The Editor

Dear lord this movie had me howling. It's one of the finest examples of deadpan spoofery since 1980's "Airplane!" or if you're really up on your cinematic satires, it's a lot like 1978's "Movie Movie" with George C. Scott.

What makes this film thoroughly enjoyable is that it's not just pure silly absurdism; there's actually some brilliant substance there. The visual gags are very subtle, the script is so witty that you might miss half of them, and of course the big selling point is that this 2014 flick is a meticulous, hilarious time machine back to 1970s cheese. It's authentic right down to the mens' mutton chop sideburns, leg warmers for the ladies, the alpha male's penchant for randomly slapping women, and of course gratuitous nudity with a capital g-string (the nudity starts out mostly in context, but by the end of the flick, I'm not exaggerating, there are people randomly taking off their clothes and walking around naked in the background). If you grew up watching all those bad 70s crime dramas & horrible horror flicks, then you'll be guaranteed a good in-joke and belly laugh every 5 minutes for this entire 95 min ride.

The plot, as you might have guessed, is about a fingerless, downtrodden film editor "Rey" who becomes the focus of a cavalcade of campy murders on the set of a film he's editing. Enter the unhinged detective "Porfiry" who is something like Starsky, Hutch, Dirty Harry and Peewee Herman rolled into one. Choice lines include

"Where were you the night of the murder?"

"I went home. And shaved my p***"

(Porfiry lifts up woman's skirt, hold shot for 5 seconds)

"Your story checks out."

If this sort of irreverent, tongue-in-cheek humor tickles your funny bone, then I guarantee you'll be a dancing skeleton by the time the film ends. I don't even know what that means. But suffice it to say that "The Editor" is a lot of fun.

Now a word about the "brilliant substance" I mentioned earlier. The film actually explores some very thought-provoking, poetic thoughts. As the film progresses, Rey the editor begins to lose the distinction between reality and the trashy horror flick he's editing. Lots of great surreal visuals accentuate this mindbending transformation, and for those of us trying to keep score, "The Editor" becomes a movie within a movie within a delirium. There are a few subtle cues as to which plane of existence we're in (such as fake movie blood being bright red while real world blood is a darker more realistic hue), but the crisscrossing flashbacks, delusions, hallucinations and bizarre murders can be very disorienting, in an awesome way. None of it is random. I'm convinced that if you watch this film a 2nd or 3rd time, as I'm about to do, you'll see that beneath the wackiness is a really solid story about that place where reality and delusion intersect. "It's like Plato's Cave" says our hero. "I haven't seen that movie," responds the sidekick. Great stuff!

I showed up 9:15 AM at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) to watch the editor. I went into the movie only seeing the poster. I am a huge fan of Astron 6 and I wanted to be surprised once I saw the movie.

Plot: Rey Cisco (Adam Brooks) is the longtime film editor, who is editing a schlock crime thriller film circa 1980. But starting with the leading actor, someone starts killing the cast and crew. Though, in typical giallo fashion, everyone acts suspiciously, macho police detective Peter Porfiry (Matthew Kennedy) trains his eye on meek Rey, against whom the case does look pretty bad.

Now if you haven't heard/seen the Giallo Italian crime films then you will have a problem understanding the style in which the film was shot. Bad intentional dubbing, amazing use of color lighting, gore effects. Everything about this film was top notch. It is a low budget dark comedy, only shot with $150,000. Astron 6's earlier film "Father's Day" (2011) was only shot for less than $10,000. They used the money they had well, and made an amazing movie.

The only con I had with the movie was it slowed down on a couple of parts, that's it. Everything else was great. It was a great homage/parody to trashy Giallo films. Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, and Coonor Sweeney showed up after the movie for a Q&A I got a picture with them and amazing actress Sheila Campbell. I suggest you check this film out once it has an official release.

As the other reviews have stated this was a tongue and cheek spoof on some older horror genre films. It was well done, and once the movie started the whole theater (Ryerson during TIFF) was in stitches. The acting was on point, the lighting was perfect and the script was right in live with what you would expect. And the effects. What can I say about the effects. they did the job and then some.

I really felt like I was watching a movie from the good old days of horror just like I used to watch on Sci Fi theater, and Creature Features on Saturday afternoons.

I am pretty sure that if you watch this while having a few drinks and with a couple of friends you guys will have a hoot.

Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks) was once a top film editor. Then a nasty accident resulted in the loss of some fingers, and he ends up cutting trashy horror pictures. Murders begin to plague the production of his current film, and the inspector on the case (Matthew Kennedy) is sure he's responsible.

There's a fair amount of suspects in this very knowing, dead-on parody of the Italian murder mysteries known as Gialli. The Canadian filmmaking collective Astron-6 (including Brooks, Kennedy, and co-star Conor Sweeney, who plays untalented actor Cal Konitz) obviously took a fair amount of care with this one, and had a bigger budget than usual. They also shot it in 2.35:1 to keep it stylishly connected to Gialli of the past. The story has its share of twists (among them, the ending), and it keeps viewers amused and interested. The gore is delightfully way over the top, and nicely realized. The film is not always terribly funny, but when it hits, it hits HARD. Among the brightest gags are references to both Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci; Fulci's body of work in particular gets a frequent shout-out. The music is great - among the composers credited is Claudio Simonetti, so it's no surprise that the score is Goblin-esque at times.

The acting is much like what one would see in a vintage Giallo. Brooks actually does a passable Italian accent, and is a likeable hero. Kennedy is fun as the bumbling inspector. Paz de la Huerta ("Nurse 3-D") vamps it up something fierce as Rey's wife, a faded former film star. Laurence R. Harvey ("Human Centipede" 2 and 3) is a flustered priest, Tristan Risk ("American Mary") the sexy Veronica, but German legend Udo Kier is rather wasted as the briefly seen head of an asylum. Still, it's always nice to see him in anything.

Overall, a good, respectable effort, worth a look for any fan of the Gialli genre.

Seven out of 10.

It is pretty clear that much fun was had in making this but perhaps more effort was put into emulating previous affects and scenarios and less on creating a coherent story within which to set them. There are marvellous sequences like the homage to Black Belly of the Tarantula and Hitch-Hike but maybe things go a little far with the inclusion of Videodrome and Poltergeist. Fantastic though much of the gore and re-enactments and jokes are, we simply don't care about the main protagonists here and the flat, almost bored performing (intentional?) at times is off putting. Again references to gays and disabled - referring to the main guy with fingers missing once as a cripple was startling and maybe vaguely amusing but again and again? Similarly the face slapping gets a bit much but I suppose somewhat salutary especially where used prior to sex. Mixed bag but maybe more fun after a few drinks especially if you only have a very rudimentary awareness of gialli.