Night of the Tentacles (2013)

NIGHT OF THE TENTACLES

WRITER: Dustin W. Mills

DIRECTOR: Dustin W. Mills

STARRING: Brandon Salkil as Dave

Nicole Gerity as Esther

Melissa Blair as Mona

Mike Blair as Iggy

Jackie McKown as Delilah

Eugene Flynn as Belial

Dustin Mills as Mr. Freck

Josh Eal as Burning Guy

QUICK CUT: After a heart attack, a young artist connects with the other people in his apartment building.

THE MORGUE

Dave - A scifi artist just trying to make ends meet, who has a thing for his downstairs neighbour. He’s your average guy, just keeping his head down and not make waves.

Esther - Dave’s love interest, a pregnant woman, and someone who has had a lot of pain come through her life. She’s trying though, and looking for the bright spots.

With a title like that, there’s no way this can go wrong.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! It’s Friday the 13th, but is it my lucky day? Well, we’re doing another weird shit in someone’s house movie, which totally should be a subgenre. Besides that, no big preamble this week, just gonna jump right into this movie I grabbed on a whim called Night of the Tentacles. Let's go for it!

Aaand the movie wastes no time, by making the very first frame be rather vigorous sex. While their pounding goes on, we meet our star, their next door neighbour, Dave. He's an artist, specialising in uh, mature content. And I don't blame him. I've been to DeviantArt, I know that shit sells.

Dave kicks in with some narration, and I shit you not, we are only two steps removed from "*record scratch* I bet you're wondering how I ended up in this situation", as he jumps forward from these admittedly odd happenings, to tell us about Saturday, when shit REALLY gets weird.

He waits as his downstairs neighbour, Esther, comes home. Then he scurries to find the 'right spot' in the hallway to lay down on his floor, and sync up his masturbating, knowing she's coming home to do exactly the same thing.

Once they both achieve climax, Dave, well, Dave has a heart attack. He wakes up some time later with his chest sewn back up, and luckily alive.

He died as he lived, jerking it on his kitchen floor.

While Dave recovers, and listens to his neighbours going at it again, the landlord stops by to hang out. And wow, Mr. Freck sure is a piece o' work. Just as pervy as everyone else in this movie.

Dave curls up on the floor, and listens to his obsession crying some more downstairs. He muses that he knows God doesn't exist, because if He did, then a creature as beautiful as she would never know pain.

Jerky McWanksalot passes out where he is, with less cardiac arrest this time, and is woken up in the middle of the night by someone calling his name.

I am never having anchovy pizza and jerking off before bed again.

A rave briefly breaks out in Dave's apartment, and once the light clears, standing before him is, as we are about to find out, I dunno, could it be...SATAN??

Dave has a moment of clairty, realising God must actually exist if the Devil is chilling in his living room, and there must be a Plan. The Devil says God's plan is to use AIDS and hunger to kill babies, make people suffer, and is a pretty shit deity.

I gotta say, Beelzebub makes some points.

Who would've guessed that the devil was a hefty dude who looks like Mothman fucked a Sleestak, wearing a sweatshirt?

To cut to the chase, Satan offers Dave a new heart, rips out his original one out of his old chest, and leaves the replacement in a literal chest sitting on his coffee table. As long as he takes care of the heart in the box, he will live forever.

Esther pays him a brief visit, and they make plans to hang out after they both pleasure themselves later. Everything’s coming up Milhouse!

That night, Dave is puttering around when he once again hears a voice calling out, but this one is asking to be fed. Uh oh, that never goes well.

If I was a guest asking for something to eat, I would be insulted.

So yeah, Dave's new heart is a sentient creature in a box, that can magically keep him alive, as long as it gets fed. And fed only the freshest meat.

The lid opens, and the movie freezes on Dave's face as he witnesses what the creature is, but leaving us in the dark. He muses about HP Lovecraft, and yeah, that's a clever way to save money and set the mood.

And to keep a long story from getting any longer, the baloney sandwich just isn't gonna cut it, and Heartley is going to need something more alive, more screamy, and more human.

So yeah, this is shaping up to be just Brain Damage, but hornier. Which I'm pretty okay with.

Fortunately, he has a bunch of horrible people around him to choose from, but naturally he draws the line at Esther.

After a walk to clear his head, Dave is interrupted by his upstairs neighbour, who is having issues with her pipes. She says they rattle every time Dave flushes his toilet. So Delilah asks if he can avoid flushing until its fixed. In a week.

Since he's not going to play along with her ludicrous demand, she threatens to poison is dog if he does flush his toilet.

