Pandemonium (2023) (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Aug 12, 2024
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
QuarxxRelease Date(s)
2023 (May 28, 2024)Studio(s)
Transgressive Production/Film Seekers (Arrow Video)- Film/Program Grade: B
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: A-
Review
Knowing the derivation of the word “pandemonium” might help in understanding the film of the same name. Its mixed Greek and Latin etymology translates as “the place of all demons.” John Milton originated the word to represent the capital of hell in Paradise Lost. A modern dictionary defines pandemonium as bedlam, chaos, mayhem, havoc or madness. All of these meanings apply to the unusual horror film Pandemonium.
First we see a man, Nathan (Hugo Dillon), lying in the middle of a road, dazed. As the camera pans, we see his wrecked car and assume he was in a bad accident. Another man, Daniel (Arben Bajraktaraj), appears. He was riding a motorbike when Nathan’s car hit him. Daniel tells Nathan they’re dead. Nathan initially resists but soon accepts that reality. Gradually, we learn more about the two men as the film explores guilt, personal responsibility, and human nature.
As the weather turns into a frigid snowstorm, two gates appear, one an ornate entrance to Heaven, the other an ominous-looking opening to a less pleasant world. From the first gate issues melodious trumpet music that only those called to Heaven can hear. From the other, screams and cries of the damned emanate. Hell, or the world of pandemonium, summons both Daniel and Nathan and they pass through the forbidding gate.
Through that gate is the first layer of the condemned men’s new world—a place of eternal suffering. Dust-covered dead bodies lie strewn on a barren landscape. As Daniel crawls about, inspecting the corpses, he sees the private hells of an evil child with a deformed buddy nicknamed Tony the Monster (Carl Laforet) and of a negligent parent, Julia (Ophelia Kolb), who failed to recognize signs that her daughter was being bullied mercilessly at school. The film elaborates on these stories within the story to spell out how and why these two individuals were condemned to this dreadful fate. The focus gradually shifts to others of the damned and away from Daniel and Nathan until ultimately we discover why they have been earmarked for this nightmare world.
Impressions of Hell have been visualized in many horror films, but director Quarxx takes an original approach. While there are enough horror ingredients like monsters, excessive blood, and terrifying images to qualify it as horror, the film poses many questions about an afterlife that offers only eternal despair. The director makes his images vivid and unsettling. As the characters suffer excruciating punishments for earthly transgressions, we feel their pain. Their eternal penance is literally worse than death.
Pandemonium is excellent at creating an atmosphere of utter anguish and desperation with images that seem inspired by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. Director Quarxx is relentless in the horrors he presents, making the film extremely intense. This is the kind of film that really gets under your skin. It constantly surprises. There’s a bond among sinners. Characters turn out to be other than what they seem. Punishment is both physical and psychological and gets increasingly worse.
From its Twilight Zone-esque opening, in which two men realize they’re dead, to their journey through Hell, Pandemonium draws the viewer in with its cinematography, music, special make-up effects, and an escalating feeling of dread. It doesn’t make simple or easy choices, but delves deeper to elicit a truly grim world. There’s no comic relief, no hope for a happy ending, and no “It was only a dream” to take the edge off. The film’s sheer seriousness is at the heart of why it works.
The integration of the three main stories should have been smoother. The script often struggles to blend characters and situations. We sometimes feel as if we’re being escorted through a fun-house of horrors with separate, unrelated exhibits. I wondered whether making the film a trilogy, with each episode about how a particular individual or group wound up in Pandemonium, would have been a better choice. Films with multiple stories by Edgar Allan Poe, for example, have been successful.
Pandemonium was captured digitally by directors of photography Didier Daubeach, Hugo Poisson, and Colin Wandersman and presented in the aspect ratio of 2.39:1. According to information in the enclosed booklet, Pandemonium’s “high definition master was provided by Film Seekers.” The cinematography of the opening sequence is particularly notable for its remote, stark, gray, and gloomy look. This effect may be attributable partly to weather but seems perfect for a scene that takes place in a transitional place between life and death. A bright, sunny day might have taken the viewer too far out of the story. The various levels of Hell are imaginatively rendered and artfully lit. The color palette ranges from the gray, overcast look of the opening scene to the reds and blacks of Hell. Blood dominates some scenes.
