A one-sided conversation about taxes leads to snakes burrowing in the face… but it’s all a dream! A group of friends play gin rummy and the mortician of the group discusses some particularly nasty cases and then they discuss the nightmares they’ve been having. They sound horrifying but since they’re being explained and not shown by a group of guys who are better-suited to ring you up for your 1 AM beer run, the impact lands somewhere short of effective. Mark (who looks like me if I were your dad in the 80s) has recently lost his wife and the grief is leading to suicidal thoughts. His friends are worried about him… hit those words of reassurance and discussion between significant others. Mortician dude has a wife and child and he’s concerned about Mark. Mark’s sister pays him a visit and mentions a priest that’s been stopping by her work at the hospital (?), possibly an asylum. More low-fi nightmares hit. Footage of ducks in a pond pops on the screen and in the corner an intertitle reads “3rd day”. Thank god they let me know! We rejoin our priest in a meeting with a couple other men of the cloth (one of them in an old man mask) and he’s concerned there’s a coverup going on. Two holy men are dead and one has been institutionalized. The Six Flags priest (MORE ABSTINENCE! MORE FUN!) dismisses him and then cryptically mentions an inevitable horrificness on the horizon. The next scene has a demon rip off a priest’s head. It’s all quick cuts, muddy darkness and indecipherable red lights… it’s pretty awesome. Off to the morgue and a graphic autopsy on a less than convincing body. The woman wakes up while her chest has been opened up… it’s another nightmare! The fourth day hits and a building explodes in New York City. We’re treated to real unedited footage of a disaster. The priest has visions of a demonic face in the middle of an electronics store and almost faints. More talk! Someone’s husband is dead and the mortician guy knows the wife. A coin flip decides who has to call her. The woman goes to the morgue (which more than resembles a kitchen at a fast food joint) to see her husband, mortician dude walks in, tries to talk to her and eats a shovel for his troubles. A blonde pays a visit to the priest and seduces him but he’s able to resist. We’re only a little more than a half-hour into this and things are just getting muddier. There’s another demon attack and (I think) a baby in a trash bag, this is immediately followed by a skeleton coming to life and molesting a sleeping woman. Said woman nonchalantly pushes the corpse off and goes to calm her nerves in the bathroom. While sitting on the toilet, she explodes. I’m exhausted. The world slips into impossible-to-navigate darkness and all hell breaks loose. This means maggots, face-ripping, dismemberment, a whole lot of exposition from a demon reading from cue cards which sort of explains things and a climax which brings to mind a lethargic Olaf Ittenbach set piece. It’s like an analog stream of consciousness acid trip that’s edging out your heroin overdose and populated with people you lost contact with after high school. Stop-motion monsters, nasty basement violence, and audio recorded in a paint can left in the depths of Hell are all wrapped up in a needlessly complicated but charmingly enthusiastic package. I loved it but I’m not sure if I’ll ever watch it again.
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