Verotika is a 2019 American horror anthology film that compiles stories from writer-director Glenn Danzig’s comic books of the same name.
Written and directed by Glenn Danzig (Death Rider in the House of Vampires; founder of punk rock band Misfits), the movie stars Ashley Wisdom, Rachel Alig, Alice Tate and Kayden Kross. Danzig is also the film’s executive producer along with Brian Perera. James Cullen Bressack and Jarrett Furst are producers.
Plot:
The plot details are not being publicised but the anthology tale segments include “The Albino Spider of Dajette,” “Change of Face,” “Drukija Contessa of Blood,” and “Morella.”
Release:
Verotika premiered at the Cinepocalypse Film Festival in June 2019. The movie will be released by Cleopatra Entertainment as a Blu-ray + DVD + CD combo pack on February 24th and on Digital on February 25th 2020. Meanwhile, a DVD-only release is scheduled for March 3rd.
Review:
This makes Rob Zombie’s much-maligned, self-indulgent efforts of late seem positively worthwhile. Verotika has already been cited as a cinematic abomination beyond belief with some lazy reviewers citing the likes of oft-touted ‘worst’ films such as The Room and (yawn) Plan 9 from Outer Space. Hey, at least Ed D. Wood’s messy movie is fun, even on repeat viewings and there are 100s of awful films out there worth mentioning beyond the usual suspects. Unfortunately, Verotika is stilted and slow and even at just under 90 minutes is way too long to test anyone’s patience.
Performances are often painfully poor (especially during ‘The Albino Spider of Dajette’ portion where the would-be French accents would make Inspector Clouseau snigger), sets are cheap looking (despite a $1 million budget cited on IMDb), many shots are framed really awkwardly and the audio is echoey and all over the place. Almost every scene ends on a fade out which adds to the lack of cohesion.
Some of the cheesy gore effects are welcome and in the ‘Drukija Contessa of Blood’ segment they are amusingly OTT, yet they alone aren’t enough to redeem Verotika. Rather than shock us, as presumably Mr Danzig intended, he simply makes us wonder when his dire directorial debut will end. Stick to music, Glenn.
Adrian J Smith, MOVIES & MANIA
Other reviews:
“Every short suffers from Danzig idolizing extended shots, out-of-frame compositions, and zooms (in-and-out) with little forethought. Often, such errors come way of a first-time director feeling as though they must “direct.” That is, the more camera movement the better.” 812 Film Reviews
“There are long meandering moments that go nowhere. It should all add up to one of the worst movies of the year. Yet, not only is not one of the worst, it is an absolute must watch. How does it succeed despite everything being so wrong? It does so simply by being so much fun to watch.” AITP
“It’s terrible beyond belief, even if you’ve prepared yourself ahead of time or are the most ardent fan in the world and are able to turn off your logic preceptors for an extended period of time. And yet, this is one of the most oddly beguiling movies to come out in sometime.” Boom Howdy
“Verotika is undeniably bad, a collection of medium-shots and close-ups jumbled together in mysterious ways that are void of context, but if you get excited about, and are entertained by remarkably awkward, unskilled cinema, then this is one to seek out.” Film Pulse
Watch Happy Wax TV review on YouTube
“Verotika is an unqualified failure on every dramatic level. The dialogue is clumsy, and it is clumsily spoken by obvious non-actors in scenes that drag out endlessly to the point of absurdity, with decidedly not-special special effects punctuating the non-action.” Horror 101 with Doctor AC
“Danzig claimed Verotika would be shocking. It isn’t, it’s very tame in terms of both sexual and violent content. Even if the effects were up to par, the violence is standard horror movie fare. There’s nothing overly shocking about what is depicted. The only thing shocking about Verotika is how inept it is.” Voices from the Balcony
