Film Review: Victor Juliet’s Director’s Cut (2009)

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SYNOPSIS:

VICTOR JULIET’S DIRECTOR’S CUT is a feature length horror film structured as an anthology. The film is composed of five segments.

REVIEW:

Written & Directed by: Victor Juliet
Starring: Victor Juliet, Rachel Ward, Peter Thomas

QUICK FIX:

In this quirky tale told in five acts, the world’s newest, cleverest, and bestest no-budget indie filmmaker known as Victor Juliet sets out to make the most realistic zombie movie ever made by saying “f*ck the special effects budget, Rachel needs more smokes” and using real zombies attacking very real and unsuspecting human victims, and together with his cohorts will stop at nothing to ensure this goal is accomplished splendidly, and God help the pretentious assclown who gives his new zombie epic a bad review lest he go all KILL BILL on your ass! Bullets fly, blood flows, wackiness ensues, and the 4th wall is broken faster than you can sing “This is the theme to Garry’s show, the theme to Garry’s show, this is the music that you hear as you watch the credits…”

RAMBLINGS:

Ok, I’ve gotta admit right off the bat that while my reviewing gigs for the past few years have been beyond cool, and I’ve made some really kickass friends along the way, and have met and worked with some very talented and hard-working folks doing that thing they do in the indie horror scene, sometimes something drops in my lap that makes me say to myself, “Dude (that’s me), even though I don’t get paid in monetary compensation for my reviews, I really have the coolest f*cking job on the planet.” And you know something? I’m right.

As we’re taken though the first act, WILL WORK FOR FOOD, a drifter holding said sign is picked up by a dude to help him with a most interesting proposition. And no, it doesn’t entail him dressing up as Little Bo Peep.

From there, we segue into WILL DIRECT FOR FOOD, as the 4th wall is broken, but in quirky documentary/interview style, and all through the rest of the acts – CALLBACK, TEST SCREENING, and CRITICAL REVIEW, we see what lengths Victor and his cronies will go to in order to make the best damn zombie epic ever.

All three leads, while obviously not professional actors, are still very entertaining throughout. And no matter what is unfolding in front of you in what segment, be it obvious comedy or nefarious plotting, you can tell these lucky bastards are having the time of their lives doing what they’re doing, and that’s really all that we as viewers can ask for.

Victor Juliet, a dude I’ve never heard of until watching his movie last night, is one of my new favorite filmmakers. He took a concept that could have been butchered (and would have by an actual movie studio), spun it on it’s head a few times, made it his bitch, chewed it up, swallowed it, let it gestate for a couple minutes, then yarfed it back up into a bowl for all of us to enjoy! I’m very much looking forward to either a sequel to this, or a new project, or whatever comes next from this dude…because this dude abides!!

LAST WORDS:
The really cool thing about this is that if you simplify this flick to its lowest common denominator, it’s the film equivalent to a concept album like Rush’s 2112 or Queensryche’s Operation Mindcrime…sure, each segment can be watched separately and stand on its own, but you really don’t get the full effect unless you do the whole thing from start to finish.

A word of warning though – it’s not for everyone – this is truly no-budget guerilla filmmaking in its purest form like back in the days of the Golden Age of Troma. The audio goes from blaring to barely audible, sometimes in the same scene; the effects are done simply and on the fly, the plot is hokey yet original and somehow they pull it all off. A second word of warning – you must already come equipped with an open mind and a sense of humor in order to truly enjoy this flick for what it is. Me, I haven’t laughed so hard and been so entertained by such an original concept done in the indie horror world in quite some time.

Victor Juliet’s Director’s Cut (2009)