by Frank Calvillo
One of the titles that really got under my skin in 2012 was the deeply unsettling Berberian Sound Studio. The film told the simple story of a sound mixer who is brought in to do some work on an Italian horror film, but soon finds himself plagued by a number of strange and eerie occurrences. One of the things I responded to most was the idea of someone who works in film being so utterly consumed by their work that they literally step into another reality. It’s such a potent concept and really illustrates how much those behind behind the scenes contribute to the overall process.
Though its tone themes couldn’t be more different, Astron-6’s wonderfully over the top horror film The Editor echoes that idea of slipping into the world of movies.
In The Editor, middle-aged film editor Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks) is struggling with his latest project, a cheap exploitation film, which sums up the quality of projects he now attracts after a losing four fingers in an accident, which led to a stint at a mental hospital. Rey’s personal life is likewise in shambles, including a nowhere marriage to a self-absorbed former actress named Josephine (Paz de la Huerta). However, when cast and crew members of the film Rey is working on begin to turn up dead with their fingers chopped off, he’s soon finds himself as the prime suspect of a murder mystery as gory as the movie he’s editing.
There’s no question that the makers of The Editor (co-writers/directors Brooks and Matthew Kennedy and co-writer Conor Sweeney) grew up on Italian cinema, and more specifically the works of Dario Argento and Mario Bava. Literally every frame of The Editor feels as if it’s been lifted from the glory days of Italian cinema, from the retro style costumes and hairstyles to the brightly colored blood splatter from creatively painful-looking deaths. Sometimes movies can seem a bit desperate when they try emulate a past era of filmmaking. They come off as copies rather than their own entity. With this energetic love letter to the best of Italian horror, The Editor thankfully avoids any such pitfall.
While The Editor is a loving tribute, the Astron-6 team manages to inject their own brand of humor into the proceedings. There’s some great grindhouse sort of humor throughout the whole film, especially in the larger than life performances from the cast, while certain scenes, such as how Inspector Porfiry (Kennedy) quickly promotes his deputy to sargeant in an effort to keep him quiet about the accidental murder of his wife, echo those found in a Zucker/Abrahams production.
In spite of its B-movie uniform and “so bad, its good” aspirations, The Editor actually features quite an inventive story. There’s its horror movie background, which also serves as a surprisingly competent take on the industry and showcases the lengths individuals in the business would go to to get their way. Furthermore, there’s the madness Rey begins to experience as a result of being the prime suspect in a series of grisly murders, but may also be due to the intense devotion to the movie he’s editing. As a result of this devotion, Rey finds himself trying to exist in two worlds, both of which are disturbing and inescapable. Through Rey’s increasing instability, The Editor is able to illustrate what an all-encompassing commitment some in the industry fearlessly bring to their work.
The Package
There’s a 50-minute documentary which serves as both a making-of and retrospective with the writers and directors talking about the film’s origins, including filming real life experiences (such as knocking down a wall in a house one of the director’s recently bought) and crafting scenes around them.
There are a handful of deleted scenes, all of which are hilarious and a “form letter” type of festival intro that’s pretty clever.
Even the featurettes are delivered in unconventional ways. One plays as a raw, tongue in cheek documentary, and the other as a real-life thriller.
The Lowdown
The Editor is a fun and creative B-movie romp made for serious horror aficionados with a great sense of humor.
