THE PINING * USA 2019 Dir: Eduardo Castrillo. 73 mins
Shot, paced and acted like a particularly lame daytime soap opera from 1986 (without the flair of TAKE THE HIGH ROAD or the intensity of SONS AND DAUGHTERS), this barely feature length bore plays out mostly as a lifeless police procedural. Five people from Priest Tom Sizemore’s therapy group have been murdered in apparently supernatural circumstances. The detective on the case (Jackie Dallas, slightly less charismatic than Mike Pence) links the crimes, slowly, while the narrative gets distracted by live muzak interludes from the local club and scenes of paraplegic photographer Diogo Hausen flirting with a bunch of beautiful young auditionees. Riddled with fluffed lines and partly set in a Herschell Gordon Lewis-style “City Police” station consisting of two desks (but with the sound effects of a thriving office floor), the movie is good for cheap laughs as the cast gamely deadpan godawful dialogue. Highlights include “His brother ate his face!”, “Electrocuted by his own microphone!” and “He’s a priest, what more do you want?” Around the half way mark, it remembers to be a horror film so Tom Sizemore (who once worked with Oliver Stone, Tarantino and Scorcese!) goes all Max Von Sydow, shouting “I’m a man of God!” before facing off against a laughable heart-eating supernatural antagonist. It’s one of the dullest genre films in recent memory, but if it helps the tragically wasted Mr Sizemore pay off some debts, it does not exist in vain.
Review by Steven West
THE PINING is available on Amazon