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IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: FLESH OF THE VOID (2017)
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DIRECTED BY: James Florian Quinn
FEATURING: Man Without a Face, Kmsura, Dead Flesh, Elektriking
PLOT: The last words of a man on his deathbed are followed by a nihilistic nightmare seemingly representing humanity’s greatest fears.
COMMENTS: Flesh of the Void is a low-budget, experimental horror film that bagged an award for Best Overall Feature and a few nominations—including Best Cinematography and Best Director—at the Nightmares Film Festival in 2017. The fact that its cast is mostly anonymous should raise no eyebrows, considering that the movie includes sexually explicit material and extremely violent scenes.
Shot on both Super 8 and 16mm film, James Florian Quinn employs different techniques that give his work a timeless feel, such as black-and-white photography, film grain effects, intertitles, and a creep– and sleep—inducing soundtrack. In that sense, and in its frequent religious imagery, Quinn’s creation inevitably reminds one of E. Elias Merhige’s (in)famous experimental horror film Begotten (1991), which gives viewers a similar impression of being witness to an old, taboo recording.
Flesh of the Void has no linear plot or conventional narrative, but it does have a sort of theatrical structure, since it is divided into three acts alongside a prologue, an interlude, and an epilogue. It all begins with a surprisingly lyrical and unsettling monologue whispered by a dying man offscreen (“And it all started, to my dismay, soon to set in the state of decay. What just still was will never be again, as I’m still lying in my bed, breathing my last breath”). Then, chaotic images with occasional voiceover ensue, and the viewer is presented with a parade of grainy images depicting increasingly grotesque scenes.
At first, there seems to be a preoccupation with industrial, urban landscapes and the sinister occurrences taking place therein. Afterward, however, violent situations and religious imagery feature more prominently, without any clear links between them and the aforementioned urban landscapes—this overall meaninglessness perhaps being part of the movie’s presumably nihilistic message.
Such haphazard sequences often involve explicit sexual action, and because of these the viewer may get easily sidetracked. At the risk of waxing intellectual, one may regard the combination of sexuality and suffering that the movie presents as the tension between Eros and Thanatos, that is, the two opposing forces that make up human life, with Eros standing for (pro)creation and Thanatos standing for destruction and death. Indeed, whoever decides to watch Flesh of the Void will be assailed by disturbingly brutal situations—including cannibalism and rape—interspersed with numerous masturbatory scenes, often involving the clergy. The latter scenes—which look good on paper as representations of Eros—drag on unnecessarily. They would have greatly benefited from condensing, for their meaning—or lack thereof—is equally impactful after just a glimpse. Such lengthy scenes detract from the overall disquieting atmosphere of the movie and border on the gratuitous.
Nevertheless, occasional shots are genuinely enjoyable despite the budget limitations, especially at the beginning and the end of the film. There is also some respite from cruelty, sex, and interminable onanism in the interlude (titled “Agony”), which is the most theatrical part of Flesh of the Void, with actors moving in ways reminiscent of Greek tragedy at times. This is the most eeriely intriguing and even—dare I say it—tranquil part of the movie, taking place between two acts that feature a great deal of the above-mentioned perversities.
Those who relish experimental movies that feel like inexplicable waking nightmares, no matter how low their budget, may be inclined to give Flesh of the Void a shot. Yet, I must give them a heads-up that their patience is going to be tested, and possibly not rewarded, for the movie as a whole frequently meanders. While opinions will surely differ, for me the nihilistic takeaway from Flesh of the Void seems to be that religious systems and promises of an afterlife are hollow, and we should only believe in the reality of human suffering and the void of death. Suitably for this interpretation, the black-and-white cinematography of the movie is maintained until the very end, when blood suddenly gushes in a vivid red. Cheerful stuff!
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by Vlad Gligor, who called it “very similar to Begotten.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average
CAPSULE: CAMP (2025)
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DIRECTED BY: Avalon Fast
FEATURING: Zola Grimmer
PLOT: A traumatized college girl reluctantly volunteers as a counselor at a camp for “damaged” kids, but when she gets there she finds the other female counselors are practicing homemade witchcraft.
COMMENTS: Poor Emily has had it rough the past couple years. Already wracked with guilt for a fatal accident that wasn’t really her fault, she finds herself responsible for a second unintentional death, making her feel like a serial killer. She leans on her father for support, and when he suggests the depressed girl could benefit by serving as a counselor at a Christian-themed camp for “damaged” kids, she agrees. There, she finds herself eagerly embraced by her fellow counselors, who aren’t nearly as Christian as management would prefer: every night is an campfire bacchanalia of dancing, flirting, pot, and alcohol. But, just as the Christians warn, weed, booze, and dancing are inevitably a gateway to witchcraft—and, perhaps, to psychic healing as well.
Where Camp is good is in the dreamy cinematography and imagery. Fast’s movie is shot through with experimental impulses, from fuzzy montages underlaid by indie ballads to a red-midnight rendezvous to overlays of twinkling stars as females cavort (and levitate) in the moonlight. Although the Alberta forest is entrancing, occasionally, mountainous backdrops seen from out the window are obvious matte paintings instead of natural vistas. After the indie dramatics of the first two acts, things slide towards the surreal: there’s a pay phone that pops up in the middle of a sylvan glen in the late going at a moment of crucial decision for our protagonist. In terms of setting a dreamy mood, Camp hits the notes it aims at, and for some, that will be enough.
