The dilemma of the Sitges festival with ‘glorious‘, director’s debut Rebekah McKendryIt must have been important. A film with a minimal budget but with gore, whose premise deals with a lovecraftian monster locked in the glory hole of a seedy bathroom it was material for the midnight sessions, however, it has ended up in the Panorama Fantàstic section, because deep down it’s not exactly what it seems.
There are deaths and special effects comedy typical of a midnight extreme, but also many dialogues and monologues, typical of this type of film in a single location, whose cosmic, bloody and darkly humorous journey falls on a single man trapped in a bathroom. A difficult concept to hold attention for an hour and twenty minutes, which is achieved, more or less, thanks to a script written by Todd Rigney, Joshua Hull and David Ian McKendry.
Lovecraft, dirty sex and cosmic secrets
for a few moments ‘Glorious’ Seems To Be Setting Us Up For An Erotic Cosmic Horror Parody, until it is revealed to us that the fate of the universe depends on the action set in the men’s piss of a gas station. Wes (Ryan Kwanton), who misses the woman in his life right now, is burning his memories by drinking himself drunk, and his resulting hangover leads him to a bathroom with a dark hole in which a monster and a voice from the other side are drawn. knows a lot about his life.
This starts a session of conversations between Wes and Ghat (J K Simmons), as the former is locked in the bathroom and realizes that the universe requires a favor from him, creating a parallel between the mysteries of Wes’s past and his current dilemma, with whatever this stranger wants from him. What starts out as a friendly but awkward conversation between strangers turns into a dark existential quest where the film unleashes its dark humor, intensifying the Lovecraftian horror of conversation.
If it works at some point it is thanks to its main actors, mainly Simmons, whom we never see (only Ghatanothoa), and whose serene interpretation composes a creature that can be seductive and understanding, but who never gives up his authority, in his moments of anger, being totally credible as what his character claims to be. There aren’t many scenes where more than two or three people interact and one of them is always a disembodied voice that doesn’t move from its post.
A good idea that stays there
Ryan Kwanten is still as funny as in ‘True Blood’ and at the level of visual storytelling, his work is essential so that everything is constantly moving, the couple makes an interesting give and take and the differences between their stories feel less and less forced, as if they began to flow smoothly towards the same conclusions towards the end, as if we had been attending a performance of a Samuel Beckett play through the filter of Stuart Gordon’s cinema.
The problem is that it never becomes as fun as it promises. Pulling off such a crazy idea seems to be enough, and McKendry walks the tightrope admirably. letting the bathroom environment not become monotonous and its VFX artists manage to execute with ease monsters and blood that in the end are the star of the show, and in the end that ends up being the main problem. Its spirit of ‘Re-Sonator’ does not quite gel with its tone of a camera piece and the dialogues are not as brilliant as the actors who broadcast them.
‘Glorious’ is enjoyable and manages to pack an interesting mystery about the lead into an absurd plot, and this is somehow a success, although Frank Henenlotter had done something similar before with a lot more attitude and unapologetic fun. The problem is that more than exciting and surprising how they take their idea forward, leaves the constant feeling that ways are constantly being sought to make it work and to fill in the idea to justify that they really gave for a film that they seem to understand as an academic exercise, rather than being fully convinced that they really had something interesting to tell.