CRADLE OF FEAR (2001)

New on Special Edition BluRay from Unearthed Films!
Directed/Written by Alex Chandon.
Check out the trailer here!!

CRADLE OF FEAR is an anthology of sorts. The wraparound focuses on the jaded detective (Edmund Dehn) investigating a series of gruesome murders and linking them all together, even though they tie together in the loosest of fashions. Turns out they all have something to do with the conviction of an incarcerated serial killer named Kemper (David McEwan) who is communicating with another killer (played by Dani Filth from the death metal band Cradle of Filth) to take revenge on those who put him in jail. Not the deepest of wraparounds, but the this serves as the framework to hang four stories on, the tales of each of the people on Kemper’s Kill List.

Story one is about a goth girl (Emily Booth) who hooks up with a dude from a club (played by Dani Filth). The next morning, the woman doesn’t remember much, but she begins seeing demon faces on everyone she walks past on the street. It seems filmmaker Alex Chandon was heavily influenced by JACOB’S LADDER in this sequence, and it does prove to be disturbing in its own DIY way. This one ends with a whole lot of gore and some little creature grossness and of course, gratuitous goth gal nudity, which becomes an ongoing theme of this film.

Story two has another pair of goth girls breaking into an old deaf man’s house. When they find a bunch of cash, greed sets in and the gals begin tearing each other apart. Though not before they take a bath together, just to highlight where this film’s priorities lay. This segment has an especially gory attack sequence with a knife that really has me wondering how they were able to accomplish the effects without CGI.

Story three is a quickie about a free-wheelin’ couple who love to drive fast and do drugs, sometimes all at once. After running over a homeless man, they try to make love. But the man doesn’t feel whole as he lost his leg in an accident. When a doctor says he can replace his leg, though he doesn’t have a donor, the man goes out and finds a donor himself. While this one moved fast, at least there were beefier themes at play here involving survivor’s guilt, phantom limb phenomenon, and the couple’s selfishness that fleshes out this story more than most. It’s also got a gnarly amputation scene and of course, the gal gets nekkid, so that’s pretty keen too.

In the final tale, Kemper has eyed the detective’s son (Stuart Laing) for revenge. The son is a reporter, investigating red rooms and snuff sites, and the deeper he gets into this dark underbelly of the web, the more it starts to creep into the real world. This one actually gets a bit deeper too as it involves themes of online addiction and poses the question if watching gory videos makes one perform those types of acts in the real world. I’m not sure if I agree with what goes on, but it is a whole lot deeper than the stories that occurred before in this anthology and seems to be the one the filmmaker put most of the work into.

It all culminates with a massacre at an asylum that must be seen to be believed. Now, I’m not going to try to say CRADLE OF FEAR is some kind of cinematic milestone, but where is lacks in story, it makes up for it in grody gore. There are scenes in this film that I honestly have no idea how they did what they did. Some of the gore looks extremely real, though I’m pretty sure…or at least, I hope that it’s not. I will give it to filmmaker Alex Chandon and especially his effects team, CRADLE OF FEAR delivers some of the gnarliest gore I’ve seen in ages. Sure, there are times when it crosses the line and sometimes just for the sake of doing so. I mean, there’s an animal death scene that is just not cool, but the gore effect immediately after, with Dani Filth devouring the carnage, is some gruesome stuff I just can’t begin to understand how they did it.

This new special edition from Unearthed Films is a 2 disc set with more than a few making of featurettes, and trailers, but the second disc contains filmmaker Alex Chandon’s earlier short films that are just as twisted and nasty as CRADLE OF FEAR. I’ll give CRADLE OF FEAR one thing, I’m not going to forget any of it anytime soon. It gets better the longer it goes and ends with a big old bloody bang!