Well, well, well...
...We have quite the curiosity here ladies & gents! A fairly ambitious & ballsy no-budget Grindhouse-style exploitation horror film under the title of Perversion. How well does it live up to this title?
Well, if you find yourself, such as I did, making faces of absolute disbelief, disgust & and nervous amusement, then I say it did its' job sufficiently.
Now, what makes this film work? Well, it is first and foremost a character study told through an exploitive manner. It starts off with a fairly modern feel but as the film continues forward, the more it devolves into its inspired roots. You get sucked into Ryan's world & plight the further the runtime sinks in, which in turn is credited to writer/director/actor Chris Moore. Despite a couple over-the-top moments on his part, he gives a very endearing performance and without him acting as the intregal glue then the film would have fallen apart.
The film is further aided by the fact it generally hints around the violent/perverse moments (with the occasionally well-place graphic moment) and concentrates on the emotional/mental ringer into hell such a situation would inflict upon the character.
Complimented by an old-school experimental horror movie music score (complete with synthesizer & tradition instrumentals), the film reaches the destination it wishes to travel unscathed for the most part.
But you might ask what caused the scratches & dents in the paint job? Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp...
...While due to no-budget limitations, the film was shot with a low-grade digital camcorder that appears to have a horrible interlacing built into it. This sometimes obscures the picture so bad that it is hard to make anything out and is generally distracting. The picture is also a bit too dark at certain moments. So dark in fact that it makes sure you are straining your eyes to the breaking point. The interlacing really cannot be fixed but I feel the film could have used some brightness/contrast touch-ups during the editing process. Also, the sound mix is very poor due to most of it having been recorded with the camcorder's built-in microphone which means it picks up the camcorder's motor as well as the camcorder being moved/gripped drastically. Sometimes the music/dialogue shifts into a major drop in quality too. Now, nothing can be done about the camcorder's audible motor but I would still have liked to seen a more competent sound mix that removed other distracting noises and fixed the audio levels.
The film also suffers from a storyline/pacing viewpoint in the "Day 2" segment of the story. Most of what happens in this "day" does not match or blend with the other "days" very well. It feels as if most of it should have been turned into flashback footage to help further aid explanation in the story's setup. There are even a couple scenes in which their placement in the story is rather questionable. With some more creative/tighter editing, this problem could have been fixed before hitting a mass viewing market. As it stands, this is what we were given and unfortunately taints what is overall a solid effort.
Despite these flaws though, this is a film I highly recommend to the following:
*Those looking for a grindhouse-style exploitation horror fix *The budding amateur horror filmmaker *Supporters of no-budget independent cinema *Underground enthusiasts
If you're of this breed, you will find something to walk away from Perversion and be glad you watched it. Recommended.
