Fetus (2008) — Triskaidekafiles

FETUS

WRITER: Brian Paulin

DIRECTOR: Brian Paulin

STARRING: Nette Detroy as Sarah

Brian Paulin as Kevin

Kevin Barbare as Record Store Clerk

Yael Sanchez as Nurse

Joe Olsen as Medical Assistant

Richard Caron as C-Section Specialist

Ernest Hutcherson as Head Surgeon

QUICK CUT: Following the loss of his wife and unborn child during the birth, a man spends some time trying to come to terms with his grief.

THE MORGUE

Kevin - A husband who loses his wife at the worst time possible. He was a loving, caring man, who will do anything to see her again.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! In my quest to find the weirdest, the wildest, the worst, the best, and the unheard, I have made my way to...Fetus. A very low budget gooey gorefest that sounded right up my alley. And I am fighting REALLY hard not to joke about alleys and dumpsters and fetuses right now.

The movie kicks things off with a pregnant woman trying to give birth, and things going horribly wrong, as she and the baby die during the procedure.

As the expcetant father receives the awful news, we fade into the credits, and you know I only bring them up when I have a complaint. The font is hard to read on the best of days, but THEN it doubles on top of itself, and one layer is stretched over the other, smearing the brief names into complete illegibility.

Kevin spends a lot of time grieving, remembering happier flashbacks with his wife, until he breaks out a video camera. He sees something through the viewfinder that I can only describe as a baby Fresno Nightcrawler lurking around.

He spends a lot of time trying to catch this thing on film, probably thinking it's his lost child, but it fails to turn up.

This leads Kevin to hit up the local record/occult shop, asking if they have any books for contacting the dead. Y'know, as one does.

I spent so much money on this camera, and forgot to see if it was equipped with night vision!

So Kevin heads home with his dark tome, and starts reading up on his necromancy homework. The problem is, raising the dead does not come cheap, and it will require blood to grease the wheels.

He stalks a someone as they are getting in their car and...you know what? I'm just gonna jump ahead. This was NOT obvious as I was watching it the first time through, until VERY late in the movie, and I'm still not 100% sure of it, but I'm fairly certain that the sacrifices Kevin chooses to make for the rituals are all people who were in the operating room with his wife.

But before Kevin grabs that person, he instead grabs two others who were involved. And say as much, so I missed that dialogue the first time through. And that's on me.

He mutilates the two bodies, popping the head off one with a crowbar (!), smashing the face in of the other, and skinning at least one of them. It's gooey and gruesome, and amazing for this kind of budget.

Kevin breaks down the bodies like he's filleting a chicken for Gordon Ramsay, arranges them around himself with candles and sigils and everything.

But all it does is make a hell of a mess, and does not bring his wife or baby back.

Ade due Damballa, give me the power I beg of you!

So he heads back to the occult shop to complain that his necromancy is not working as advertised. But all sales are final, and there's nothing the owner can do, if Kevin is not satisfied.

Which just means the obvious answer is...pour more blood into the meat grinder, this time supplied by the shopkeep! Now that is how you speak to a manager.

He ends up tied up down in the basement, and he starts throwing up blood, and throwing up whole organs, and Jebus dude, too much ipecac!

Oh, but it is not over for the guy. He threw up so much, his face exploded right off. It is...gruesome. To say the least.

And he is somehow still not dead, gurgling and writhing around, so Kevin grabs him, reaches into his face...and I dunno? Choke him normally? Cover up the esophagus hole? Find the off button? Shove a thumb into his brain??

Whatever it is he does, Kevin puts the poor bastard out of his misery. And I like the touch that they show this is NOT easy for Kevin. He doesn't do this all the time. These are acts of a desperate man, and they weigh upon him.

Just...holy shit. I was NOT expecting this gorefest, and I kinda need a second after all that.

Kevin cleans himself up, and heads to bed, and is plagued by possible nightmares, but at this point, who even knows?

He hears a baby crying, and finds a woman holding it, but the woman is revealed to be a corpse. Well, what did you all want for necromancy?? A rubber biscuit??

Kevin finds another victim, and drains her of her blood. Gotta feed the meat for the grinder, and this is all leading to the ritual calling for him to fuck a corpse.

And that's when the peeling of flesh off his penis starts. Yeah, this movie...is a trip. It is throwing a lot at you.

After cleaning up, he heads back down to the basement, hoping for SOMETHING to happen after all that and then...

Okay.

He applies compressions to her belly for SOME reason, and suddenly something comes SHOOTING out of the corpse’s vagina, like he just popped a blood balloon.

