Movies
‘Bowels of Hell’ Review – Constipation Becomes Metaphor in Gross-Out Horror Comedy
Brazilian horror comedy Bowels of Hell gleefully keeps its head in the toilet in its gross-out depiction of an apartment building so caught up in its own crap that they don’t notice disgustingly cursed plumbing until it’s too late. Writers/Directors Gurcius Gewdner and Gustavo Vinagre don’t hold back on gag-inducing potty horror, creating a strange backdrop to its prominent and ambitious social commentary that skewers generational divides, gender politics, and emotional constipation.
Martha Nowill stars as Malu, a busy mom with a thriving career in event planning. She specializes in gender reveal parties, causing conflict with Malu’s rebellious, nonbinary child, Genesis (Benjamín Damini), especially as she takes on new jobs from clients, including a pregnant neighbor. But that’s the least of Malu’s problems; the single mom also has severe trauma and residual bowel movement issues stemming from the horrific death of her other child via freak toilet accident. Only, it wasn’t an accident.
The toilets have had enough of the tenants’ shit.
Gewdner and Vinagre channel early Peter Jackson for their splattery mayhem, ensuring no bodily fluids are ignored in their tactile explorations of goopy, nasty, cursed toilet madness. The practical effects achieve maximum gross-out effect, and the deaths can be gnarly. But they’re also employed sparingly, at least at first, as they set up a pressure cooker scenario for their characters. That means that it’s metaphor first, gnarly horror second. The good news is that the filmmakers save the best for last, delivering a gory punchline that finally frees clogged bowels in more ways than one.
But it can take a while to get there as the film trudges through barbed social encounters and conflict, dwelling heavily on social commentary over characterization. The high-strung Malu struggles to endear, with her prickly parenting of her abrasive teen doing no favors. It’s part of the point; all characters are so wrapped up in nonsense to see what’s happening around them. They’re unlikeable by design, all in service of its social commentary. And Bowels of Hell refuses to be subtle about anything.
While bickering characters can frustrate, Nowill and Damini both excel at the physical comedy. Nowill, in particular, is fearless when it comes to the vulnerable positions the script demands. In a film that wields the term “fecaloma” as a plot point and opens with the over-the-top demise of a child via monstrous toilet, well, that should indicate the wacky scenarios Nowill’s high-strung Malu faces.
Bowels of Hell attempts to cover too much ground with its commentary, so much so that its themes get a bit muddled as certain elements get underserved, causing pacing lulls. Not helping is how repetitive some of its talking points get, bludgeoning viewers over and over with its satirical lampooning of gender reveal parties. Gewdner and Vinagre succeed in corralling their ambitions into a satisfying, excessively bonkers finale, at least.
Grounding a high-concept horror movie about cursed toilets with real-world issues was the smart approach, rendering relatable anxieties and familiar issues through the lens of gross-out horror and humor. But, as intentional as it may be, spending time with the self-centered tenants of one doomed building can make the patient wait for full-blown gory chaos stretch thin. Still, it’s a commendable, silly, and fearless swing that serves as a demented reminder to eat your fiber.
Bowels of Hell debuted at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. Release info TBD.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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