There are two soundtracks: French 2.0 LPCM and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. English subtitles are optional. Dialogue is clear and distinct. Sound is used more dramatically in the afterlife scenes, where Benjamin Leray’s highly atmospheric score does a solid job of conjuring the strangeness, terror, and bizarreness of the world of Pandemonium. In these scenes, sound comes from all directions to convey a completely immersive feel.
Bonus materials on the Blu-ray release from Arrow Video include the following:
- Different Textures (19:58)
- Tony the Monster (16:41)
- Filming a Real Birth (4:44)
- Premiere (3:58)
- Making-Of Featurette (22:37)
- Trailer (1:15)
Different Textures – Writer/director Quarxx recorded this interview for Arrow Films in 2023. He speaks in French, and English subtitles appear at the bottom of the screen. The theme of guilt fascinated Quarxx. He prefers innovation in story telling and takes viewers along an unusual path so they can’t anticipate what will happen. He likes to combine auteur and genre elements, and dislikes movies being pigeonholed. He says that a film should reflect different textures. He had to come up with a budget that would allow him the freedom to make the picture he envisioned. He speaks about a drastic turn in the weather that affected the opening scene, on the road where the accident occurred. Many planned elements of the sequence had to be scrapped. When he and the crew realized that weather was going to be a problem, they decided to film chronologically. A sequence featuring a young girl was based on a true story Quarxx had seen in an HBO documentary. The boom operator wound up composing the music for the film.
Tony the Monster – Director Quarxx and special make-up/FX supervisor Olivier Afonso talk, in French, about Tony, a representation of the psyche of a little girl who refuses to take full responsibility for her actions. Tony is a psychological defense mechanism. Afonso shows several creature structures from other films in his workshop. Speaking about his collaboration with the director, Afonso notes that he patterned Tony the Monster on a person with a deformity like the Elephant Man rather than make him a typical movie monster.
Filming a Real Birth – Once again, Quarxx speaks French in this featurette and English subtitles appear at the bottom of the screen. Quarxx wanted to show both the beauty and the trauma of birth, but it was difficult to find a mother willing to be filmed. For reasons of hygiene and security, only a limited number of crew were allowed in the delivery room. “It was a nightmare to film.” When the woman was close to giving birth, Quarxx and his small crew had to wait for 40 hours. There were complications and the baby had to be delivered via Caesarian section.
Premiere – This mini-documentary shows director Quarxx and audience members arriving for the premiere screening. Post-film comments from the audience range from some calling the film a masterpiece, others referring to it as a metaphysical film more than a horror film, and still others saying it raises questions.
Making-Of Featurette – We see the crew preparing sets, actors getting into body make-up, rehearsals, camera blocking, actors speaking about their roles, scenery being set up, and lighting being adjusted for atmospheric effect.
Booklet – The 28-page booklet contains the essay Drag Me to Hell: Death, Denial and Descent in Quarrx’s Pandemonium by Anton Bitel; Director’s Statement; Director’s Q&A; 17 color photos from the film, cast and crew list; and details about the film’s digital transfer. There’s also a double-sided 8 1/4” X 11 3/4” fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Dare Creative.
Pandemonium presents three stories combined to show how and why specific characters wind up in eternal damnation. It grabs you from the outset but then meanders for some time before reaching its denouement. The trip that director Quarxx takes us on isn’t pleasant, but his visualizations are quite amazing, especially considering that he was working on a limited budget. The film has the look of a far more costly production. I admire Quarxx’s desire to create more than just another horror flick, but because Pandemonium has no typical heroes, no comic relief, no happy ending, no hope that the tortures of the condemned will ever be relieved, it might be too intensely depressing for many. Nevertheless, its themes are thought-worthy and it’s definitely an original.
- Dennis Seuling