Dead End Delights Review from TR Productions!
Esa Jussila is no stranger in delivering high quality tales of debauchery. The Finnish director is a man of many talents: director, cinematographer, special effects, you name it, and he has been there, done that and gotten the t-shirt.
Responsible for films such as Goremageddon 1 and 2 (see reviews here), Parasite Quarantine, Trans* (see review here), Homecoming. Having worked on cinema spectacles such as The Defiler (see review here) and Nightsatan and The Loops of Doom, Jussila is multitalented and might be Finland’s indie underground films best kept secret.
All his productions are pristine in scope, high quality filming and razor-sharp wit with unforgiving violence to match. The last film I saw titled Homecoming was a tale of brutal vengeance when a group of mobsters turn on one of their own only to have their betrayed associate come back to extract his revenge.
Jussila has the ability to apply himself to different sub genres, pick up the vibe seamlessly and run with it to create outstanding high-quality films. Dead End Delights is no different. We get a short film clocking in at under 8-minutes but its well made, witty, and gruesome.
Made for a festival titled Bizarroland 72H Film Debacle, Dead End Delights was also picked up by the Nightvision’s Festival in Finland. The Bizzaroland Festival is this amazing online festival where filmmakers from around the world display their films online under the festivals criteria so filmmakers from all over the world can enter. It is extremely cool, details here: bizarrolandfilm.com/debacle
Dead End Delights is described by Jussila: “It’s this little dark comedy/horror short we shot over a weekend in the summer. Its a bit of a homage to Street Trash and old EC Comics/Creepshow/Verotika kind of horror shorts.”
The film begins with a group of vagrants fighting over an adult magazine as we cut to another two homeless men including a character named Rotten Romeo (Simo Ruotsalainen) playing a makeshift game of chess before his competitor pukes all over the chess board.
Everything is interrupted when a fancy sports car pulls up with an attractive women (Minah Bird) in it. She gets out and seems to be scanning the selection of homeless men until she makes a choice and drags one of them back to the car with her. One of the homeless bums exclaims how you shouldn’t go with the woman as if he knows what she does with her chosen male vagrants.
Our Rotten Romeo makes himself known when the woman revisits and she happily picks him. Despite warnings, he goes, and his fate awaits him. The Woman’s character is credited as Elizabeth Bathobory so I’ll let you imagine what happens to the poor bastard.
Dead End Delights is a fun short, shot well with great cinematography, rich full sound, pumpin’ soundtrack and great editing. The actors nail it. We also get some witty comedy thrown in and that gruesome finale. Jussila continues to impress time and time again.
Directed by: Esa Jussila
Written by: Antti Laakso, Aku Salminen
Produced by: Minja Tuomisalo
Cinematography by: Esa Jussila
Editing by: Esa Jussila
Special Effects by: Johanna Tuominen
Music by: Jussi Huhtala
Cast: Minah Bird, Simo Ruotsalainen, Aku Salminen, Drew Karraker, Mies Mikkonen, Johanna Tuominen, Johanna Ala-Karvia
Year: 2022
Country: Finland
Language: Finnish (English Subtitles)
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 8min
Studio: TR Productions
