Framing story (Critic's Choice): Roberta Van Houten (Debbie
Rochon), an egocentric art critic, is lured to an art gallery in the
middle of nowhere, where she is the only guest, and where she finds a trio
of paintings that, when unveiled, tell her gruesome horror stories. A
fourth painting of course tells of her own imminent demise ...
- By Her Hands, She Draws You Down: Cath (Zoe Daelman Chlanda)
is a street artist, travelling the countryside drawing people's
portraits for a few bucks, always giving extra attention to their
mouthes ... because through the mouthes on her drawings she sucks out
her models' lifeforce. Her husband (Jerry Murdock) travels with her to
keep her in check - but Cath grows hungrier by the minute, and she
knows him so well she can draw him from memory, in the dark ...
- Down the Drain: Stanley Moffet (Jerry Murdock) is a
substitute teacher who is so annoying and so annoyingly boring that
nobody respects him, not his students, not his ex-wife (Raine Brown),
not his principal (Mike Lane) - who even fires him eventually -,
simply nobody. And thus, Moffet has long become a target for bullying
by everybody. Then though he finds out a tentacled monster is living
in the drain pipes, a monster that's sympathetic to his cause - and
now his luck changes ...
- A Far Cry from Home: Kayle (Don Money) and his crossdressing
boyfriend Lane (Alan Rowe Kelly) have decided to take a roadtrip to
the country to fix their relationship - and stop at a curio shop in
the middle of nowhere - bad idea, because the curio shop is run by a
couple of rednecks (Katherine O'Sullivan, Jerry Murdock, Benzy) who
don't like gays, especially if they're crossdressing. And
encouraged by the local bigot preacherman (Terry M.West) they have
found very gruesome ways of getting rid of these gays ...
Somehow, Gallery of Fear seems like a timewarp, as the film has
the feel of many a great genre-movie from yesteryear, especially of the
1970's grindhouse variety - though don't get me wrong, Gallery of Fear
is by no means derivative, or tries to desperately recreate the looks of
the bygone era, tries to winkingly repeat the shortcomings of old
B-movies, or camps things up to the hilt to hide a lack of content, or
even give it that post-modern, oh-so-insightful spin - none of all that,
instead Gallery of Fear concentrates on telling a bunch of macabre,
sometimes even gruesome stories full of nicely fleshed-out characters,
carried by a very competent cast with quite a few standouts (Jerry
Murdock, Alan Rowe Kelly, Terry M.West and of course the always dependable
Debbie Rochon) and very solid and subtle directorial efforts. Basically,
it is a movie that reminds you of just how much fun there can be in horror
without going over-the-top.
Totally recommended!
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