Filthy. Disgusting. Gross. Grim. Dark. Sick. Twisted. Bizarre. Strange. Surreal. All of these words and a whole lot more can be used to describe Phil Stevens’ Flowers and every last one would be pretty accurate. I think the word I would choose to best describe it is interesting. It’s a very, very interesting movie. I can’t say for sure it’s a movie I like, but I’m not too sure it’s a movie you’re supposed to like. I think the idea is for the movie to make you feel something and it certainly does that.

You’re not likely to see another movie like Flowers, at least not anytime soon. The film has a runtime of 79 minutes and in those 79 minutes not a single line of dialogue is uttered. And this isn’t a silent film mind you. There just isn’t any dialogue from any of the characters. There is a lot of strange shit, however.

The movie opens up with a woman crawling through some small, dark, tight area. We eventually realize it’s a crawlspace of sorts. The important thing to know is that it’s an incredibly small area that is extremely dirty. This poor girl, who looks like she’s seen better days, is crawling through all kinds of muck looking for a way out. This opening scene immediately makes you feel very claustrophobic. There doesn’t look to be anyway out for this girl.

We then cut to a bedroom that is very rundown. It appears what we are seeing are thoughts or memories of the girl. In the room is a large naked man. He’s completely naked and very large. The room is covered with all kinds of trash. There are holes in the walls, wish also appear to be covered in blood and possibly other fluids. Lying on the bed is the girl and she’s clearly dead. Her throat is slit and her belly is sliced open, her guts spilling out the sides. The man is playing with the girl’s blood and insides. He begins to rub blood over certain parts of his body and we see it all.

Similar scenarios to this one play out with four other girls. They all wake up in various parts of the house – a bathroom, a dining room, etc. And each one has these visions or memories of them before they were dead or as they were dying. They all have different parts of their body that have been mutilated. They’ve been cut up and sewed back together.

Without any dialogue it’s a tad bit difficult to figure out what is going on exactly. I had to read the synopsis after to get some further explanation but once I did that things did seem to come together a bit. It appears that each one of these women was murder by the naked man and now their souls are trapped inside his house. I assume their attempts to escape the house are their way of trying to move on into the afterlife. Basically this house serves as their purgatory.

Stevens pretty much did everything on the film. He wrote the script, handled the camera work and a lot of the set design and served as the director. This is clearly his baby. And I think it’s kind of a brave film to make. The imagery is very strong and in a way challenges the viewer to stick with it. It’s pretty hard not to get disgusted while watching Flowers. A lot of what you see it quite awful. In a way it reminded me of some early David Lynch shorts. You’re never quite sure what’s going on, but you know what you’re seeing is pretty crazy.

Like I said, I’m not sure I can say I like this movie. And I doubt I’d ever watch it again on my own. I would like to watch it with an audience though. It would be very interesting to see how people react to it. It definitely does a good job making the viewer feel uncomfortable and so seeing that on a large scale with a lot of people would be a memorable experience I’m sure.

The film is now out on DVD from Unearthed Films and it’s a pretty solid DVD release. For a smaller independent release the DVD is actually pretty heavy on the bonus side. There are a couple of commentaries, an audition tape, an interview and an isolated FX track. Definitely some cool stuff if you want to diver deeper into the world of Flowers.

I don’t know who specifically that I would recommend Flowers to, but I think people should see it because it’s such an oddball movie. Will you like it? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure you won’t soon forget it.

Flowers is now out on DVD from Unearthed Films.