‘Algea: God of Pain’ – A Haunting Concept Marred by a Fractured Script
I figured that it’s going to be an interesting journey whilst flicking through one or two scenes whilst building myself up to review this one. What could be the central bad guy or demon or whatever? (I know nothing about this film) He is wearing a mask that I’ve seen selling for less than ten quid on eBay — one of the members of our upcoming Death Metal Horror band has three of them he’s mutilating for photo shoots.
The Algea were gods of pain and suffering, of tears and such courtesy of the Greeks, by the way. Algea: God of Pain begins with some bloke certainly suffering as he’s laid out in his drive gobbing up blood and bile. It’s a bit like my city centre late Saturday night, y’know. He gets up, reeling like he’s selling a punch from a wrestler, then spies some Elm Street kids with a skipping rope moving eerily behind him.
“Hey… where are we?” he asks the kids who either ignore him or are unaware he exists. “Hey, kid… did ya hear me?” Then a big dog runs at him. Note, the dog is practically trotting after him playfully as he runs into the house. This is so cool. The phone rings, he staggers over to it. “Hello, John,” says the echoing child voice calling him, then proceeds to giggle and say a spooky rhyme. It ends with “… the God of Pain!“
More creepy happenings and noises has him running around the building for a while until he ends up in a flickering light corridor with loads of hospital beds and sheets over the bodies until they sit up sharply. Whoa, now this has turned the movie a bit. It’s nicely built up with excellent delivery. John is truly fucked now; the whole building is a nightmare and he’s face-to-face with an eBay mask wearing creature. “Who… or what…. are you?“
“This is a nightmare I can’t wake up from!” John cries because he’s had to say that cliché line. This script is rather patchy so far. “Why am I here?“
The creature (who’s voice is hard to understand at first) says, “You know why you’re here – drifter!” It’s explained that a drifter is someone who allows himself to be controlled by circumstances out of their own mind, or whatever. What I do love about this movie so far are the set pieces. They are moody and gloomy, building up a grim atmosphere that far overshadows the cast and script. “It doesn’t make any sense,” bleats John, “Who… or what are you!” he asks again.
They’re pain, it turns out and suffering of the mind and body. Flashbacks and lengthy lectures via the creature show him why he’s there followed by some attempts to be kind of arty (if you watch it you’ll see what I mean). Then the demons arrive to torture him gorily, followed by a Videodrome influenced TV set and twenty-five minutes in, the intro credits begin.
After the credits we meet Judge Ava, or “Judge lady,” as Oliver, a guy convicted of multiple child abuse, kidnapping, and murder charges, calls her before he’s injected into the eyeball. Then his mind is hurled into another realm where he wakes up with all the bile and blood and shit that John went through. His trip is different but generally the same. “Who… or what are you??!!” Again, with the script. I was hoping here that there’s an explanation later because I’m sorry, folks don’t react like that when faced with a masked man staring at them. Having two people say the same thing pointlessly? C’mon!
“We are the pain and sorrow that you created, with your grotesque behaviour!” and so we go on. Flashbacks interlude to get the point across for Oliver. Then after him, comes child killer, Michelle. In a way, the film goes with a short story angle, but everything plays the same. The God of Pain preaches morals and messages about society throughout to the chosen captives as if spoon-feeding the audience here and there. We all face the consequences for our actions if they go too far. Algea even has a closing speech. Fuck.
Algea: God of Pain is so well set up, the mood of the scenes, the idea as a whole is wonderful, but the writing is so poor it made me shake my head in disbelief a few times. It’s such a missed opportunity. Lots of reviewers slate the acting and budget yet those things never trouble me as I’m not a tea sipping snob. A lazy script troubles me more. The cast are middle-of-the-road. They do their job, and as I look over some of the main player’s IMDb CVs, it hit me, remember a time when you’d browse an actor’s resume, recognising at least a third or more of their films? More and more there seems to be utterly thousands of titles upon so many lists and none of them are allowed to stand up because they’re all choking one another in this digital age.
The effects and gore are fine. They are not overused, appearing when crucial to what there is of a plotline. And that’s another thing; the story staggers all over the place and ultimately goes nowhere in the end.
Algea: God of Pain is one of those flicks that, if you’re in the right mood and you see it on a stream or download somewhere, give it a try, it passes the time.
Directed by: JD Allen
Written by: JD Allen, Shyina Crayton
Produced by: Musa Aden, Cammi and Kimm Andersen, John D Farmer
Cinematography by: Carson Mckinnon
Music by: Ravi Roshan
Edited by: JD Allen
Special Effects by: Robert Harlow, JD Allen, Stephanie Sanford Anderson, Bryce Mousseau
Cast: David Bianco, Janessa Sheffield, Jason K Wixom, Spencer Jarport, Damarr Jones, James C Morris
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 39min
Distributor: Red Owl Films
