Why So Blu?

Filth To Ashes Flesh To Dust (Movie Review)

Hello boils and ghouls, it’s time for our movie review for a film that you may not have heard of until recently…and by recently I mean this last weekend.  It had the #39 rank in terms of box office receipts and an awesome $7,826 per theater average.  Did I mention it only opened on 11 screens?  Yep, that’s pretty damn impressive by Hollywood or non-Hollywood standards, and this weekend is almost getting started!  Oh, but you want to know how the movie is, right?  Follow me. 

Filth To Ashes Flesh To Dust is a horror film about  a serial killer named Purge who lives by a sick code of conduct.  Purge is out to cleanse the world of those he deems unworthy.  Not only will he get rid of them, but he will do so in the most creative and painful ways possible.  A group of friends make the smart choice of venturing into the scene of the crime to see if it what the media has portrayed on television is true or not.

That’s part one of a two part component.  The second subplot of the story (technically the first) involves Eric (Armont Casale) and his girlfriend Shelly (Diana Quezada) as they drive back home using a shortcut to avoid heavy traffic.  What they don’t know is that Purge is out on the prowl and only one of them will be making it out alive.  The bulk of the story picks up just over a year later and that’s where everyone that was mentioned before figures into the story.

The acting highlights in Filth To Ashes would have to come from Anton Troy (Chillerama) as Ronan and Bianca Lemaire as Kiara.  Ronan is the perfect pretty boy spaz, without being the major focus of attention the film needs.  He’s cool and calm, but has a few scenes that are pretty funny.  The character of Kiara is just awesome and keeps it together whenever she’s onscreen.  One of my favorite scenes involving Kiara was so cool that I’m not even sure it was scripted, because it was so natural and lasted just a split second.  I’d rather not say what scene that was, because it’s a spoiler.  Looking back, my favorite characters in Filth To Ashes weren’t even the main actors, but most of the supporting ones.

Purge (Nicholas J. Leinbach) is a good enough bad guy, but for some reason I could not get the thought of Bennett from Commando out of my head.  He was dressed almost identical to him – he could have been the “Son of Bennett.”  I kind of had to stop thinking about that and just let the kills do the all the talking.  Purge is an outdoors man, he’s obviously been alive more than year after everyone thought he was dead, and knows how to kill pretty people in a very brutal and efficient manner.  Cool!

Now, to the meat and potatoes of the whole Filth To Ashes Flesh To Dust saga.  As far as I understand it, the film was shot for 18K and it opened to about seven times the budget it was made for.  I don’t know about you, but that equates to some success in my book.  Bragging rights be damned, it made money alright.  I love stories like this, because it reminds me of the early Robert Rodriguez days of filmmaking.  A skeleton crew with some actors and a camera meet up somewhere and just make a damn movie.  There’s no over thinking it, just yell action, cut, and go home.  If  the film sucks afterward, who cares?  You made a film.  How many people will get to say that they made a feature film in their lifetimes?  Not many, so props go out to the filmmakers for just bringing it to the world as is.

I mentioned that the film was not made for a lot of money, but it does look like it was.  I’ve seen many films that were made for high six figure-seven figure amounts and they all look like garbage.  In fact, some of these films are still being made, so it’s refreshing to watch a film with people that are giving it their all – in front of the camera and behind it.  Paul Morrell served as Director and Editor, and did an outstanding job with what was available.  Props to that.  Writer/Executive Producer/Actor Armont Casale did his thing as well, and I am looking forward to more scripted projects by him.

Okay, so those are the bulk of the positives for the film.  I gotta lay down some negatives, so here goes in no particular order.  The title.  It’s way to long.  For marketing purposes it should have just been called Filth To Ashes…and that’s it.  If they wanted they could have kept the “Flesh To Dust” portion in the film, but out of the marketing materials.  It’s cumbersome.  The next thing I could have done without would have to be the amount of characters in the film.  There’s almost a dozen of them in the movie, so if you’re not paying close enough attention you will miss out on whose who.

All the minor quibbling aside, Filth To Ashes is a pretty damn good horror film made for almost no money and it certainly puts some of these bigger budgeted films to shame.  There are some terrific kills and good performances throughout the film.  I’m looking forward to more projects by all of those involved in the future.  In fact, you can catch Anton Troy in Chillerama on Blu-ray and VOD in the coming weeks.

P.S. We will keep fans up to date as to when the DVD and Blu-ray of Flesh To Ashes Flesh To Dust will be released if you cannot find the film playing at a theater near you.