BELLFLOWER Fires Its Way Onto On Demand Today → On Demand Weekly

BELLFLOWER Fires Its Way Onto On Demand TodayNovember 02, 2011

Oscilloscope Labs

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: BELLFLOWER (Oscilloscope).

BELLFLOWER

By Chris Claro

Seventeen thousand bucks can get you a few things: a Toyota Yaris, a week’s worth of hummus for the craft service table on the NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM sequel, and, apparently, an odd and disturbing movie about, among other things, the construction and implementation of a flamethrower and a muscle car to right the wrongs visited upon you.

BELLFLOWER, starring, directed, co-produced, co-written, edited, and shot with a camera invented by Evan Glodell is a nightmarishly hallucinogenic tale of one man’s quest to maintain his sanity with the help of a tricked-out hot rod dubbed “Mother Medusa.” Coated with a high-contrast yellow sheen that recalls the sun pounding into a hangover-nursing skull, BELLFLOWER doesn’t entertain as much as it dares its audience to hang on for dear life.

Glodell makes his seventeen thousand bucks look like at least twice that onscreen. The altered-state impressionism with which he imbues the film makes the disturbing violence slightly less so, but BELLFLOWER is not for those who are weak of constitution. A battering assault on the senses, the film is nominally a love story, but its nihilistic overlay of apocalyptic anticipation blunts what minimal humanity it has; human relationships are secondary to the main event, Mother Medusa. The characters’ love for their terrormobile buttresses the guerrilla style and grindhouse aesthetic of BELLFLOWER but detracts from the relationships that could have given the film more depth and texture.

Judging from the number of times his name appears in the credits, Glodell is clearly a man with a mission – and an ego. Tossing together elements of MAD MAX, BADLANDS, and even AMERICAN GRAFFITI – a truly classic car-centric flick – he makes BELLFLOWER a hypnotic, hard-to-watch mashup of sex, violence, and violent sex. I can’t say I enjoyed Glodell’s odyssey as much as I appreciated its grit and moxie, but if you’re up for a bizarre, disquieting trip into a desert of existential angst, graphic violence, and souped-up exhaust pipes, steel yourself for a ride with BELLFLOWER.

- Chris Claro

Chris
Chris Claro is a contributing writer to On Demand Weekly. He is a former Director of Promotion for Sundance Channel and now works as a writer, producer, and media educator. He is a regular contributor to dvdverdict.com and contributor to the Eyes and Ears section of huffingtonpost.com