The Editor

This is one of the funniest films of the year, and i'll be goddamned if I don't tell you that.

Seems like a horror film, but it's not really. It's kind of a whodunit.

Murders keep happening on the film set. And they suspect the editor is in on it.

Women get slapped for no reason, but to "keep her in line". There is mad full frontal nudity for no real reason. Male and female.

Double talk and triple talk.

Flashback with no payoffs. It reminds me of The Naked Gun. If you are expecting a straight horror film, this is not for you.

It may not be for everyone, but I thought it was great.

I showed up 9:15 AM at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) to watch the editor. I went into the movie only seeing the poster. I am a huge fan of Astron 6 and I wanted to be surprised once I saw the movie.

Plot: Rey Cisco (Adam Brooks) is the longtime film editor, who is editing a schlock crime thriller film circa 1980. But starting with the leading actor, someone starts killing the cast and crew. Though, in typical giallo fashion, everyone acts suspiciously, macho police detective Peter Porfiry (Matthew Kennedy) trains his eye on meek Rey, against whom the case does look pretty bad.

Now if you haven't heard/seen the Giallo Italian crime films then you will have a problem understanding the style in which the film was shot. Bad intentional dubbing, amazing use of color lighting, gore effects. Everything about this film was top notch. It is a low budget dark comedy, only shot with $150,000. Astron 6's earlier film "Father's Day" (2011) was only shot for less than $10,000. They used the money they had well, and made an amazing movie.

The only con I had with the movie was it slowed down on a couple of parts, that's it. Everything else was great. It was a great homage/parody to trashy Giallo films. Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, and Coonor Sweeney showed up after the movie for a Q&A I got a picture with them and amazing actress Sheila Campbell. I suggest you check this film out once it has an official release.

If you never have seen those old school Italian horrors called Giallo then you will never understand this flick. The way the sound was created (overdubbed?), the score, the editing, the lighting it all referred to the seventies galore of the Italian genre.

The story itself is what it should make funny, sometimes it was sometimes it didn't work at all. But overall this flick delivers on gore. The effects are top-notch. But again, it's the story that tears it a bit down. You can refer to those classics but don't exaggerate. After half an hour you have seen it all on that part. So if you aren't into Giallo's then this isn't going to be your thing, for the geeks they will search to all those references made towards the classics, I did, and get lost of the story somehow and that isn't good news. But it contains what makes a good Giallo, the glove, the POV from the knife, the eye stabbing and of course a lot of gratuitous nudity.

But the story guys....

Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 2,5/5 Effects 4/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0,5/5

It is pretty clear that much fun was had in making this but perhaps more effort was put into emulating previous affects and scenarios and less on creating a coherent story within which to set them. There are marvellous sequences like the homage to Black Belly of the Tarantula and Hitch-Hike but maybe things go a little far with the inclusion of Videodrome and Poltergeist. Fantastic though much of the gore and re-enactments and jokes are, we simply don't care about the main protagonists here and the flat, almost bored performing (intentional?) at times is off putting. Again references to gays and disabled - referring to the main guy with fingers missing once as a cripple was startling and maybe vaguely amusing but again and again? Similarly the face slapping gets a bit much but I suppose somewhat salutary especially where used prior to sex. Mixed bag but maybe more fun after a few drinks especially if you only have a very rudimentary awareness of gialli.

Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks) was once a top film editor. Then a nasty accident resulted in the loss of some fingers, and he ends up cutting trashy horror pictures. Murders begin to plague the production of his current film, and the inspector on the case (Matthew Kennedy) is sure he's responsible.

There's a fair amount of suspects in this very knowing, dead-on parody of the Italian murder mysteries known as Gialli. The Canadian filmmaking collective Astron-6 (including Brooks, Kennedy, and co-star Conor Sweeney, who plays untalented actor Cal Konitz) obviously took a fair amount of care with this one, and had a bigger budget than usual. They also shot it in 2.35:1 to keep it stylishly connected to Gialli of the past. The story has its share of twists (among them, the ending), and it keeps viewers amused and interested. The gore is delightfully way over the top, and nicely realized. The film is not always terribly funny, but when it hits, it hits HARD. Among the brightest gags are references to both Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci; Fulci's body of work in particular gets a frequent shout-out. The music is great - among the composers credited is Claudio Simonetti, so it's no surprise that the score is Goblin-esque at times.

The acting is much like what one would see in a vintage Giallo. Brooks actually does a passable Italian accent, and is a likeable hero. Kennedy is fun as the bumbling inspector. Paz de la Huerta ("Nurse 3-D") vamps it up something fierce as Rey's wife, a faded former film star. Laurence R. Harvey ("Human Centipede" 2 and 3) is a flustered priest, Tristan Risk ("American Mary") the sexy Veronica, but German legend Udo Kier is rather wasted as the briefly seen head of an asylum. Still, it's always nice to see him in anything.

Overall, a good, respectable effort, worth a look for any fan of the Gialli genre.

Seven out of 10.