Director: James Rewucki.
Starring. Tyhr Trubiak, Darren Johnston, Dr. Rage, Paul McWhinney .Canada 1h 28m.
I love cheesy low budget horror movies, not only do they often explore uncharted territory but they don’t have too much hype to live up to and they managed to stay true to what fans want. Tempus Tormentus is a strange chase horror about a drifter who ends up in the wrong town, Directed by James Rewucki. and starring Tyhr Trubiak, who also starred in a previous production Aegri Somnia (2008) also by Rewucki this compact and very likeable, but at times it can be a bit repetitive but all is forgiven for the WTF ending.
Don’t build your hopes up too much, this isn’t the “best B movie” ever, remember this is personal opinion and I have unusual tastes. The motives of the drifter are never explained, but he’s bumming rides until, late one night he end up at an unnamed town, checking into a cheap motel inspects his room which is equipped with a typewriter, and heads out to an all-night diner where he meets a trio of unusual characters who take special interest in him. After freaking him out, the bulky stranger returns to his room and settles down for the night but later on he awakes to find himself strapped to the bed and being injected with unknown fluids. Then the chase is on. The rest of the film sees Mr Mouse (Trubiak) being chased like wild prey, at times he’s literally the bunny in the headlights while the trio are chasing him through the town in their car.
While the chase is thrilling, it’s the interactions that start to let the film down, Mr Mouse repeats the same line to each person “there are people chasing me and I’ve been drugged, can you call for help”, it doesn’t work the first 3 times so why keep it going? But we’re all painfully aware that horror movies are the hub of bad choices but this film gets to the ridiculous point of repetition.
It’s easy to see that the guys from the diner and the goons in leather masks, which are well crafted as the devil, a clown and a gimp (credited as Slashmouth), but their reasons for the chase aren’t totally clear, actually a lot of this film isn’t entirely clear.. but this mystery only makes things more thrilling, despite the shoddy acting at times there’s some mastery in the long shots and building up of atmosphere, the mind behind this project is creative and it adds some depth to the film, albeit it a surreal depth. There are scenes where mannequins drip when touched up, and a dream sequence that will make anyone’s arachnophobia play up. But it does become a struggle to get to the end, scenes are too long and there’s little pay off in the level of violence/gore that you’d expect from a movie like this.
I really did enjoy the ending as it unravels the plot but not in a totally obvious way, the reasons aren’t handed to the viewer on a plate but there’s a dark esoteric meaning behind all of this, which evokes a lot of interest from me, It’s alright but nothing to write home about.
Rating 4/10
R – Aegri Somnia (2008)
L – Cat and Mouse Horrors,
A – A-Z of B Movies
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