Sarah
Chambers and Andrew Costello make the singles scene in Looking for Mr. Goodbar look safe and healthy. When they leave a
bar together they only have one thing on their minds and it is not very nice. Their
shared compulsion for random killing will either bring them together or set
them at each other’s throats in Byron C. Miller’s The Anatomy of Monsters (trailer here), which releases
today on DVD and VOD, from Artsploitation.
There
was not much for Chambers to do in Seattle except DJ techno-whatever and kill
people, until she met Nick Jones. He is the kind of hip, culinarily-skilled
dude, who could make legit settling-down material. However, Chambers has that
secret about being a serial killer. She thinks the squirrely, uptight Costello
will find some lessons in her story, so she continues to tell it, even though
he would seem to have the drop on her. On the other hand, Chambers is vastly
more experienced, which clearly counts for a lot.
The
distributor of the anthology film Holiday
is fortunate it released before Artsploitation brought the Seattle-produced
Anatomy to a wider audience, because
the “New Year” story is built around a similar premise, but it does far less
with it. Miller and co-screenwriter Paul Morgan also have crafted some dialogue
as sharp as the psychopaths’ hunting knives. Tabitha Bastien just chews up
monologuish lines like she is an old hand at Tarantino and Stillman indies. Her
screen presence is absolutely electric.
Connor
Marx neatly counterbalances Bastien as the low key, funny in a non-threatening
kind of way Jones. Keiko Green is also terrific as Chambers’ snarky frienemy,
Amy Simmons. However, Jesse Lee Keeter’s Costello is such a sniveling tool, it
is hard to maintain much suspense regarding his ultimate fate.
Anatomy looks very much
like the micro-indie it is, if not even less so. However, its course, garish
look aptly suits its hard-edged attitude. Surprisingly effective at straddling
the crossroads of horror and dark psychological thrillers, The Anatomy of Monsters is recommended pretty enthusiastically for
genre fans who are not overly sensitive hot house orchids, now that it is
available for home viewing, from Artsploitation.
