Movies
Sea of Dust (V)
“The gore is well executed, gross, vile and in-your-face — just like it should be. Gore hounds will be pleasantly surprised by the sheer amount of excess. Whether someone is taking a pitchfork to the face or an axe through the chest, the film remains bloody throughout.”
Some movies require opening your mind a bit farther than you might be comfortable with. Sea of Dust requires forgetting you have a mind. Random crazy thing after random crazy thing slaps you upside the head. Only to be followed by something even crazier. The only thing you can count on is the absolute unpredictability of the film.
Prestor John (Tom Savini) is a mythical religious king who has decided he no longer wishes to remain a myth. It’s time to get real. He transforms by capturing souls and tormenting them into submission. Once in control of a soul, he is able to control the owner’s body, now literally a hollow shell, to attack the nonbelievers and spread his ideology. I know what you are thinking, and you are right. This is crazy.
Enter Stefan (Troy Holland), a medical student who is considerably tougher than he looks. Like when he suffers a 4-inch stab wound to his shoulder, then is dragged by a giant hook lodged into his neck. Neither injury elicits much more than a shrug and some mild annoyance.
Stefan is young and eager to help against the spreading plague caused by the mythical king. He finds himself fighting off the bad guys and quickly gets sucked into the other side of reality. This is where (if it wasn’t already) it gets a little wild.
The film takes a left turn toward Crazyville and doesn’t look back. Considerable amounts of time are spent on religious exposition, mostly in the form of monologue from Savini, who is rather hilarious. Savini is over the top in his role. He is half mythical king, half Dracula from a ‘60s Hammer film.
As the film progresses further into madness, things begin to happen that are Lynchian or Naked Lunch-esque. It’s like Lynch and Hammer Horror got together, did a bunch of ecstasy and read the Bible; Sea of Dust being the afterbirth. Heads explode, the evil twins from The Shining prance around and then perhaps the craziest thing of all.
Stefan triumphantly declares, “You know what we have to do.” Actually, Stefan, we don’t. Please tell us. Oh, you have to make a fist and push your way through a girl’s vagina in order to reach the “other reality,” where a harpy that is fond of peeing on people exists? Honestly, Stefan, we didn’t see that coming. What was left of my mind was officially blown.
The film’s best qualities are its looks and high levels of gore. Sea of Dust was shot in a manner that recaptures the vivid and dreamlike Hammer horror films of yesteryear. The film is a solid tribute to that era and even features the lovely Ingrid Pitt (The Vampire Lovers, Countess Dracula), who just so happened to star in a host Hammer films in her younger days.
The gore is well executed, gross, vile and in-your-face — just like it should be. Gore hounds will be pleasantly surprised by the sheer amount of excess. Whether someone is taking a pitchfork to the face or an axe through the chest, the film remains bloody throughout.
Director Scott Bunt created a film that relies on ideas and mythology as much as blood and gore. And to his credit, the film is unique; nothing else in modern horror looks or feels like it. But therein lies the problem: With so much going on (most of it wordy religious talk), the film loses focus and ends up a bloody mess.
The good: Not many films have ever tried to do so much with so little.
The bad: Not many films have tried to do so much with so little.
Check out Micah’s 365 Horror Movie for more!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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