Film Review: Feto Morto (2003)

SYNOPSIS:

In a nutshell: A funny-looking geek who was born with a foetus head growing out of the side of his skull – hence the ‘Dead Fetus’ of the title – is the constant target for a group of Satan worshipping scumballs who stalk the streets looking for trouble. The geek eventually decides that enough is enough, and he goes on a voyage of discovery whereby he murders a tramp with a broken bottle, learns shaolin kung fu, and then returns to dish out some fatal punishment on the gang.

REVIEW:

Directed by Fernando Rick

The film kicks off with the group of vicious deviants walking the streets wearing Black Vomit t-shirts (might as well get your cast members to plug your wares, no one else will). A young mother is beaten to death in the presence of her baby. The baby is then lifted from its pushchair and pulverized onto the ground, where it soils itself in convulsive death spasms. A young man across the street says something, so the gang ventures over and cut open his scrotal sack, play with his severed testicles, and then beat him to death. A homeless guy just sitting there minding his own business is the next target; they piss on him, kick him around the pavement for a while, then toss him into a ditch before setting him on fire. The geek is attacked in a children’s playground and left for dead. And this entire opening sequence is played out to a gritty, adrenaline-fueled, higgledy-piggledy metal soundtrack (or whatever type of metal it is, as there are so many sub-genres nowadays it’s hard to keep up).

Geek boy arranges a ‘date’ with a whore, so he takes a shower and heads off to her place offering her a rose and an apple as a gift. She tosses the rose over her shoulder, and the poor lad is so nervous he pukes on the apple. But this doesn’t stop her from taking a bite out of it. They strip off and have some fun time on the sofa, but his nerves get the better of him again, and he pukes his white baby vomit all over her. That night he dreams of being stabbed to death by a nude woman who then rubs the blood onto her body.

Meanwhile, the heavy gang continue terrorizing the streets, shooting and beating to death anyone who crosses their path, while the black metal blasts out on the soundtrack; even in Portuguese, the lyrics can be easily deciphered, and they go something like “RRRROOOAAARRRRR, I’VE GOT A SCARY VOICE AND A BURNING HEMARROID, RRRROOOAAARRRR!!!” The two-headed geek is beaten some more, and an innocent guy pissing against the wall has hisjunk severed and his guts pulled out and his arm ripped off. The gang member then carries the severed arm back across the road, and the geek is beaten with the dismembered limb. One of the gang members is female, and she has a mesmerizing cleavage. You know the film is in trouble,when the only thing worth looking at in the entire movie is a chick’s cleavage.

After this casual bit of street savagery, the ‘plot’ breaks off into a free-form exercise in tedium. We get guerrilla footage of street performers, a coke-head priest who cures an invalid and burns a bible. The newly cured cripple then ventures into the street running for joy; but sod’s law has it that he immediately slips in dog crap and is run over by a passing car – both of his legs are severed. That night, the geek boy is the victim of an attempted rape by a homeless bum, and he reacts by smashing a bottle and stabbing the tramp to death. He then has a chance encounter with Satan, who takes him to the beach and teaches him a crude form of self-defense, Highlander-style. Geek boy then returns to the streets and exacts his bloody revenge on the Black Vomit scum. The end……

As you can probably gather, Feto Morto has a very silly, tongue-in-cheek vibe to it, but this doesn’t excuse how bloody awful it is. Just because you’re aware of how crap your movie is, doesn’t make it any less reprehensible in the eyes of those having to sit through this mess. With a slim running-time of around an hour, the acting is frankly poor, with the cast members like passengers on a nose-diving plane assuming that if they all fart hard enough, they can lift it back into the sky. And it can’t even be recommended to those who enjoy ‘bad movies’. Lloyd Kaufman and Troma are thanked in the end credits whose films look like glitzy Hollywood blockbusters compared to this.

I’d never heard of Black Vomit Filmes before I saw this, and now I can understand why; even fans of the Olaf Ittenbach German school of DIY UNspecial FX could look down on this film. And when you try to fart a plane back into the sky, you only succeed in making the atmosphere unpleasant for everyone. And spoiling the in-flight movie. And making the stewardess weep. And as such, this film can only be recommended to those who regularly sit in front of the TV and can endure the misery.

Feto Morto (2003)