point. The overall sound of the film is superb in general.
Acting-wise, this film has some great performances that all deliver and feel completely believable. The actors all give the characters very memorable appearances, and you actually start sympathizing with the them, even though they are absolute nutjobs. I especially loved Shamus Donnelly in the role of Cyrus, Jami Cullen as the Eve and Mike Neider as Joe. Their performances couldn't be any more different from one another, and that is exactly why I love them so much. Cyrus is the apathetic sociopath, Joe is an over-expressive wacko who seems to sometimes still have trouble integrating himself into the whole family, while Eve is just a absolutely sympathetic at all times, even though she's completely insane. One role that only appeared for very shortly that was very memorable to me was Joseph Knapik's role of Cleavon Chancroid. His facial expressions and overall look could actually be from a Hollywood film. I could perfectly imagine him as a twisted, sociopathic villain.
The best part of the film, for me, is the writing though. The film's story and dialogue is amazingly well put together, and is the biggest strength of the film. It is absolutely hilarious to a point where your jaw starts hurting from laughter. That is, if you can handle the absolutely demented and depraved jokes of course. Some of the jokes in this film go further than most films ever dare, sometimes so much, that all you're gonna seriously yell "holy s***, they didn't seriously just do that?!". And this is what I love about the film. It doesn't give a damn about what you think, it pulls off its own thing, completely mowing down themes that no one dares to joke about. The way these jokes are executed is absolutely amazing, and often it feels so spontaneous that one could believe a lot of it was improvised, which apparently only small bits were.
Seriously, whenever you get the chance to watch this hilariously disturbing piece of insanity, DO IT! Especially if you're a fan of offensive humor, or gory, boundary pushing horror films in general.
One more thing. Cannibillies. Say it out loud, listen to it, and tell me it's not one of the most original titles in a long time. I dare you!
