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Renn (Aaron Krygier) is a successful enough artist to open a show on
the strength of his name, he has a nice home, a beautiful wife, Carol
(Jillian Geurts), and his agent Abel (Stephen Jakiel) tries everything to
keep the money flowing his way, albeit not out of pure selflessness. True,
Renn's art is nightmarish, but that's part of his appeal. What nobody
knows is that Renn is indeed a deeply troubled soul with homicidal
tendencies, something that's embodied in a mysterious woman (Veronica
Knightly) who's his partner in crime who pushes him on in whatever he's
doing, but whom only he can see. Being not in the best state of mind, Renn
becomes obsessed with a home shopping TV show where an inept host (Andy
Rich) tries to sell an impractical driller to his audience - but like so
many other things, that show might only be in Renn's head. The driller
however is real, and he first uses it on an arrogant client's (Sarah
Jeanne) eyes - and he even gets away with it. But that first murder only
leads to more violence and deaths, though it becomes increasingly unclear
to Renn what's real and what's only going on in his head, and what's art
and what's just plain wrong ... In a way, Rust Belt Driller
is a perfect throwback to an era of more relentless horror of the
grindhouse variety where showing more was actually more, and Driller
Killer and even some Herschell Gordon Lewis movies, especially Color
Me Blood Red and Wizard of
Gore, readily spring to mind, due to this movie's rather explicit
nature and also its welcome predilection for practical effects. That all
said though, describing Rust Belt Driller merely as an hommage to
yesteryear or an old school piece of gore cinema would be selling it
short, as the film really comes into its own as a nightmarish experience
with artistic ambitions that go far beyond just shocking its audience, and
thus the movie relies at least as much on its rather labyrinthine, deeply
disturbing story and on creating a creepy, slightly unearthly atmosphere
as on its gore effects. And Aaron Krygier's central performance is
fittingly unsettling, and he's supported by a solid ensemble. And all of
this makes this movie one rather insane trip - in the best of possible
ways.
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