Orcus – 2022 – Kitchen Sink Horror
I learned something watching Orcus, or rather after I watched it and started to do some research for this review. To be completely honest with you, I had absolutely no idea what Orcus meant. And it’s funny really, I was making a youtube video the other day where I kinda complained about all movies using the name Hercules from roman mythology even though the name in greek mythology actually is Heracles. And they use greek names for the other characters. Now you’re wondering what this has to do with Orcus. Well, it turns out that Orcus is the roman equivalent of the greek mythology name Hades, more or less. Meaning both a God of the death realm and the death realm itself. There are no other mythological names from either greek or roman mythology though. At least not what I could detect.
Slow Pace
And it takes quite a while before I actually get what the movie title refers to. It’s a pretty slow-paced movie and it’s very “un-fancy”. There’s not a lot of action effect throughout the movie. Which indeed would be strange since it’s certainly not an action film. From time to time I even wonder if it’s a horror movie. It takes time for much of anything to happen. This test the patience a bit but at the same time there’s plenty of room for character development. Something that is very much needed in the latter part of the film.
I kinda thought about it as a version of reservoir dogs and the end, because half of the plot is about these guys, which may or may not be strangers to each other. In either case, the crime that is performed doesn’t go as it was planned. Things quickly go sour and they’re stuck with each other and the consequences of their actions. At the same time, we follow another plot of this young woman who seems to have some kind of seizures. She sleepwalks and has no recollection of what has happened when she wakes up again. And sleepwalking is just one of the things of course, the mildest thing. Once the film gets going we understand that there’s something occult going on.
Exorcism
It’s now I start to think about the exorcist. It’s not more a copy of the film as it were of reservoir dogs. But that won’t stand in the way of my mind wandering. I think the combination of supernatural elements with demonic possession and the kitchen sink realism is a really good combination. It makes it more real, I can relate to what’s happening and I can almost believe that some of the dialogue could be for real. The souls of the main characters are tortured ones for sure and we would get that without the slow character-building in the first part of the movie.
As I understand it, Orcus only had a £3000 budget and I don’t know how much of that went to the actors. I’m guessing not much. But I think the acting is pretty well performed most of the time. So there are some talents included in that department. Overall I would have wanted some more suspense and mystique in the final scenes but as a whole, I think Orcus is pretty decent. And with that kind of budget, it reaches fantastic results!
