Some would dismiss Pandemonium as merely a well-hidden anthology movie however, it is much more than that, as it disguises its own art-house religious horror philosophy with deep seeded morality battles and some French uniqueness; writer and director Quarxx, generating a narrow glimpse of hell, and uses John Milton’s Paradise Lost’s Capital of Hell for the title of his film. A key aspect that viewers will notice in the film is a focus on moral responsibility due to the consequences derived from the actions of humanity to determine the punishment.
The films starts with a mountain range followed with a winding road panning downward this is all a greater level of symbolism, as the mountain in reverse would the journey to ascend through trials and tribulations the turns in life and wisps of clouds as fog in the judgment, but as it presented it is a series of twists that have led to the downfall of those involved in the predicament of their dire and doom situation. Hence, we find Nathan (Hugo Dillon) who awakens in the middle of the road to see his car totaled, he encounters Daniel (Arben Bajraktaraj) who tells him that he killed him on his motorbike; naturally Nathan is hesitant to believe it, convinced it is gibberish, but after Daniel retrieves his body from the wreckage his acceptance becomes more rooted. During the opening act, a hint gallows humor emerges only to be dismissed quickly (thankfully). The landscape changes into snow-covered, and becomes a full whiteout, with two doors appearing,
Daniel at first hears only heavenly music, a trumpeting while Nathan hears tormenting screams of agony. Some might interpret this as purgatory, a time to accept and admit sins, while praying for forgiveness to humble themselves without excuses, which is a human trait and not one for the pure soul, this likely is the aspect the director sought. Suddenly, a little girl named Alice (Eowyn Personne) appears as a victim of the men’s combine wrongdoing; especially with white doors of mystical beauty rejects them but accepts her; before vanishing, their fates sealed. Each man proceeds through the red doors into the nothingness for further eternal judgement, Nathan enters into a world that feels lifted from Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond [1981] end scene as a wasteland of bodies lay before him.
It is here the film truly starts both the second act and it shifts to a tale of a not so innocent little girl Nina (Manon Maindivide) who gives a creepy but stellar performance, awakens in a massive beautiful mansion that seems more of a pure fairytale kingdom, discovers her parents have been murdered, as well as her little sister Claire (Zoe Chazal) found in an oven and is later questioned by an off-screen psychiatrist. Her reaction is exquisite as vacant emotionless, lacking any care or remorse of the situation. The suspicion in the story drifts to a deformed monster of an older brother Tony (Carl Laforet), made to live in the drank depths of the basement. Although, it is likely that “Tony” is a figment of her imagination as at one point she’s unable to find him and what we witness was her senseless mental illness causing the destructively and deadly series of actions to occur.
Then Nathan moves to another body and sees why they are condemned to hell, a workaholic single mother Julia (Ophélia Kolb) discovers her daughter Chloé (Sidwell Weber) committed suicide in the bathtub, due to excessive bullying in school and humiliation filmed and posted on the internet for all eternality of self-damnation and destruction of her mentality, languish in agony. Upon the discovery, the mother attempts to carry on as if everything is fine, she is beyond distraught over the heartache the tale of illicit sorrow, pain and anger to the true tormentors absent from Hell and told with a mixture of the present and flashbacks in the storyline. It focuses on the old-age concept of Catholicism that a suicidal person is forever in hell, regardless of the reason even the self-sacrificing individual is deemed to existence without peace. However, in the traditional French Catholic it’s deemed a person who dies in this state is more of limbo although of the past century the thinking has changed that certain mental illness stressors are the cause of the death than mere selfness, and cause for regard to God’s love of knowing oneself before they were born.
He returns to the barren land, as one comes to understand this Christian representation in Hell has its own hierarchy and the further descent leads to more sinister punishments, as he encounters Norgul a guide for him, discovery that ‘Humanity is evil by nature’ and we learn of Nathan’s crimes aside from killing Daniel and contribute to the death of the innocent little girl on the roadway, and he killed his wife who had multiple sclerosis and was suffering, though it seems he committed the atrocious act to relieve the agony more for himself than her. We aren’t shown the Devil, as in French Folklore he often has Minions and Servants under his Demons and Princes to carry out his deeds and issues sentences to all that enter into Hell. He is taken to a cell to become a “new toy” to a hideous demon named Billy for four thousand years before moving onward to his final everlasting punishment. Billy beats Nathan to a bloody pulp and he dies again which forces him to be reincarnated, against the will of Hell, which he is reborn through a C-section, that the guardian Norgul calls an Antichrist birth sending a cheerful Billy to recapture him.
As opposed to other anthology tales this one has an even tone as all from the same writer and director with Nathan as the central character linking the film together; assisting in the process is the consistent camerawork as well as the editing. A nice touch of special effects namely the monstrosity named Tony and those in the Kingdom of Hell lending to originality of creepiness. However, it’s necessary to examine a few aspects of this movie, inclusion of a suicide story is a difficult one for the viewer to accept as well as Nina’s story because the questionable mortal mental illness grave sin factors compare to rapists, molesters, and murders; which all have a more fascinating and convincing punishment endurance for a general audience’s entertainment. It doesn’t ask nor answer why a child is sentenced to hell so young with no opportunity of redemption through her life. More importantly the ending sequence is not the pure anguish as it hopes to convey as it raises numerous questions and cycles back to the beginning, if Nathan is dead then why isn’t his body’s representation more transparent then solid, he shouldn’t be as solid as the limp corpse which Daniel drags. This isn’t a new concept as the television show M*A*S*H episode 10 of season 10 entitled: Follies of the Living – Concern for the Dead” (1982) that showed a soul leaving the body. Furthermore, when in Hell and he is condemned to a cell his body endures a traumatic beating and his soul escapes allowing it to inherit a newborn baby; if Billy kills the baby the corpse of the Baby goes to hell or does it return Nathan’s body these rules of hell are a tad murky and more convenience. Some might also miss a point of reference of how Nathan’s birth is called Antichrist, this leads back to French Folklore (along with many nations and cultures of ago) had the belief that if a baby is born through a cesarean (C-section) rooted in Catholic Church doctrine that childbirth is a natural God-ordained process any medical assistance or involvement that alters the normal path is an offense to God’s will and the child is deem evil. It is a common trope in horror flicks used to suspense or an impending doom as Quarxx did with the minutes of this production.
Overall, Pandemonium has a few redeeming entertaining qualities that most viewers of foreign horror will enjoy and is added by subtitles clearly presented and allow the time to read. It presents an interesting vision of Hell, more in-line with folklore and medieval conceptual design of demons inflicting pain to sinners violations to humanity; with no room for excuses to avoid lasting judgement.
***If you are in crisis contact the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8022) or 988***
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22299048/
IMDb Rating: 5.5/10
Baron’s Rating: 5.0/10