Back in 2010, Joe McReynolds made the well regarded but little seen THE VERN: A ONE HIT WONDER STORY. Now eight years later he’s made a second film, INHUMANITY, something of a cross between a 1950s mystery, a 1970s conspiracy film and a modern serial killer film. The results are quite enjoyable if overlong and at times hard to follow.
A serial killer, Six Pack Sam(Leviticus Wolfe), so named for his habit of leaving beer bottles at the scene of his crimes, has been killing women in Waco TX. Detective Bobby Dixon is closing in on the killer when his daughter Jessa (Darcel Danielle) is kidnapped by Sam. The cops storm Sam’s hideout before he can kill her, however, one of the cops does his best to do that himself.
Sam is taken to a mysterious facility where Dr. Campbell (Diana Rose) performs equally mysterious experiments to try to “cure” him. Jessa wakes up in the hospital and is told her father has killed himself. Not believing that he’d kill himself she teams up with Sergio (Ford Austin THE GHOSTMAKER, ALIENS VS A-HOLES) a drunken detective to find the truth. And then Six Pack Sam escapes…
That’s just the core of INHUMANITY’s plot. There’s a mob boss who’s involved with the experiments, a team of crooked cops, a sleazy host of an even sleazier true crime show. It all tends to get confusing and more than once I felt like I’d missed something among all the threads. The film runs an overlong two hours and would have benefited from the loss of some of the extraneous material.
However, once Sam makes his escape the film picks up and these concerns are mostly left behind. At this point INHUMANITY really takes on the feel of an old grindhouse film. Even the effects for a disembowelment look old school in the right way. In particular, Joe D’Amato’s ABSURD came to mind more than once even if it never quite reaches its infamous level of gore.
For a film shot on such a small budget, INHUMANITY looks and sounds quite good. It has the look of a well shot, low budget film, which adds to its throwback vibe. The final confrontation is tense and brutal, with a couple of threads left hanging for a sequel or even a franchise. Which could be fun if done right.
INHUMANITY is available on VOD and DVD from Wild Eye Releasing.