Angels Near Death

With his debut feature film, director and scriptwriter Hungyu Kuo creates an adult horror comedy that stars Bryan Scamman, Llana Barron, Kaitlin Sanders and Sebastian Louis.

The screenplay is sort of separated into two stories that are connected and take place in Los Angeles, one involving Oscar (Scamman), a set dresser who attempts to communicate with his late wife, Victoria (Sanders) and the other is about Alice (Barron), a journalist who interviews a photographer named Art (Andy Gates), an event that leads to a rather nasty encounter later. All this includes other characters, such as Henry (Louis), a nurse and former filmmaker, Cher (Jessica Lee), an assistant director and a talking penis.

This one-hour-and-ten-minute-long feature has eccentric characters, plenty of adult humour, plenty of talk regarding films and plenty of gore (both fake in the movie world and real in the movie world). Generally, things are less about story and more about the characters and the situations they find themselves dealing with, be it reflecting on their lives, having dreams to accomplish, speaking to their partner's ghost or having a conversation with a penis that can talk (which is rather unconvincing). This film certainly has weird stuff going on, some of which is quite disturbing and nasty, be it the scene involving Oscar and a chair or a rather graphic scene of genitals being mutilated and it is this content that stands out the most because it is shocking.

Big commendations go to Abhinay Pandit for the terrific work on the cinematography and to composer Solo Wang for the eerie music that involves violin melodies. Speaking of music, the song Angels, Angels by Any Kind Of Bread was a great choice.

The performances and the script create strange and interesting characters. Scamman plays a man who is struggling to come to terms with the loss of his partner and resorts to witchcraft in an attempt to reunite with her. Sanders is versatile with her acting, portraying a nurse in an...unusual uniform, a pregnant woman and an angel. Barron plays a journalist who seems to feel some level of contempt towards men and also proves to be deranged. The experiences that her character goes through make her role the most dynamic. Louis has the part of Henry, a friendly and well-meaning nurse, Alice's partner and a friend of Oscar and Victoria. And then there is Art, a professional photographer who turns out to be quite a fiend.

A lot of self-reflection goes on in this story, with people discussing goals to pursue, working in the film industry and romantic relationships. Furthermore, this feature also develops a version of the afterlife and explores mental health, loss and suicidal tendencies. It could be argued that there is a degree of misandry, with male characters being portrayed as untrustworthy, sex-driven and aggressive.

Afterlife, film industry, romance, violence. With a great deal of blood and sexual content, this feature is not for everyone. The target audience is probably viewers who appreciate adult and dark humour.