SATANIK

"Satanik" by Andres De La Hoz could possibly be one of the most anticipated 3dmm movies of all time, next to "007: Unleash the Dragon" (except this one was actually finished...OOoooOO, BURN!! [J/K frogman]). It would be nearly impossible for this movie to live up to the hype it set up for itself. That being said, and much to the credit of director Andres De La Hoz, it does. "Satanik" is a disturbing and extremely stylish "Comic book movie" that comes close to blowing everything else released in the August 2004 film festival out of the water (I say "comes close" because "Pamela" puts up a damn good fight). It's imagery is slightly too unsettling for it to be something you watch over and over again (or possibly even more than once), but all of it's undeniably cool style makes it a masterpiece...a very very WRONG masterpiece.

The storyline follows a French psychopath named "Satanik", who, with his equally sadistic wife, goes around Rome committing all kinds of heinous crimes, and a detective (who's pretty much just referred to as "the inspector" as far as I can remember) from the nearby police department becomes determined to stop him. It's simple, but the storyline is helped out by a HUGE amount of character development. WAY more than most people will be use to in a 3dmm movie. By the end of the movie, you genuinely feel bad for the inspector, and completely and utterly hate Satanik. This is due to both Andres' great script writing and Jon Barton and Jaymond's tremendous voice acting. All of the voice acting was great for the most part, and even when it wasn't it was never so bad it was distracting- just slightly too monotone (mostly a few of Satanik's wife's lines). Jaymond has proved himself to be the best, most versatile voice actor in the community here, with Jon Barton a close second. The only problem with Jon's lines, is the whole time I was thinking "Man...he sounds JUST like the detective from 'Pamela'..." which made him kind of hard to take completely seriously right away. Whenever these two had a dialogue scene together, it completely stole the show, and was impossible to look away from.

As far as animation goes, this is incredible stuff. Everything looks great- combine that with the incredibly cool comic book style this movie has going on (almost every scene is broken up into comic book "panels") and this becomes one of the most difficult movies to look away from in the program's history...even when it's being completely disturbing and/or disgusting. Andres pretty much invented this visual style, and I can't get enough of it! What's great though is that this visual style actually has a point, and isn't just thrown in for the hell of it. It's meant to show the main character's warped perception of reality. As he puts it- "I have this theory that life is really just a comic book, we just have to figure out what kind of comic book it is...". Maybe I'm just crazy for this type of stuff, I mean, this kind of style is the only reason the game "XIII" held my attention and basically is the only reason I consider "Hulk" a good movie. However, the imagery within all of the stylish comic book trappings is full of great directing and camera movements. Hopefully Andres actually gets into the field of directing after he moves on from 3d movie maker.

Sound is another category that gets high marks. The music always fit, and at times gave something as simple as a phone conversation a disturbingly eerie feeling to it. I know I'm using the word disturbing a lot, but it's really the best way to describe a lot of this movie. This is definitely not one for everyone. It could easily bag an "R" rating...maybe even "NC-17" if it was live action. It's really that bad. But anyway, back to sound. Everything fit well, even the cheesy over-the-top sound effects, and did I mention the voice acting? Jaymond and Jon Barton could easily become professional voice actors one day. Nothing else to say here...just...very, very good.

There are some problems- the most glaring of which being that the movie constantly switches back and forth from a goofy and violent "gross-out" comedy to a dark drama. One minute you have Satanik tormenting one of his victims, the next you have him turning to the screen saying "We're going to have to do this without you watching" and pulling down the black part of the screen like a window blind, like you would see in a Saturday morning cartoon. It leaves you thinking, "Okay...should I be taking this seriously or not?", maybe it was intentional, but I never consider it a good thing when a movie makes you scratch your head and think that. This problem is forgivable though, considering how much this movie has going for it (including what has to be the best ending ever).

This movie is both easy and hard to recommend. Some people will be offended by it and turn it off, and some just might not be able to stomach it. However, others will see that this is one of the most stylized and engrossing movies this community has ever put out there. It's not "the perfect 3dmm movie", but if this is Andres' last movie (which we can only hope it isn't), it's a great note to walk out on. I give it a 95% out of 100%.

95%