But where Camp is bad is, sadly, pretty much everything else. Not only does the plot wander around aimlessly for most of the film, the characters are unmemorable. Emily’s female confidants are hardly developed: there’s the ringleader, there’s the kinda sexy one, and there’s… two others. The male characters are even sketchier, with only the camp’s senior leader, a wait-until-marriage hymn-singing straight-arrow, receiving significant attention. (There’s another guy who’s positioned as a potentially darker influence, but his plotline seems to fall victim to the cutting room floor.) And, although other critics seem to disagree, Emily herself is too much of a cipher: a knot of guilt, and little more. (What are her interests and hobbies, besides self-medicating and moping?) It’s not the actress’ fault: Grimmer portrays all the appropriate emotions, but why (beyond the obvious) and, more specifically, how her tragedies makes her “damaged” remains something of a mystery.
The overall result is disappointing, because Fast’s visual sensibilities are so engaging and the story has such a weighty theme that you wish these virtues had been wedded to a more affecting narrative. Instead, we get an often lovely mood piece with sincere impulses that’s undone by draggy pacing. If you’re looking for fun at a late-summer Camp, book Miasma instead.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average
IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS (2007)
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DIRECTED BY: Bruce McDonald
FEATURING: Elliot Page (as Ellen Page), Zie Souwand, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Slim Twig, Ari Cohen, Erin McMurtry, Julian Richings
PLOT: A look inside the troubled mind of a teenage girl who is dealing with a hostile school atmosphere, emotionally hostile parents, a fixation on the cool new boy, a random drugged-out loser who may be the best friend she has, and the disappearance of her little brother.
COMMENTS: Split-screen photography has been a filmmaking tool almost since the beginning of the cinema. The technique took a giant leap, though, with the debut of filmmaker Christopher Chapman’s “A Place to Stand,” the groundbreaking short that he created as part of Canada’s Expo 67. Far from merely dividing the image in twain, Chapman developed a technique of isolating images and enabling them to move through the frame in concert with other images, like a moving mosaic. It was called “multi-dynamic image technique,” and it gained a foothold in popular culture a year later when Norman Jewison deployed it in The Thomas Crown Affair.
Maybe it’s a Canadian thing, because Bruce McDonald’s The Tracey Fragments may boast the most splits any screen has ever seen. The story of a girl whose mind is shattered by disaffection and tragedy (a simile Tracey employs in her first monologue) is suitably embodied by a narrative and a screen image that is similarly fractured. Humans are notorious for holding multiple viewpoints and emotional states at the same time, and the mosaic method allows the film to display all of them at once. Unexpressed rage and undelivered ripostes share space with silent pain and vast landscapes, while grids of pictures give way to clouds of dozens of images, sometimes with a sharp triangle piercing the frame. One particularly memorable image features Tracey in a desperate run for freedom, perfectly overlaid with shots of a horse in full gallop while the score by Broken Social Scene lays down an appropriately desperate groove. Rarely has the complexity of the mind, especially that of a teenager, been captured with such fidelity.
The Tracey Fragments is a technical marvel. The film supposedly took a month to film and nine more to assemble, and the work shows as McDonald, editors Jeremiah Munce and Gareth C. Scales, and sound designer Steve Munro create an impressively clear story out of a deliberately jumbled set of pieces. It’s frankly remarkable that it works as well as it does, given that Tracey’s story is pretty one-note. While her life does seem legitimately grim, the nonlinear approach represents her situation as an unchanging condition: disaffected teen girl, touched by tragedy, cast among the losers in high school, disdainful of her aggressively distant parents, and yearning for a bland boy who promises escape but evidently is a cruel, cavalier lover. (If we can believe what we see; our point of view is entirely Tracey’s.) It’s authentic, but it’s not dramatic.
This was Page’s first release following the starmaking breakthrough of Juno (although Tracey was shot first), and it solidifies the actor’s inclination toward challenging material. Page doesn’t always look as scruffy and homely as the character’s situation would suggest, and Tracey’s monologues sometimes feel inappropriately formal and clear-minded for a girl in such distress. The whole film rests on Page’s shoulders, though, and he carries it with confidence. Notably, some scenes have taken on a stranger veneer with the passage of time. One of Tracey’s tormentors verbally taunts her for her lack of perceived hot-girl femininity, calling her “It” and demanding, “Is It a boy or a girl?” Scenes with Tracey and her therapist are particularly odd, with the trans actor playing opposite Richings in drag in an ex post facto head-scratcher.
Split-screen is hardly an obscure technique. If you’ve seen any heist movie, you’ve probably been treated to a collage of lasers, hands, and beads of sweat. What distinguishes The Tracey Fragments is the way it gives the split-screen a psychological dimension. Instead of delivering information, it delivers character and mood. It’s not an entirely successful effort, as that mood has little chance to develop and grow. It does serve as a valuable reminder that all the cool things we can do with image and sound have the potential to do much more, if we give them a shot.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by H. E. Martin. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average
The Tracey Fragments
- DVD
- Multiple Formats, Color, Dolby
- English (Original Language), English (Unknown)
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Go to AmazonSATURDAY SHORT: LUMPS VOL. 1 (2026)
Many heads pop in this anthology of surreal short-short animations from Sam Drew.