REVIEW: Turn Heel

Review by- “Scratchy” Pete Ellott.

“…The day Verne brought home his trophy…”

In professional wrestling, a heel (also known as a rudo in lucha libre) is a wrestler who is villainous or a “bad guy”, who is booked (scripted) by the promotion to be in the position of being an antagonist. In the world of lucha libre wrestling, heels are generally known for being brawlers and for using physical moves that emphasize brute strength or size, often having outfits akin to demons, devils, or other tricksters.

2016 and Directors Matt Freckingham and Jason Impey bring us this 20 minute horror short with an emphasis on getting it on…outside of the ring.

“Something we have wanted to make for ages” Matt mentions to me…”now that it’s out we can move onto the next project.”

A passion. A starting point. A statement. I take my hat off to any Indie filmmaker that can get their art onto disc and out to the public forum these days.

Wrestling.

Masked.

Infatuation.

Torment leads to a clear goal in life…

20 years later.

The “heel” has turned…

“Kill them all.”

As bush bound buddies head to the woods for some pop up camping fun.

Unaware…

Of another donning the mask…

Similar to their own…

But this one brings revenge.

Watching. Waiting.

Patient.

For separation…

Of flesh and bone.

As the search begins for fallen friends.

Gutted.

To find their remains.

As enemies are crushed and slammed by brute strength…

Taking the spoils of victory…

To a whole new level.

Mine.

“None is safe.”

Low budget with grainy shutter stutter, this one concentrates on what it can do rather than what it can’t do. Limited purely by budget. Capturing the normalcy of interactions between friends extremely well – I am assuming there may well have been ad-hoc improvisation here but I can’t be sure. Either way, it worked very well.

The sound at the outset was difficult for me to grasp and the premise to the story a little lost – torment by wrestling peers…I wondered before reading the plot whether the protagonist’s Father was in-fact being revenged based on the age of the wrestlers we saw in the ring. This wasn’t an issue in the overall effect the film wanted to portray but the voices from his mind were somewhat unclear to me.

The soundtrack – I have to say hearing another angst metal track makes me cringe at times. Angst and anger are clear enough from the actions of the lead. Too much “anger and hatred” make the whole feeling a bit desperate (and I say that as a generalisation for many Indie movies who use the same sort of score – my opinion and my opinion only).

I enjoyed the wrestling scenario – fans are stalwarts and the sport itself a worldwide known industry. It helps make the viewer comfortable with the premise and it also makes the revenge factor easier to understand – Because besides the voices in our killer’s head at the outset, there are no other words uttered by him.

It’s a simple enough revenge flick where the cast and crew can get a feel of how the pieces all slot together, have some fun with the storyline and enjoy making the gore effects for the onscreen kills which are pretty damn good considering budget. I definitely got a German splatter vibe from those kills.

A nice little short with an interesting premise.

Review by- “Scratchy” Pete Ellott.