Movie Review: Dysmorphia

Dysmorphia
Review by Rob Perez

If it’s the one thing I’m gaining a better grasp of as my new job of film critic expands is this – there’s certainly different flavors of everything. As someone who comes from a primarily music-oriented background where that rule seeming always applies no matter what the genre, I’m happily finding the same is very true when it comes to film.

Take “Dysmorphia,” for example. This 2015 throwback to home-grown horror wears those different lo-fi flavors right on its sleeve. A film comprised of several different short stories & subliminal messages all while telling a primary plotline (a la…ahem….”V/H/S”), the pseudo-serious cheese factor is what makes “Dysmorphia” work. Even one of the primary protagonists states it plainly – “There’s beauty in VHS.”

That VHS beauty is, again, what sells this film. As our two main characters in the primary story-line keep popping in tape after tape into a VCR, you already know you’re about to get that home movie experience, which allows you to focus more on what’s actually happening in all the stories. There’s genuine tension in “I Dare You” and the gloriously creepy “Knockers,” as well as the intentional “Sharknado”-esque comedy in “Fatal Error” (3 words – DEATH BY GRAPEFRUIT). However, a fair warning – that same mono quality gives shorts like “So, We Killed Our Parents” and especially “Sane” a very jarring, almost snuff-like feel.

Come for the Professor Belding cameo (I’M NOT KIDDING), stay for the feeling of being immersed in horror camp – “Dysmorphia” is a surprisingly strong compilation.

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