It would be easy to dismiss this film. Journeyman CGI effects, erratic editing, sets decoration that consists primarily of trash bags, acting that veers between being ham-fisted or semi-comatose, and a schizophrenic plot all contribute to a so-bad-it's-good classification. What piqued my interest was the perceived philosophical intent. The movie switches gears about a third of the way through, going from a lurid torture-on-a-UFO plotline to something more spiritual. Dave Wascavage attempts to bring his own existential view of life to the screen, one that seems to blend an affection for alien abduction theories with a Karma-inspired what-comes-around-goes-around worldview with Catholic overtones. The movie is still technically bad, but it goes to an interesting place near the end. Enjoy the technical ineptitude but be pleasantly surprised by the higher meaning offered up.
5 Reviews
A very loud film, but not in a good way
CorblimeyGuvnors8 February 2015
The whole point of a film is to entertain. To keep ones interest you should be able to follow the plot and this includes being able to hear the lines being spoken. On this occasion the soundtrack and effects were loud, but when anyone ever said anything the sound level dropped a few notches, which meant me continually paying around with the remote control. There was a lot of screaming from the main character and this was also at full pelt.
A man is kidnapped by a UFO and experimented on. (Hence his screams). The film plays in flashback to explain why he is in the predicament that he finds himself.
Acting is of the Amateur dramatic variety and the special effects are poor. There is a lot of CGI, but not good CGI and looks quite cartoon ish and maybe this was the desired effect.
Sorry, but I struggled to engage with this one.
A man is kidnapped by a UFO and experimented on. (Hence his screams). The film plays in flashback to explain why he is in the predicament that he finds himself.
Acting is of the Amateur dramatic variety and the special effects are poor. There is a lot of CGI, but not good CGI and looks quite cartoon ish and maybe this was the desired effect.
Sorry, but I struggled to engage with this one.
Catacomb of Creepshows #24 (of 50) or the title is very apropos as this film is indeed torturous
movieman_kev14 October 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Juan Fernandez stars in this pretty much one-man morality play as John, a never do well sad sack who is forced to relive his transgressions in life by an awfully CGI'd spaceship and the inhabiting alien. Jacob's Ladder this is decidedly not.
Never one to readily dismiss a low-budget film, I gave this a chance to work it's 'magic' on me. But it was way too repetitive to hold my interest for long. John gets tortured, relives a past event where he was evil, gets tortured again, rinse and repeat. Now that would've worked as a short film, maybe (even than a big maybe) but as a movie that's around 79 minutes long, it tends to wear out its welcome.
Never one to readily dismiss a low-budget film, I gave this a chance to work it's 'magic' on me. But it was way too repetitive to hold my interest for long. John gets tortured, relives a past event where he was evil, gets tortured again, rinse and repeat. Now that would've worked as a short film, maybe (even than a big maybe) but as a movie that's around 79 minutes long, it tends to wear out its welcome.
"What goes around comes around" (Dave Wascavage's best film)
claymonster249 October 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Director Dave Wascavage gets serious with his latest film, Tartarus. Basically, it's a film that shows that what goes around comes around. You reap what you sow. There are quite a few Catholicism undertones in this film, as Tartarus can be compared to Purgatory. I really liked the performance of Juan Fernandez, which somehow allowed me to care for a guy who just might be the most reprehensible main character in cinematic history. The special effects by Wascavage are by far his best yet and the ending, while shocking, is appropriate. This is a film you do not want to miss. Especially considering the subtext of the film. One review said it best when it described Tartarus as a film unlike anything you've ever seen or will ever see again.
Alien insanity in a small PA town
BandSAboutMovies9 June 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Dave Wascavage may be known for Suburban Sasquatch, a movie that has horror on the surface and all heart inside. And while there are moments of mirth in that film, Tartarus presents a different and darker side of the filmmaker.
Its protagonist John (Juan Fernandez, who has been in all of Wascavage's films, even appearing as the bigfoot in the aforementioned cryptic shot on video wonder that introduced me to the director's films) is a horrible person. He's cheated on his wife with her sister and ruined their entire family. He steals money from his clients. He smokes crack. He hits people with his car and just drives away. In no way should he be the hero of any movie.
And yet here we are. Juan is trapped in a nightmare that looks Fire In the Sky in its big black gray eyes and says, "I can make a more frightening movie with effects that look straight out of the Spirit store and a PS1 cut scene."
This is a movie where a CGI UFO kidnaps Juan so that an alien can puke CGI vomit all over him and then go beyond threatening him with the worst thing that can happen to a heterosexual brute and then go further, abusing him with a strobing phallus and backdoor venturing vacuum cleaner while the lead screams, swears, threatens, begs, cries and flop sweats against the trash bag and discount store created interior of an interstellar vessel.
There are moments of CGI fields of mushrooms in Wascavage's Fungicide that look like the kind of blacklight posters that I couldn't figure out in Spencer's back before it all started to feel safe, strange artwork that I'd see on the backdoor of my insane cousins' bedrooms that smelled like stolen Pabst and the worst weed that Southwestern PA could belch out. And then those moments are compounded here, extended, injected in the eye, dosed, slapped hard in the face and then screamed at for hours until they achieve a Stockholm syndrome need to convert you to a side they fought against for so long.
West Chester, PA is a wild place, a town where the kids had to pull progressively worse pranks on one another to keep from abject boredom until culture had to notice them. And there, under the rock, waiting to blow your mind way more than skateboard and pills hijinks lies this film, a seventy-plus minute journey into a neon and cathode lit hellscape that I keep thinking and obsessing and dreaming about.
If I start sneezing metal, I'll know that I've been abducted.
Its protagonist John (Juan Fernandez, who has been in all of Wascavage's films, even appearing as the bigfoot in the aforementioned cryptic shot on video wonder that introduced me to the director's films) is a horrible person. He's cheated on his wife with her sister and ruined their entire family. He steals money from his clients. He smokes crack. He hits people with his car and just drives away. In no way should he be the hero of any movie.
And yet here we are. Juan is trapped in a nightmare that looks Fire In the Sky in its big black gray eyes and says, "I can make a more frightening movie with effects that look straight out of the Spirit store and a PS1 cut scene."
This is a movie where a CGI UFO kidnaps Juan so that an alien can puke CGI vomit all over him and then go beyond threatening him with the worst thing that can happen to a heterosexual brute and then go further, abusing him with a strobing phallus and backdoor venturing vacuum cleaner while the lead screams, swears, threatens, begs, cries and flop sweats against the trash bag and discount store created interior of an interstellar vessel.
There are moments of CGI fields of mushrooms in Wascavage's Fungicide that look like the kind of blacklight posters that I couldn't figure out in Spencer's back before it all started to feel safe, strange artwork that I'd see on the backdoor of my insane cousins' bedrooms that smelled like stolen Pabst and the worst weed that Southwestern PA could belch out. And then those moments are compounded here, extended, injected in the eye, dosed, slapped hard in the face and then screamed at for hours until they achieve a Stockholm syndrome need to convert you to a side they fought against for so long.
West Chester, PA is a wild place, a town where the kids had to pull progressively worse pranks on one another to keep from abject boredom until culture had to notice them. And there, under the rock, waiting to blow your mind way more than skateboard and pills hijinks lies this film, a seventy-plus minute journey into a neon and cathode lit hellscape that I keep thinking and obsessing and dreaming about.
If I start sneezing metal, I'll know that I've been abducted.
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