Movies
Morituris
“With an FX master working his magic, I was sure that there would be something redeemable in an otherwise putrid film. Boy was I wrong. Morituris has landed firmly in my mental list of the ‘worst films of all time.’ “
The filmmakers have responded to this review in this spoiler-filled interview.
Reviewer’s Note: Major spoilers, although I’m just saving you time…
Featuring special effects work by Sergio Stivaletti (Opera, Demons, Dellamorte Dallamore), Raffaele Picchio’s Morituris was my sole focus of this year’s Fantasia Film Festival, currently ongoing in Montreal, Canada. With an FX master working his magic, I was sure that there would be something redeemable in an otherwise putrid film. Boy was I wrong. Morituris has landed firmly in my mental list of the “worst films of all time.”
Why such hatred you ask? The plot pretty much speaks for itself. The movie opens with a trio of douche bags driving two foreign women to a rave in the middle of the woods. The dudes are super cool ‘cause they do drugs. The ladies are super dumb because they trust these guys (and verbally proclaim so.) After driving for a painful 25 minutes, the group finally takes a break and leaves the car to play some soccer. Good times, good times. After a brief game, the audience is subjected to another pitiful 10 minutes of driving before they arrive at the rave. But wait, there’s no rave because “it’s deep in the woods” and “illegal”. Ok, so these guys “trick” these moronic girls into going into the woods where they proceed to viciously rape and beat them for what feels like hours. It’s an absolutely malicious and chauvinistic viewpoint of a narrow-minded, piece of sh*t writer/director.
Ok, so, you want to just write it off and say, “no way the director hates women, he just wanted to make a brutal movie!” Maybe at the 40 minute point you can make that argument, but what proceeds is such tasteless garbage that the director of Chaos (The Demon!!!) would be jealous.
Taking a break from raping and kicking the women, one of the dudes calls his brother to check in. What’s the brother up to? Oh, he’s dripping acid on a girl’s stomach but of course! She’s tied up and being tortured by the brother, who then proceeds to stick a tube in her vagina and drop a mouse down it. For real. No joke. There’s zero point or social relevance to ANY of this.
Continuing on, we cut back to the girls attempting to escape the wrath of the trio of rapists. They come across a sacred ground that, when crossed, unleashes a slew of demonic knights of sorts. Now, you’d think this would be the point where the female protags turn the tides and regain control, only you’d be wrong. The creatures attack and torture the girls as well! It gets even more bizarre when one of the guys oversteps his evil bounds and works with one of the victims to try and survive. He fails, she fails and the creatures literally CRUCIFY the girl on a cross! Why? Well, because it’s the ultimate shocker (that’s the mind of an incompetent, disgusting, horrid filmmaker).
Morituris might just be the most vile movie since, maybe ever? I’m not a sensitive guy (at all), I don’t get offended, and frankly I wasn’t offended – but Morituris does show viewers what a disgusting piece of trash the filmmaker is. Every single thing that happens comes with such a complete lack in taste. So to the director and the movie: f*ck off.
Negative 100 million out of 5 Skulls.
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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