The Faceless Man

I don't know where to begin. As a movie with a well developed narrative and strong character motives it fails miserably. It's like a long violent episode of Fat Pizza, or Psychovillie if you're British. I can't think of an American equivalent. But it's enduring and I got some laughs out of it. Sadly it's not really about the faceless man, he's just tacked on at random intervals, which is a shame because the design is very well done. It's about young city dwellers clashing with country folk while a drug dealer is on the hunt.

At one point they get served filtered coffee by a waitress and that simply doesn't happen in Australia. Apart from that, it's a good cheesy effort in... making whatever this is.

Trying to get over her cancer diagnosis, a woman agrees to join her friends for a weekend getaway of drugs and partying, but when the town of locals starts to become hostile towards them it becomes the least of her worries as a bizarre figure from her nightmares also starts hunting them.

This was an enjoyable if somewhat flawed effort. When this one works is mainly due to the genuinely creepy and chilling imagery of the titular creature that is shown stalking her. The creatures' presence is featured when she's alone with blinking lights, a distorted hellish soundscape and the barest hints of something otherworldly stalking around her with the excessively long fingers and claws grabbing at her while she's unaware of it being there. These are then preceded by explosively violent blood-vomiting that creates a wholly creepy experience. As well, the film's second-half scores well with the sense of action featured here. As the various forces here begin to converge on the town, with the locals coming to get far more physical about their disdain for the friends' presence there and the criminal gang leaving a trail of destruction shooting anyone they come across this picks up in intensity. Once they get to terrorizing the friends and working in the attempts to get their product while featuring enough glimpses of the figure chasing her, this one gets intriguing and enjoyable when it matters making for a lot to like with the extra bloodshed and action featured here. There are some problems to be had here. The main issue here is the film's overlong running time that tends to come about due to additional sequences or way too many subplots than necessary. The opening at the doctors' office is far longer than needed to sell what's going on between her and her father which could've been trimmed slightly to get to the point faster, much like the cafe they visit which are both required scenes but take too long. As well, the subplot about the drug-runner following after them could've been eliminated as this one manages to intrude on the other plotlines involving the psycho town or the supernatural entity chasing them. The other issue with this one is the complete tone shift throughout that indicates it doesn't know what it wants to do. The inclusion of the various subplots here strike up several different tones with the drug-runner feeling like a crime drama, the psycho town is a black comedy and the creature is a true genre effort and it's never smoothly integrated at all, especially with the creature being the shortest one here and coming off like an afterthought as there are very few scenes with it. These are what hold this one back.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, drug use and a Rape scene.

Low visual effect and class d production. Story is a mess with pointless killing and no supporting. Pay me money I won't watch.

I watched this movie on drugs and I actually think it would be even less coherent if I were sober.

This is director James Di Martino's first feature film and he's got a lot to learn. Most of the actors' performances were sub-par and the pacing was its own horror. And what's with the lazy writing, James? WAY too much use of whatchamacallit and even thigamajig by the supposedly threatening bad guys. And finally, the obtuse anti-drug messaging by those that clearly look like drug dealers, just too much that doesn't make good story sense.