The sac dribbles out and lands in a trash bucket and...did I just see that?? Okay, no, now I need a minute, fuh.

This is what they don’t tell you about the stork bringing you a baby.

Kevin digs through the muck and goo, and comes out with several dead baby heads. Yes, they're clearly doll heads, but I'm gonna allow it.

He also has to cut the one head off the lone whole baby that came with the rest. Sometimes it's cheaper to get them whole and butcher hem yourself at home.

What follows is...a number of scenes that are really pushing my limits of what I want to share. There is a millipede that gets removed from a penis, and we'll leave it at that.

This movie is making me see things I never thought I'd be seeing. I love it and hate it for this

Anyways, Kevin sets about making a contraption with some junk around the house, the dead babies, and his dead fuckbuddy.

Marty, I came up with it when I hit my head in the shower! I call it the what the fucks capacitor!

So he fires this thing up, and...were the instructions for this in the manual, or are we winging it, or divine...er, infernal inspiration? Eh, I guess it doesn't matter.

This is sold to us as being Pretty Epic Indeed, through the music, and camerawork, and I'd argue it's warranted. This has been fairly well built up.

And long story short, something comes through.

What comes through is a mangled, mutilated, half formed body of what used to be Kevin’s wife. She's got nodules all over her, is barely able to speak, and in generally bad shape. Some AMAZING puppetry work.

However, she did not come alone, and something else tears it's way out of the other woman's corpse. Man, she just had like...what? Quintuplets?

What comes through...can't even be described as human. It possesses some human traits, like arms, and a head, but really, there endeth the similarities.

Would you still love me if I was a freakishly malformed bubbly half corpse from Hell?

Brian gets a gun, and has a chat with his corpse bride. She tells him he should have left them alone, which is a giant Duh, but here we are.

Oh, and plot twist, she reveals the baby didn't die, and the creature made Kevin forget, so he would perform the rituals and make it possible for it to come to Earth.

Oopsie!

And that's not all (Is it ever with this movie?), Kevin is giving birth himself, to something, and the only way out is for it to rip him apart and come out his dick. Because why not at this point?

I swear, if THIS baby starts flying around looking for a necrophilliac zombie...

The demon creature comes and finds dear old dad, and tears his head clean off, like he's removing a bottle cap.

And to end things out, the demon monster flings the dick baby across the room and splats it on the wall. So everyone loses.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It’s fairly okay. It’s clearly shot on 2000s era video cameras, but it looks good for what it is.

Audio: It sounds all right.

Sound Bite: "It's illegal to tie people up without their permission!"

Body Count: Doesn’t quite reach double digits, but we get a death roughly every ten minutes, so that’s not bad.

1 - A mother dies giving birth to the opening credits.

2 - Random dude gets knifed in the back before he can take a piss.

3 - Doctor gets his head crowbarred off

4 - Third rando gets his face smashed in and peeled apart.

5 - Store clerk uh...uh he goes through some shit.

6 - Random woman is sacrificed

7 - Demon creature rips off Kevin's head

8 - And then flings the baby against the wall

Best Corpse: You ain’t topping that store clerk’s death. That might not be topped before the end of the year maybe.

Blood Type - A: Top notch stuff. Creative, blood all over the place, and fantastic effects for this low budget.

Sex Appeal: Occasional nudity, and necrophilia.

Drink Up! every time the movie honks

Movie Review: The narrative is a little messy (in more ways than one) but once you thread the pieces together, and find the story, it’s fairly coherent. And some of the missed bits, as I said, were on me. It happens. But, for the flaws of this movie, it really is just shooting to be a shocking gorefest, and it succeeds at that, so I sure can’t fault it. It’s exactly what it wants to be. It might be rough around the edges, but that’s part of it’s harm. Still, it’s a bit obtuse, and love challenging the viewer to a dare the entire time, so this is a bit rougher to get through than usual. Two out of five baby heads.

Entertainment Value: There’s very little here to laugh at. A few bits of dark humour, a few light moments before murder, and one or two performances that make you chuckle. But this movie is dark, deals with heavy subjects, and it smears its sleazy nature all over your face, and asks you to lick it up. I’ve often said that the Human Centipede is a movie I like, a movie I can appreciate, because it is well made, and challenging, but I would never ever recommend it to anyone to watch. And “Fetus” is much the same. A well made movie that is good gorey grindhouse shocking entertainment, but only if you’;re into that sort of thing. If that IS your bag, then this is an easy recommend, but I’ve laid it out there, you know what you’re in for. I enjoyed my time, and the craft, and just, what an experience, that I won’t soon forget. Three out of five crowbars to the neck.