Delirio (La Creacion) Review from TetroVideo!
Chilean director, Patricio Valladares is a busy bee, working on at least one project per year since 2009 and usually in the grimy genre of violence we all love. His material regularly features guns, sex, those kinds of lush ingredients, or horror based like Vlad’s Legacy and Nightworld: Door to Hell. Judging by his upcoming works, he certainly isn’t slowing down any time soon.
TetroVideo, those gorgeous darlings close to Severed Cinema’s blackened hearts, have took on board a couple of Patricio’s works – Dirty Love, which has been out a while now, and Delirio (original title, La Creacian) an earlier movie of his which was released on November 16th and has a funky Tetro limited edition big box with posters and cards, plus a short film added on to the extras.
So, I delved into this offering with much excitement, but unfortunately (sigh) the excitement hardly lasted…
This is a post apocalypse kind of scenario filmed in that familiar style like the modern school of thought. Low key colours, a skull sat around here and there, that kind of thing. This apocalypse was of the nuclear sort and occurred in Chile causing the survivors to become more violent and irrational than before.
It’s nice to see that the wildlife has survived anyhow, as we witness after a lengthy introduction piece chopping scene of soldiers and craziness on the streets with a young chap skulking behind derelict vehicles and such. He awakens in his woodlands shack. Then as he walks, he finds a desolate winter land where the fallout is apparent. He must live beyond the carnage.
He digs up a woman who has probably been buried there a short time ago, she writhes in throes of pain. After he’s helped her recover from being buried alive only to drag her outside again for more suffering, what appears to be a stream of lifeforce emits from her mouth.
As he crouches beside his second victim who stares from the window, she speaks of how he was the greatest magician in the world, but now he seems to just exist to inflict suffering. He explains to her that the pain is necessary for he is planning to do something for humanity. Later he says it will be his last magic because he’s tired, then lays her down and puts a “mystical forest bug” deep inside her to eat at her innards. He then gets busy with a knife.
Soon he’s out in the woods heating a blade in a fire and waxing lyrical about flames, how not to be scared, etcetera, then he sets about torturing once again whilst he’s got help this time. Ritualistic and with full on penetration sex shots, this goes on a while.
When he speaks it’s in reverse, with added reverbs, and throughout we are illuminated to the concept by biblical quotes. By the time we start to see the real side of this film unravel about two thirds of the way in, personally I had lost interest.
Delirio is a very hard film to like. I found a vast majority of it disjointing and distracting from whatever point it was trying to make. You know that feeling you get when a filmmaker is trying to be overly clever but deep down, he must know he is trying to ride a very simple story. Yet like a student trying so hard to stand out, he grinds out every morsel of ‘arty’ angles, lighting, and edits, well this is one of those. All Sin City influences, the usual from that time.
I do believe many will enjoy Delirio. Maybe they’ll seek and find what they are looking for. Me? At first, I started thinking that we may have another Begotten on our hands, giving the attempts at deep dark waters and biblical notions. Well a Begotten without the total annihilation and mind fuckery leaping out at you. Then after about fifteen minutes I did something I seldom do when reviewing a film, I wandered off (pausing it first) made a cuppa, came back, watched a bit more without typing trying to grasp something – anything! I paused it again and went on social media for a while.
I did not like the lead actor. He had nothing worthy to him. He did his best I suppose but I could not warm to his expressionless features and gestures of bland. Come to think of it, I think that was the main problem – the magician. Due to that rather big problem, I found myself losing interest as I stated before and that is not like me at all. I will see any film to the bitter end, but this had to be a battle I was destined to lose. Your beloved Jay Creepy, Severed Cinema reviewer since 2012, skipped scenes suffering from fatigue and boredom.
TetroVideo are an amazing label. They have something for everyone in the fields of horror and art. Of all the non-Domiziano related movies I have viewed ‘n’ reviewed, only Dead Inferno (see review of Dead Inferno here) was a struggle, for different reasons to this one. For the record, Your Flesh Your Curse (see review of Your Flesh Your Curse here) is still the greatest non-Dom on that label thus far.
There will be an audience for Delirio, and the fact that it’s gaining new life through Tetro will promise good things for the film. I mean, Lucifer Valentine and his one-trick-pony delights gather an army of troubled teens who look deep into the mess and find parts of themselves, they think, or they hope. Delirio will be viewed by many who, as I said, could discover something I didn’t.
AKA: La Creacion
Directed by: Patricio Valladares | Written by: Andreas Cavaletto, Patricio Valladares | Produced by: Evelyn Belmar, Patricio Valladares, Arturo Lagos, Christian Fernandez | Cinematography by: Patricio Valladares | Editing by: Patricio Valladares | Music by: Francisco Merino | Cast: Yuri Caceres, Paulina Facuse, Evelyn Belmar, Arturo Lagos, Patricio Valladares | Year: 2009 | Country: Chile | Language: Spanish (English subtitles) | Colour: Black & White, Colour | Runtime: 1h 8 min
Distributor: TetroVideo
