Her Name Was Torment (2014)

(out of 5)

Her Name Was Torment (2014)
directed by:  Dustin Mills
starring:  Brandon Salkil, Allison Egan, Jackie McKown, Dustin Mills
Format: NTSC Region 1  Personal Collection:  Limited Edition 3 of 40

Everyone flipped out about this movie in terms of nastiness.  I'm sorry as an avid watcher of sickness I don't see it.  Was the film for everyone?  No way.  No matter what the ridiculous hipster "I only watch and report on extreme cinema" people say this stuff is not for everyone and should never be.  I'm simply saying the movie didn't hit the extreme sensor I was assuming it would, I had the same problem with Hostel.   That being said by no means am I taking down the caliber of great cinematography that this film is.  From beginning to end I really enjoyed the visual effects of the film.  I'd try and speculate how they were all done but when you know how Dustin Mills operates you know that he is very deceptive in his techniques.  What you think is one type of obvious effect turns out to be another.  Dustin for me is a goldmine of cinematic creativity and every movie he makes proves this over and over.  Her Name Was Torment is not my favorite of his but I have a couple of issues with it and overall the movie was yet another great addition to his film list. 

            First just to get them out of the way my issues were only two.  The finger nail effects were sub-par for Mr. Mills who to me is a master of special effects visual and otherwise.  Mostly I enjoy seeing his non-traditional take on practical effects but this was not the case with this one scene.  The bloody finger stubs were on point but the nails themselves just didn't seem to go with the flow of fx.  Now to get to my second tiny issue with the movie I did not find some of the acting up to par here from Brandon Salkil.  I really hate writing that because I love Brandon in everything else he's been in most especially the Ballad of Skinless Pete where his range truly shined.  This one however he fell short in a couples of small scenes.  The agony of the torture he was enduring especially during the removal of teeth I would think would have prevoked more of a reaction than he was producing in that scene in particular.  But again Brandon is a top notch actor in the "sub-genre" of independent film and no one gets it right every time, frankly it was only a couple of scenes the rest his suffering was quite genuine.   Overall he's still one of the best actors in all of independent cinema.   

           

Back to the awe of surreal chaotic madness that was this film.  "It's his will and his will is divine and perfect..." this line echoes at the beginning and towards the end of the film just keep going through my head.  The writing done for the story and dialogue are very well done and had me drawn in from the beginning I love a good serial killer yarn and for me that's what it was.  We are brought into an asylum of some sort interviewing a young lady who has supposed to have killed and tortured 27 people 24 of which cannot be identified.  You discover rather quickly why these others can't be identified.  The mask, the grainy look of the color shooting, the black and white shooting, this whole film for me was an art piece.  Maybe that's why I don't see it in the category of just a sick movie mostly for the hipster extreme cinema people.  Dustin makes his movies with such an artistic diversity it's hard sometimes to put into words everything I feel when watching his movies.  I mean I've watched this 3 times and I've got something different every time so far. 

     "A ghost killing ghosts..." another line continuing to echo in my head after watching it.  The writing again for this one was just plain spectacular.  This is what I want when I watch what is considered, "extreme cinema".  I've seen everything from real life garbage cinema, German and Asian splatter, wasteful trash like the Vomit Dolls etc, etc.  Nothing for me in the genre of extreme films is better when it's well rounded enough to be well written, acted, and shot.  This is a prime example of what in my opinion extreme cinema should be all about.  But people say Human Centipede 2 was just sick to be sick and I couldn't disagree more so what can you do.
     In the end all that needs said is that if you're a fan of Salkil, Mills, extreme cinema, or great independent filmmaking you should really get your hands on a copy of this.  There's a lot more to this film but as always I don't like spoiling everything.  Thanks again Dustin Mills for your constant hard work in all that you do.