PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Midsplatternight Pictures presents Verbintenis, a horror film from Director Wesley Remory. Remory and his crew have delivered a dark, moody, dreary feeling short film here. Big on atmosphere and enveloped in a feeling of utter hopelessness, Verbintenis succeeds in being a memorable film excursion. It revolves around a pact a couple of parents made with their son and how they fulfill it, no matter what the circumstances may be.
Remory has worked with fellow Belgium film maker Rob Ceus who is currently funding his feature Necro and completing his other undead opus Zombies From Sector 9. Coming from a Dutch word meaning obligation, Verbintenis is not a splatter film and in fact, when I heard about it, I thought it was going to be packed full of some low budget gore. Instead, it is anything but. I love low budget gore, but it’s also nice to see low budget directors thinking outside the box with more in depth horrifying situations. Verbintenis is definitely one of those.
When I was chatting with Remory about different underground horror films he reminded me that he has one of the most vast and amazing collections of horror you will ever find. The only other collection that I’ve seen which would compare would be German low budget gore film maker Jochen Stephan, who was responsible for two Holy Grails of low budget underground gore known as Blutnacht 1 and 2.
Back to Verbintenis and its effective delivery in depressing horror. The movie has an elderly man and woman who quietly lie in remorse. The mother is sitting quietly and we pan to the man who is seen hovering over the corpse of a girl on a table. The elderly man begins to carve appendages off the girl’s dead body and we soon see who these hacked off morsels are for. In these opening scenes, I really didn’t know what was going on.
Think about the title while watching and you can figure out the scenario as it unfolds. Featuring practically zero dialogue except a couple lines at the end. With a running time of 10 minutes and change, Verbintenis relies on the musical score and expressions of its cast to convey its message. Remory has an eye for detail and storytelling and I would love to see more from him and Midsplatternight Pictures in the future whether being another short or a full length feature.
