terrordetective

Dane Hallett's 'Rancour' (2019) concerns a junky named Dale whose mom pays a visit to his dilapidated pit of despair. Things get sloppy wet ... with tentacles. Full vid on @watch_alter on YouTube!

The short conflates Dale's house with his body, which is overrun by a gruesome alien force that takes takes takes in order to feed its ravenous hunger. We usually get the house-as-body trope with haunted house flicks where different rooms represent different parts of the mind. Less frequently do we see it used in service of body horror ('Girl on the Third Floor' springs to mind, but not much else). The concept works well with this material since addiction is a slimy gross business (both literally with all the needles and bodily fluids and breaking down of the body, and figuratively with all the damage it causes to self and loved ones).

Bottom Line: It's a good short that deserves more than its current rating.

Additional Fun Facts: Odd Studio who did the creature FX for 'Alien: Covenant' (which Hallett also worked on) helped with the creature FX for this short. It won awards at both FilmQuest and Hollywood Horrorfest. 95% of the effects are practical, with some light vfx touchups but nothing major. Travis Jeffrey who plays Dale is featured in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes so make sure to check that as well.

I was first introduced to Bob Odenkirk when "Mr. Show" launched on HBO back in the mid-90s. At the time, I thought the sketch comedy program was hit or miss - a first impression that made me ambivalent about Odenkirk until his debut as smarmy lawyer Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad. He's so damn good at playing the immature, impetuous criminal lawyer who wants to do good yet consistently does bad when faced with the alluring freedom attached to criminal behavior. My perception of Odenkirk and his acting abilities was seriously starting to shift. Still, I wondered how much of Saul was just Odenkirk in assorted garish, custom-made suits. I didn't know if he could bring the same brilliance to a different character. The last character I expected him to pull from his bag of tricks was the lead badass in a balls-to-the-wall, shoot-em-up action flick. So when I learned about "Nobody," I had major reservations. I imagine my reaction was similar to the way audiences first responded to seeing Bruce Willis in ads for 'Die Hard.' Kind of a 'yeah right, there's no way this aging comedian can pull this off' type of vibe.

Well, I've seen it. And Odenkirk has made me a believer. Even though it was surreal to see him playing a bone-crushing, Uzi-toting, grenade-tossing one-man army, I bought the performance and really enjoyed it. There's nothing particularly new about the storyline - a normcore suburban dad named Hutch Mansell (with a mysterious past à la John Wick) intentionally avoids getting violent during a home-invasion robbery. Afterwards, he gets grief for acting like a wussy from his family and pretty much everyone on the face on the planet. This unlocks his inner beast who goes on a rage-fueled bender of finely-choreographed mayhem that quickly involves the entire Russian mafia. It's an absurd, wry, pulpy b-movie extravaganza of ultra-violence that works thanks to Odenkirk's complete commitment. Definitely worth checking out.