PopHorror Let's Get Scared
After reading two PopHorror writer reviews of Adrian Corona’s film, DIS (2018 – read those reviews here and here) starring Bill Oberst, Jr., I decided I had to see it for myself. Described as a “a soul draining, mind numbing yet beautiful experience,” “an artistic beast of a film,” and “dark, dismal, and depressing,” DIS sounded like something I would love although probably not exactly enjoy. Once I watched the film, however, I realized that these descriptions were only the tip of the iceberg. There is so much going on here. There’s the base story of a man who lives alone in the woods after making some pretty shitty decisions in his life, only to be kidnapped and tortured by a pig-faced demon. But that’s not all this film has to offer.
Synopsis:
An ex-soldier with a criminal past takes refuge in the woods. A demonic figure seeks the seed of killers and the blood of the damned to feed his mandrake garden. DIS is an infernal descent into the root of the mandrake legend and a man who wanders too close to that legend and the unnamable terror behind it. What you sow, you will reap.
9. The Use of Diegetic Sound
Diegetic sound is any sound in a film. That doesn’t exactly sound mindblowing, does it? Let me explain. The first 20 minutes of DIS—a full 1/3 of the entire film—has no dialogue. Corona lets the visuals and the ambient sound carry the film. It’s in between the vocal silences where you discover the most intense things. Without dialogue to distract you, you’re able to take in what’s actually happening onscreen. Your brain fills with the visuals before you, and every tiny sound is amplified. A foot stepping on a branch cracks like a gunshot. The shifting of a duffel bag across the concrete sends a shiver over your scalp. A slow, steady drip of water is like Chinese Water Torture. The raspy drawing of a straight razor across a man’s face makes you twitch uncomfortably in your seat. It’s fascinating what noticing these sounds does to the movie watching experience.
8. The Mandrake Legend
So, you think the mandrake is just that screaming plant from the Harry Potter movies? Think again! Belonging to the nightshade family, mandrakes—genus Mandragora—are a species of poisonous plants that have been used in traditional medicine for centuries for their real or supposed aphrodisiac, hypnotic, emetic, purgative, sedative, and pain-killing effects. Needing both a male and a female to reproduce, the vaguely humanoid shape of their roots have led to mandrakes being associated with a variety of myths and superstitious practices throughout history. It’s also believed that the plant grew under the gallows, and that the reason for its human-shaped tuber is due to the watering of urine or sperm of unjustly hanged men. That last bit is where I think Corona got his idea for the film, just to give you an idea of what happens. It’s interesting that it says “unjustly.” That may add yet another level to DIS that I hadn’t even thought of before.
7. DIS Was Released By Unearthed Films
Yes, that Unearthed Films. The distribution company that brought you the American Guinea Pig films, the new A Serbian Film release, 29 Needles (2019 – read our review here), Deep Web XXX, and Adam Ford’s Torment, just to name a few. All you gorehounds know what I’m talking about. DIS is dirty, wet, grimy, and twisted in both look and story. You can almost smell the mud and mold through the screen, the stench of shit, urine, and spunk tickling the back of your nose as you watch. Bodily fluids are forced, shooting, out of every orifice. The bleak, depressing tone of the film is shot through with criminally depressing characters like a lost, dying, one-legged woman, a cackling madman covering himself in a mysterious oily, white substance, male and female genital manipulation and mutilation, and the broken mind of a suicidal ex-soldier round out the reasons why this film deserves its spot in Unearthed’s catalog.
6. The Cinematography
Believe it or not, DIS is a beautiful film. You can’t help but notice the lush, sprawling Mexican landscapes, especially when compared to the right angles and brightly colored, spray-painted murals in the abandoned building. Simple shots like the camera panning around Oberst as he turns to notice the masked woman a few stories above him, his face turning from shock to wonder to an almost sinister pleasure, tell more story than any expositionary dialogue ever could. The beauty of the first half of the film only bolsters the scenes of dark, dripping torture to come.
5. The Title Itself
The meaning behind the movie’s title, DIS, comes from The City of Dis from Dante’s Divine Comedy, where the sixth through the ninth circles of Hell are located. This is where the heretics, murderers, suicides, blasphemers, panderers, seducers, flatterers, false prophets, hypocrites, thieves, fraudulent advisors, sowers of discord, falsifiers, and traitors go. Basically, the people who went out of their way to be assholes. Is this where Oberst’s Ariel finds himself after his lifetime of disastrous decisions? You decide.
4. The Karma of Bad Choices
Speaking of being an asshole, Ariel is no saint. Not only does he leave his sick wife with his loathsome brother when he goes off to war, his reaction to her when he finally returns is revolting, obscene, and downright nasty. He runs away when things get tough, and he has no sympathy for anyone but himself. He’s a complete douche canoe. Watch his reaction to seeing the masked woman in the trailer to see what I mean. And let me just say that the karma from his lousy decision-making skills comes back to him three-fold.
3. The Misinterpretation of Memories
Memories are a slippery thing, aren’t they? Two people can go through the same exact experience and tell a completely different story about it later on. We remember things through a haze of personal whitewashing that gets reinterpreted every time we add another memory to the pile. We always want to see ourselves as the hero of our story, don’t we? But there are times that, deep down, we know we were wrong. But can we remember what really happened?
It’s hard to understand what’s really going on in DIS because we’re seeing things through Ariel’s recollections, and he’s not even sure what happened. In one example, we see him, a noticeably white man, arguing with a dark-skinned man with a Spanish accent and calling him “brother.” From what I can tell, this is really supposed to be Ariel’s sibling. But it’s pretty obvious in looks and sounds that these two men were not born in the same household. Yet, this is how he remembers this conversation. So, how many of Ariel’s other memories are twisted or even outright wrong?
2. The Ambiguous, Non-linear Storyline
I’m not usually a fan of non-linear films, mostly because when I sit down to watch a movie, I’m expecting a 3 act story. But I knew DIS was different before I even hit Play, so I just let my mind ride the wave, and I was rewarded with an unforgettable, well-crafted trip into madness. This film is artistic horror at its finest. Yes, it’s an extremely gory, uncomfortable, gut-punch of an experience, but it’s also a multilayered, ambiguous horror film that relies on the imagination and out of the box thinking, and the end result is a horror lover’s dream. This is Ariel’s nightmare, and he’s doomed to live through it again and again for eternity.
1. The Acting of Bill Oberst, Jr.
Bill Oberst, Jr. plays the heartbreaking yet deserving character of Ariel, a lesson in futility. He’s a lost, tragic figure that always chooses the wrong path, the one covered in brambles and poison ivy. Over and over again, he’s given the chance to redeem himself, and every time, he chooses the devil on his shoulder. But the way Oberst plays this character makes you almost feel sorry for him. He’s pitiable in Bill’s hands. No other actor could have pulled off this sinister yet tragic performance. Watching Bill work is worth the price of admission alone.
