Yesterday was the big premiere of Danzig's first foray into horror films, which he eventually hopes will be an anthology called Verotika and the reviews are… well, they're not what Danzig expected, that's for sure.
A/V Club was on hand at the Cinepocalypse film festival where Danzig's film debuted and they call it "one of the most batshit ridiculous horror anthology films ever put on screen. Within the first 60 seconds, a narrator pokes out a woman’s eyes with her fingers, and it works all too well as a metaphor for what this movie puts the audience through."
Danzig, who also scored the film, was at the premiere and after the showing, he commented to the crowd “You guys laughed in some of the places I wouldn’t have, but that’s cool.” (A/V Club notes that this is a paraphrase and not a direct quote). A/V Club went on to call it " a deeply, powerfully, almost worryingly funny film, a misfire of the highest order."
The review is just brutal, citing the film's "porno-esque production design" and " low-rent cosplay, below even what you see in Syfy movie-of-the-week tripe." Danzig cited his passion for '60s and '70s horror films and the reviewer labeled the film like a Christopher Guest-take on such a genre. Yikes.
You can read the in-depth review at A/V Club. With every sentence that passed in the review, I wanted to see the film more and more. Danzig was quoted as saying “I don’t wanna direct some Academy Award piece of shit,” and it looks like he followed through on that promise.
While I really didn't have much interest in seeing the film before, after seeing this review, Verotika has climbed to the top of my must-watch list.
No release date has been set, but we'll keep you posted.
