A low budget Canadian Retro-Slasher with just the right
mix between Gore and black humour and that looks
absolutely great. Everybody seems to have had fun and these Astron 6
guys just gets it right. Highly enjoyable.
It felt like some sort of sister piece to the 2013 film Discopath, also
a Canadian retro-slasher.
This film has great clothes and lots and lots of well made Gore made
the good old "analogue" way with make up
and prosthetics effects. A Fan project from genre lovers, thanks Astron
people, in glorious colors and where
even the background film posters were made with lots of effort.
As i get it, most people seems to hate the actress Paz De La Huerta
acting qualities, but .... i can't help staring
at her, she's so .... so Strange with a unique presence, and Udo Kier
is Udo Kier, a cult film Legend
The Udo
The Editor more exactly is a Giallo-Slasher pastiche
and a Comedy i guess, and the story takes place, i think,
sometimes during the end of the 1970's or beginning of the 1980's and
it's filmed in Ontario area, Canada.
It's about the once famous film editor Ray Ciso (played very well by
the films co-director Adam Brooks) a
true artisan in the art of film editing who once worked with the most
famous directors.
But after an accident when he lost his fingers on his right arm and
a breakdown and a "rest" in a mental in-
stitution, he's now working with a indie B-film horror project. He's
at the bottom and his wife, the ex-actress
Josephine/Annie (Paz De La Huerta) was also once famous but are now
bitter and unhappy.
Ray is harassed by everybody, by his wife (named Josephine or Annie
...? i'm not sure) and by the film team
who call him a cripple due to his right hand prosthetic. Ray is a sad
man and his only friend are his assistant
the young Bella (cute Samantha Hill) who admires him for his editing
proficiency
Ray
Maria de la Paz Elizabeth Sofia Adriana de la Huerta
As i said, i may be the only one in the world who likes
to see Paz De La Huerta on film. I'm not sure if she
even acts, but she's so Strange in her roles i can't help staring at
her with my jaw open. In genre film that should
be some sort of quality i guess. In this film she plays the role of
the unfortunate ex-actress in an appropriate
swollen and unglamorous way (or maybe she's just herself?). And Adam
Brooks is fine as the weary Ray Ciso.
An Avalanche of killings
Well, anyway, The filming in the film of a B or C grade
horror goes havoc when a black-gloved killer start to
pick off the film crew. First the leading man Claudio and the actress
Veronica are killed with a razor in the studio,
then his replacement Cecare with a knife through the throat in a homage
to Dario Argento's Opera, then
Margarit with an axe, Bella with a big scissor (yes, could be an Opera
homage again) and then there's Tarantula
attacks and chainsaw murders etc. This is a fan film with plenty of
genre references to i.a. Fulci and Argento


The Tarantulas from The Beyond and the decapitated hand
in the dogs mouth from The New York
Ripper then naturally but also scenes from Videodrome and/or Demons,
the quarry scene from some
old Lenzi or Martino film and the uncle Leo scene from Amarcord etc.
etc.
The Gore works perfectly and is done the old school way, that's why.
I hate digital bloodletting.
The murders have a "positive" result for blond
actor Carl Kornitz (Conor Sweeney) that now gets to
play the leading man, is he the murderer? Investigating the killings
are inspector Peter Porfiry (played
by co-director Matthew Kennedy) but he's married to the blind actress
Margarit (Sheila E. Campbell)
so he could be the murderer too maybe.
Everyone or many has got italian sounding names and some speaks with
an italian accent, so it's a
bit unclear just where this film is meant to take place, in Italy, in
USA or in Canada?
The Blu-ray disc is in region A and can not be played
on a european region B player (if not modified
to play region all, not so common) and the DVD was in region 1.
anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1 with 1. Blu-ray in DTS-HD 5.1 or DTS-HD
2.0 and 2. DVD in 5.1 or
2.0 english. Extras: Commentary track with Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy,
Conor Sweeney,
Making Movies Used to be Fun: 51 min behind the scenes, Hook Lab interview
(7 min), Brett Parson
Poster Video (5 min), Astron 6 Film Festival introduction, Deleted scenes