Recent Reviews
Short Looks: Eyes of Samir / Delirium and the Dollman
By John Marrone
Feb 20, 2007, 19:53

Kevin Shulman's
Eyes of Samir

- trailer (flash)
- behind the scenes clip (flash)

A blonde female reporter (Kelsa Kinsly) sits in a dark, cement cell - its walls smudged with the grease of hopeless despair - the air sharp with the sour stink of sweat.  She rocks back and forth, her eyes winced shut, as she tries to forget that she is a prisoner.  A prisoner of a Middle Eastern sect that plans to cut off her head and broadcast the decapitation on the web. 

Eyes of Samir played at the NYCHFF in 2006 and about took the breath from the audience.  It boldly weilds a storyline that is "today" and painful and doesn't hold back, and director Kevin Shulman (IOU) is the perfect kind of "I dont give a flying shit", politically incorrect, punk SOB director to give it the big balls it deserves.

I mean, youre in New York City.  Youre at the heart of what started the war, with a film about an American journalist who gets her head cut off by religious or political extremists from the Middle East.  You show disrespect or exploitation regarding the likes of poor Nicholas Berg or anyone else who was beheaded - you'd best be prepared to have your ass bounced out of town.  But Eyes of Samir is so true to its mission - to use it as a tool to disgust and horrify on a fantasy level - that I think it was seen for the horror film that it was, instead of a low blow or cheap ticket to horrordise.

Mind you these scenes are shot realistically, in the sense that its as if someone is holding a video camera - the image shaking and wobbling at a constant.  The editorial cutting is superb, and gives it a street/reality grit that takes that "hollywood" polish and safety cushion away.  When they lineup in their robes, with the Arabic language and English subtitles, combined with the reporter sitting front and center as you may have seen in other real execution videos - your stomach tightens.

Your stomach tightens because you KNOW its going to happen.  That dull blade is going to cut its way through the thin skin of her soft neck, tear through the muscle of her neck and slice open that carotid artery.  You know she's going to die slow, and that blood is going to GUSH.  You know deep in your gut she wont die right away, that it would hurt, and she'll feel it.  Shulman hooks into your empathy and disembowls it.

Personally, I come from a religion of horror fandom who's church is the gore film.  The Thing, Evil Dead, anything Savini.  Temples.  Less is more is a bore to the gore fan, as I am, and always will be.  Eyes of Samir didn't pussy out when it came time to freak out on the beheading.  They grinded that knife back and forth on her flesh, and that neck opens and gurgles.  The blade wedges in between those spine pieces and cracks away through sinew and cartilage alike.  Her screams fade to the sounds of drowning in blood.

Shulman delivers yet further, taking things to the supernatural level.  Somebody captured the wrong reporter.  This "white devil" is actually a Djinn, and unfortunately for Samir and his crew, fleshwounds arouse her.  Theyre off'd one by one in gruesome fashion, as necks are bitten open to strobe lights and spinning camera angles.

Eyes of Samir is Shulman evolved.  IOU was deep and dark, but Tony Todd was its force.  In Samir, Shulman's material is so visceral and raw and hard to digest that Todd becomes exactly what he's meant to be in this film, a supporting element, as opposed to why a viewer might pick it up.  Todd's character is low key but stark, and wont disappoint fans per his reliable injection of subtle, dark, dramatic flare.  When your weakest link is as strong as this, it lifts a film to greater heights, and when your story is as 'holy shit' as Eyes of Samir - you have yourselves the 'can't miss' horror short of 2006.

CLICK HERE for our exclusive interview with Kevin Shulman & Tony Todd

Andrew Lobel's
Delirium and the Dollman

- trailer (windows media)

Little girls, dolls, and death.  Mom's new lover doesnt bring home the bacon - he lugs home severed pig heads - and the bitch loves it!  Director Andrew Lobel unleashes a dark carnival of pedophilic possession and delivers with style, as two young sisters (Bailey and Brittany Slattery) tumble through an airshaft and into the deadly lair of the Dollman. 

Making film festival rounds this past Halloween season, Delirium and the Dollman stood out as the Pan's Labyrinth of the 2006 horror short scene.  Dont get too hung up on specifics - metaphorically speaking.  In the way that Pan's Labyrinth, or The Chronicles of Narnia, or the Wizard of Oz all do - it crosses over from the land of reality and falls head over heels into the world of the bizarre - only Delirium and the Dollman throws in the subtle notions of the imprisoned and oppressed as well.

Lobel stands out with a highly defined screenplay that encompasses so much detail for a short story thats it tinkers with the ability to become larger than life.  Its not perfect, but the sets and cinematography flirt with moments of triumph that surpassed many of its peers at the theater.  It shimmers with a dreamlike quality that resembles the mind of a hallucinogenic sleep disorder.

Its quite simply the story of two young sisters who miss their father, and are very wary of the mean new man that's shackin up with mom.  Mom seems oppressed and distant, there's bruises, and an air of negativity in the house.  Fear swarms to a focus on the airshaft grating below the bed.  While falling asleep, Allison frightens her little sister and tells her, "Thats where they take bad little girls - thats where mom is going to take you..."

Soon the young one, Delilah, is crawling through the shaft and into a decomposiong asylum, where other dolls, both mean and kind, roam the halls.  They are people who have been transformed by the Dollman - a beast of a man who happens to resemble mom's abusive boyfriend - he holds them all captive and turns people into mechanical effigies.

In the end Delilah is captive in a cage with surgical markings, as the Dollman preps her for transformation.  Twists of fate save the day, and the Dollman is taken apart at the seams and turned to dust.  The young girl's family is released from doll hell, and even her father is reunited with them all.  Until she wakes up.

It was all but a dream, but these visions give birth to the notion of what she must now do in order to bring her father home.  She gathers the sledge mallet and brings it into her mothers bedroom.  Straddled over the pig "Dollman" as he lay in bed, she brings the heavy hunk of steel down, crashing through his head.  Fragmented skull and red scrambled eggs implied.

Its a little Tourist Trap meets the Nutcracker Suite.  Maybe some Pinnochio and The Cell thrown in.  Its bounced somewhere off those images for the most part - and overall was one of the more artistically twisted works on the horror short market at the end of 2006.  What Lobel pulled off is nothing short of amazing.  Writing wise, direction wise, and overall - Delirium and the Dollman is a unique piece of art that will stand the test of time.

Visit www.crookedproductions.net for some awesome horror background music and a closer look at this and other films by Andrew Lobel.