"You know, it’s funny. I think I’ve done directing in different ways, music videos over the years. I was involved in producing a TV show for a while, but I just … I don’t know, I guess sometimes you just need to give yourself permission, you know? Growing up in a small town in Massachusetts, I think I was always taught that success and doing these kinds of things were for other people — these special, magical people that were from Hollywood or something. So it took me a lot of years to actually go, “you know what? I think I could do this too.” My experience over the years in the band and everything has been invaluable. Finally, we just decided to pull the trigger and make a movie."
-Spider One
Powerman 5000’s Spider One (Rob Zombies Brother) makes his directorial debut on Allegoria, in which a group of artists’ lives becomes unwittingly entangled as their obsessions and insecurities manifest monsters, demons and death.
This movie actually began life as a short film, This is Not Acting, this is Hell, in which Fox plays an actor terrorized by a bully director, only to reveal a horrific twist. The film takes that story and grows it into a film of five interlocking horror stories about young artists: Fox struggles with demonic entities and a terrible acting coach, a painter apparently summons evil through his own self-doubt, a musician thinks he's cracked the code on evil, a blind date goes violently wrong when a girl shows off her bizarre, Etsy-fied Polaroid art, and a screenwriter takes the realism of his horror too much for granted.
Most of my favorite movies are movies made by talented artist who weave multiple art forms into there films. Cronenberg's gynecological instruments for mutant women, Lynch's apartment foyer from ERASERHEAD, Damn near every production detail in THE LOVE WITCH, and so many more. At the end of the day this movie is a celebration of art, music and horror even if there are a few rough edges to be sanded off.
despite a few minor issues with some of the acting, this movie works really well for me. Spider directed the fuck out of this movie, and even in the slower scenes this movie is darkly beautiful. Its packed with interesting settings, amazing practical effects and creatures, and of course a big old teaspoon of nasty violence. Its as if SCARE PACKAGE decided not to be a comedy and instead take itself more seriously with a much stronger emotional anchor.
The first thing I shot was the first story in the film, which is the acting story, and quite honestly with no real plan after that. So I shot that and I was really happy with it. I couldn’t shake the idea, this concept of art and horror. And so I started to realize, well, there’s more to this there’s other art forms we could explore. There are other ways we can tackle this concept. That’s when the idea for turning it into a feature began. Then I started to put the puzzle pieces together, like, “Okay, well if we had a painter, what would the painter’s relationship be to the actress? Okay, if we had a writer, what would his relationship be?” And it was a really fun challenge to not only create sort of an anthology, but a nontraditional anthology where the characters and scenarios actually connect, and as a viewer of the film, it’s great. I’ve seen the film twice now with an audience. And it’s great to hear those “a-ha” moments from the crowd when like, “oh, I get it now.” So yeah, it was a really fun process to put together.
8/10
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