CABAL (2020) Reviews and overview

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Cabal is a 2020 American action horror film about a military assassin – Codename Dragonfly – who is hired to hunt down and eliminate a bloodthirsty serial killer who is committing murders in a forbidden forest. A sinister plot is revealed in which the Illuminati are harvesting the bodies of young female victims to help themselves live longer.

Directed, photographed and edited by prolific Rene Perez (Cry Havoc; It Hungers; The Dead, the Damned and the Darkness franchise; Playing with Dolls franchise) from a screenplay co-written with Barry Massoni. The movie stars Eva Hamilton, Alexandra Fabbri, Denise Poole and John Ozuna.

Featured guest review:
Rene Perez, (Death Kiss; Once Upon a Time in Deadwood) is at it again. This time out he’s the writer/director/cinematographer and editor of Cabal. It’s currently rocking a 2.1 out of 10 on IMDb. That’s about par for the course with Perez.

Cabal opens with a fight on an airport runway between Dragonfly (John Ozuna), a mercenary in a metal mask and a group of business-suited goons. After killing them all he spares the pilot’s life, but not before threatening to kill everyone he knows if he says anything about what just happened. Considering more than one aircraft passes the scene that seems a bit pointless.

As this is happening another masked man is busy. Sallos (Tony Jackson) is chasing a woman through the woods with a bloody axe. The chase takes a bit because he has to keep stopping and doing this weird thing that’s a cross between deep breathing and flexing. After he kills her a scientist and a couple of goons show up to scare him off and take the woman’s corpse.

Now if you guessed that Dragonfly has unwitting connections to this. And ends up having to get to the bottom of it in a take no prisoners kind of way, you’re qualified to write grade D movies such as Cabal.

To give Perez credit, the way Cabal was shot and processed it often has the look of a film from the ’70s. And, unlike many faux grindhouse films, the print damage effect isn’t overdone. However, apart from a couple of nice breasts, that’s all it has going for it.

The plot is a mess of serial killers, conspiracies and macho action. If Alex Jones had written Silent Rage it might have turned out like Cabal. Loaded with attacks on the media and talking points about destroying the family unit and controlling the masses, it would be funny it wasn’t so inane.

It seems that this powerful cabal needs to get young women into the woods. So a Jason Voorhees wannabe can kill them. And then they can harvest the remaining organs. Never mind there wouldn’t be much left. Or just how stupid it is.

Read the rest of this review at Voices from the Balcony

Other reviews:

“The only (somewhat) creative scenes were with the killer, and those were thrown in quite sporadically. It almost felt like writer-director-editor-cinematographer Rene Perez had no idea what to do with the beginning of the film, so he just cut and chopped a bunch of random scenes together with what little bits of relevant story scenes he had and tried (but failed) to make it coherent.” Horror Reviews by The Collective

Release:
Cabal is available on Amazon Prime

Choice dialogue:
“The masses might be brain dead sheep but their bodies are fine for harvesting.”
“Filthy animal – now Howard, get me out of this nightmare!”

Cast and characters:
Eva Hamilton … Elizabeth
Alexandra Fabbri … Thea (as Alex Fabbri)
Denise Poole … Doctor Kelly
John Ozuna … Dragonfly
Juan Manuel Olmedo … Guard
Rodney Lee Johnson … Service agent
Rebecca Tarabocchia … Pris
Joseph Camilleri … Doctor Bieger
Clementine Hetherington … Girl #2
Tony Jackson … Sallos
Candace Cannon … Waitress
Keely Dervin … Sloan
Rafael Siegel … Jet Pilot
J.D. Angstadt … Mob Boss
Melody Vaughan … Zhora
Dan Scoville … Commando #1
Glenn Weston … Commando #7
Linda Bott … Kathleen
Donavan Peterson … Commando #4
Brigette Jackson … Bartender
Travis Wicks … Commando #6
Justin Donaldson … Commando #3
Michael Arnel … Commando #5
Shawn Payment … Private Security Guard
Joseph Donaldson … Commando #2
Kimberly Molina … Girl #1

Filming locations:
Anderson, Palo Cedro and Redding, California

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