And so Dave agrees to leave Heartley in the bathroom with his box unlatched, to take care of the whole problem.

Which leads to her getting a tentacle up the ass and out her mouth, before another strangles her dead.

This must be a bathroom in a children’s hospital.

Esther comes over for their date, it goes well, and things are looking up for our boy David! ...Until that night when he gets awoken by ANOTHER someone calling out his name!

THIS time, it's Belial, a dude in a suit, who is just there to make sure Dave is upholding his end of the EULA. Which he didn't read. Bahaha.

Best part of this scene is Belial's shock that Dave made the deal, and says he shoulda haggled. Which Dave didn't even know was an option. Mister L loves to make a deal!

Unfortunately, the terms of the agreement are that Dave must offer up two sacrifices a week, or the contract is terminated. And that will not be pleasant.

It’s been a business doing pleasure with you.

But Dave now has a problem. It's the end of the week, and he has to feed his heart something soon. So, he picks his landlord, to get rid of that piece of shit.

So he shows up, the heart stabs him and starts feeding, but then Dave starts to feel sick. Turns out Freck is a terrible specimen in poor health, and it begins to affect the two of them.

Heartley decides to put it all back, the landlord inflates, and he ends up exploding like Mister Creosote after a hearty meal.

Dave passes out from all this, and his dog scampers by...and ends up being eaten by the heart, since it still needed a second feeding. Even moreso after eating the trash that was Freck.

If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

He gets shitfaced in honour of Charlie's memory, and as one does when they're drunk, has much regrets over his recent decisions.

Satan shows up for a chat, and offers Dave a way out. All he has to do is kill two more people. Two very, specific, people. Esthter and her unborn baby.

Dave hears the neighbours going at it AGAIN, and since it's Saturday, and the start of the contractual week, he tosses the heart over to them so he can have his quota filled for the entire week.

Following a visit from Belial to conduct a customer satisfaction survey, Esther comes by to hang out, and the pair of them chat for a bit, particularly about names for her baby. Esther says she hates boring names, and asks if Dave remembers when everyone was named Jason, "I remember 12 Jasons in my school." "So fucking dumb."

Well, this movie just lost all its stars, from this Jason! Eat an entire bag of dicks.

Sigh. Anyways, the pair have sex, Dave passes out, and Esther goes to take a shower. Where Heartley is waiting for her.

Esther escapes the bathroom, and wants to know what's going on. Dave promises to explain everything, but they need to get her out of there first.

Once she's out, the two get into a fight, with Dave determined to kill them both. The two fight it out through the apartment, and eventually Dave shoves some tentacles in the garbage disposal, and hacks at a few more with knives.

The creature crawls off in pain, but Dave isn't done yet. He corners Heartley, and stomps on it until it's a fine red mist.

He slinks off himself, after crushing his heart, and waits for death to claim him, and damnit DAMNIT as he dies, he is content, that he at least got one night with Esther. It's almost sweet.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Looks pretty good! Sure the effects are cheap, I wish I could see Satan a bit better, but it’s not bad at all.

Audio: Sounds just fine.

Sound Bite: "What did I ever do you you?" "YOU ATE MY DOG!"

Body Count: On the one hand, it doesn’t feel like a lot. But it does kill almost every character.

1 - 35 minutes in, and Heartley kills the upstairs neighbour.

2 - Mr. Freck gets inflated.

3 - The creature eats Dave's dog.

4 - Next door neighbour dude gets a tentacle up the ass and out the eye.

5 - Neighboru's girl gets stabbed up the vagina next

6 - The heart gets stomped dead

7 - Which naturally leads to Dave dying

Best Corpse: Things going all ‘splodey with Freck’s death.

Blood Type - B-: Some good blood bits in here, with some fun effects, if not the best.

Sex Appeal: Lots of sex and breasts in this one.

Drink Up! Every time someone calls out for Dave.

Movie Review: Once you get past those opening ten minutes where they front load most of the sexual acts, the movie calms down a lot and I actually had a ton of fun with this one. It’s got a simple story, with some nice ideas behind it, and some genuinely laugh out loud moments, especially with Belial. If anything, I would’ve liked a little more of the movie. Well made, appropriately acted, and just a good, fun time. Unfortunately, it would be a four out of five, if not for shitting on the name Jason, so I only give it one out of five chests!

Entertainment Value: Like I said before, some funny stuff, genuinely laughs were had, the kills are fun, and it wraps it all up with some genuinely heart and pathos at moments. Funny, bloody, and silly in the best ways. Four out of five rattling pipes.