Low budget art-house horror film that so few people understand, or appreciate. 16 year-old Bobby (Danny Lopes) has only vague memories of his dead mother, a psychotic woman who abused and terrified Bobby as a little boy, by keeping him in a cage and surrounding him with disturbing, unhealthy images of hell. Probably a religious fanatic, she died while Bobby was still very young. 11 years later a mysterious and menacing looking nun appears at the Catholic School Bobby is attending. The nun bears a striking resemblance... to Bobby's dead mother! Of course the withdrawn loner Bobby doesn't realize as he has no clear memory of what she looked like, and when he accidentally kills her with his flying toy airplane, all hell breaks loose: literally! We learn, through a series of bizarre hallucinations, nightmares, and flashbacks that Bobby experiences, that his dead mother had come back as a nun to once again be close to her son. When the accident sends her back to hell, she decides to exact revenge, and use the boy... to escape again, from hell. A chilling tale, executed beautifully by first time director Dante Tomaselli. The acting by all is not always professional, but it is passionate and everyone lends their character life and drama. Irma St. Paul as Bobby's grandmother is wonderful to watch, with her Italian accent and dramatic outbursts, and she looks like she is 100 years old! There is a menacing priest with piercing eyes who thinks nothing of slipping the kids Valium to keep them in line, and for the (much needed) comic relief, we have Donato, the very Italian Uncle who is convinced everyone around him is nuts, until he sees for himself, the ghostly image of the "nun from hell." Featuring some deliriously menacing images of flying scissors, living, creeping plant life, nuns with burnt skin, hellish clowns, and an unforgettable image of the lone nun stepping out of a hearse and motioning to Bobby to come to her, causing him to urinate in his pants! Along with that are some beautiful surreal images of the Gothic Catholic church and school, surrounded by trees and their changing colors of Autumn, windswept forests and nuns wandering around with their habits billowing in the breeze, and one unforgettable scene with the boy waking up outdoors, inside a circle of red roses, while a rainbow lingers in the background. The fact that "Desecration" has only a 2 star rating here shocks me, and I'm a bit saddened by how few people can truly appreciate a real, foreign inspired horror film done in the style of the 70's greats. Have CGI and gore laden throwaway movies like "Devils Rejects" and "Saw 2" destroyed the ability for people to recognize the artistic beauty and intelligence of art-house films like this?
Review of Desecration
