Her Name Was Torment

Director - Dustin Mills (Kill That Bitch, Night of the Tentacles)
Starring - Brandon Salkil (Easter Casket, Skinless), Allison Fitzgerald (Easter Casket, Theatre of the Deranged II), and Jackie McKown (Night of the Tentacles, Bath Salt Zombies)
Release Date - 2014
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Sex. Pain. Torture. Perversion"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection)

Rating (out of 5):

     Horror can come in many different shapes and sizes.  Horror can be light-hearted and filled with humor while giving the viewer different horror elements or themes.  Horror can also be campy and cliched giving the viewer more of the same with no added value or benefits.  There is also the extreme horror movement that is "plaguing" the underground indie scene.  These extreme films take topics and situations that are usually too taboo and uncomfortable for the typical horror fan and exploits that.  Director Dustin Mills is more known for his visually stunning horror comedies such as Easter Casket, Puppet Monster Massacre, and Night of the Tentacles.  However, Mills recently went the more darker and menacing route with his newest flick Kill That Bitch before focusing all his time on his other production company Crumbleshack Films.  The first film from CF is Her Name Was Torment which is one Mills promised would to be completely different than his other films.  I don't know if that was a brilliant marketing tactic or a fair warning but I had to see it so I ordered a copy.

     The film follows a young man as he walks innocently down the street.  The young man is unaware that a young girl, with a jacked up face, is stalking him as he walks down a quiet suburban neighborhood.  She nabs him and takes him back to her pad where she tortures and slowly kills him.  This is not her first murder, in fact, she has been doing this for a very long time and keep the corpses around to screw as she waits for the new victim to die.  She is eventually caught and the police send in a doctor to examine her.  She then goes on a incoherent ramble about how angels destroyed her face for God and they need the body parts for an unknown reason.

     Dustin Mills is a man I greatly admire and respect regardless of what I think of certain films of his.  Just like with George A. Romero, John Carpenter, and David Cronenberg have made films that did not satisfy all their fans.  Her Name Was Torment, just like Mill's Bath Salt Zombies, is a very solid film but just did not hit the spot like the other Mills films.  This film also makes good on it's promise and gives use a film that assaults our senses and fucks our eye sockets unlike any of his other films.  The acting in this one is hard to judge due to the way the movie is filmed.  Salkil is very convincing as a torture victim and his struggles are very visible.  However, the star of the show and the beautiful Allison Fitzgerald is able to remain incredibly sexy while wearing a vile mask and wielding crude torture devices.  She really needs more speaking roles or at least roles where she stands around nude and we can actually see her face.  The story for this one is very unique and different than any other Mills film to date. Mills takes a stab at extreme horror and more specific the torture porn sub-genre with a dab of necrophilia to really make you question just how fucked up you really are.  The film has some beautifully shot torture scenes that is as beautiful as it is unnerving.  The film also has a very crafty necrophilia scene that will oddly turn you on...at least it did me!  However, the story is not very fluid.  The interrogation scenes do not work very well at helping the story unfold but that was intentional.  Intentional or not, it was not really something I could dig.  Finally, the film has some solid practical effects and I'm sure Dustin Mills was able to throw in some visual effects that went unnoticed due to the way the movie was filmed.  Overall, Her Name Was Torment is another solid film from the indie genius that is Dustin Mills.  The film has beautiful women, insane special effects, and an insane story.  Though I was not a fan of the dialogue and the incoherent ramblings of the deranged psychopath the film was able to draw me in and make me want more.  That also sparks an interest for a sequel to see where this fucked up story can and will go!