Reviewed by Kevin Scott
MoreHorror.com
Pernicious (2015)
Written by: James Cullen Bressack, Taryn Hillin
Directed by: James Cullen Bressack
Cast: Ciara Hanna (Alex), Emily O’Brien (Julia), Jackie Moore (Rachel), Russell Geoffrey Banks (Colin), Byron Gibson (Byron), Jack Prinya (Male Nurse), Sohanne Bengana (Vlad), Jared Cohn (Shane), Sara Malakul Lane (Samorn)
*Possible Spoilers Below*
I’m always running a formula in my mind when I watch any movie or a horror movie in particular. Well, I’ve got some attractive ladies in a foreign land, this has got to be a kidnapping or a sex trafficking film. My sensibilities are my own worst enemy sometimes, because with James Cullen Bressack’s film “Pernicious”, it really is like that leftover Whitman’s sampler from Valentine’s Day. You never know what you are going to get.
It begins with three young women from the States arriving in Thailand for a humanitarian teaching gig. This film is the perfect example of the less you know about the film going in, the more fun going along for the ride is going to be. It could be a slasher film at this point for all we know. Young, nubile girls moving into a strange house. It’s like summer camp or a house by the lake, only with better architecture. The house is splendid by the way, with eastern accents inside and out, and a curious golden statue of a little girl that heads up the list of exotic brick-a-brack.
After settling in, they make a trek into town, and meet these Eurotrash guys at the local bar. In a moment of poor decision making, they invite them back to the house. Maybe the sex trafficking angle might come in here. These guys are clearly looking at the American girls as the flavor of the week, and when the house liquor runs out, the girls drink from a sketchy flask that one of them pulls from a coat pocket. Here’s where the familiar road splits.
All three women share a dream about themselves, their dates, and some “Hostel” type torture. It’s not what you think. After “Hostel”, I realized that there was always the possibility of running across a place where Americans are hated worse than, well nothing. Meeting strangers and hooking up too easily always, always spells trouble anyway. You would think that the girls are being subjected to the torture, but not so. The guys pay the price for the horror trope of the easy hook up.
I’ve got to compliment the practical effects and foley work for the eye gouging and the evisceration that may necessitate watching it through space between your pointer and middle fingers if that kind of stuff pushes a button with you. When morning comes, the women think they have been drugged because the men are nowhere to be found, they all had the same hazy, horrific dream, and the golden statue of the little girl is gone. After a fruitless trip into town to get some answers, and a peculiar siting of a little girl, they are led to the hangout of the local witch that lights the fuse to a supernatural firecracker of bad mojo. Turns out that the golden statue of the little girl is a dark artifact with a pretty horrific past. I enjoyed this film for simple reason that I had no idea where it was headed at any given time.
Foreshadowing and exposition comes from characters and places that are completely unexpected, and closure comes with a pretty unsettling ending. “Pernicious” pulls up all the road signs along the way to a dark destination unknown. No one is safe.
SOURCE: More Horror – Read entire story here.