The Demonology of Desire

The latest directorial effort from Rod Gudino is an impressive combination of psychological horror and any gore-hounds wet dream. Gudino guides the viewer down a dark path of vicious murder, kidnapping and torture at the hands of a teenage girl whose demented desire for a boyfriend has brought her to a very wicked end.

The visuals of the movie are quite stunning at times and compliment a wonderful cast whom Gudino has managed to elicit remarkably believable performances from.

The main character of Romona is played magnificently well by Bianca Ruso who is charmingly sexy and decidedly evil. Her lack of empathy for her victims is truly a wonderful thing to see.

Gudino is definitely a director to watch - I can't wait to see what he will do with a feature film!

"The Demonology of Desire" is a short film -- roughly a half hour, though I think less -- chronicling the exploits of a young woman (Bianca Rusu), apparently from a Catholic school, on a couple particularly memorable days. It is both artistically amazing and also shocking, even for a hardened horror reviewer like myself. I've seen it all, but I was still moved by this film.

From the opening, I wasn't sure what to expect -- the woman asks in her prayers for a man to love her to the point of raping her with his desire. I had an idea where it would go from there, but I was wrong in every way. What she gets is a 13-year old boy (Tudor Plopeanu )who is devoted to her, for reasons that are never really explained. Along with her friend (Jewelia Fisico), she leads the boy through a miniature hell.

I don't want to get into the plot, since I think this is most effective when you don't know what's going to happen at all. With some stunning special effects, we get music, dancing, murder and a taste of what hellish creatures walk the earth. We see evil -- if evil exists -- in its full glory, and we see its influence on the weak-minded. The outcome is pretty messy.

This film comes from a director (Rodrigo Gudiño) who founded Rue Morgue magazine. I'm impressed. I love Rue Morgue (more than Fangoria, not as much as HorrorHound) and to be honest, didn't know they had this kind of talent on board. I figured reviewers were usually those who didn't have the ability to do the work themselves. This is definitely one big exception, going to great lengths to shock. Some of the best "Masters of Horror" episodes -- John Carpenter's "Cigarette Burns" and Dario Argento's "Jenifer" -- should welcome this short into their family... this is the dawning of a new master.