Within Madness (2015)
Matt Boiselle
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Starring Matt Story, Kaci Champion, Jessica Dickory
Directed by J.M. Stelly
Aah, the ramblings of a madman – whether conceptually fictional or right out of the newspapers, some of them can make for interesting reading (or watching, dependent upon which type of media they choose to utilize). Some of the all-time favorites have got to be Manson, Bundy, Dahmer, and even good old Hannibal the Cannibal himself, but not too many folks recognize the name of Ricardo Lopez, the infamous stalker of Icelandic singer Bjork, who in 1996 took his own life, but not before making a nearly nine-month video rant at his home in Hollywood.
Director J.M. Stelly used Lopez’s maniacal tendencies to inspire Within Madness, a thriller basing its focus upon Donovan Summer (Story), a personal trainer who had become obsessed with a former client (Champion), and sat down (in painful lengths) to prattle on about his morbid fascination with her. His deep descent into complete mental separation is drawn out over the course of its relatively short runtime, and with Selly’s usage of 16mm stock, the grain and feel is that of a retro art house production – nice touch, indeed. Summer’s slip into depravity is wrought with cut scenes of a slave and her master in some antiquated S&M footage – odd in appearance and it just looks out of place. As the movie slogs along in its attempt to convince the viewer that Summer is flipping his loon-switch (as if we couldn’t already tell), his rants become more fervent in their emergence, and the way that Stelly shoots the video diary shots is a way to pull you in, yet if you’ve seen and heard the musings of sociopaths in the past, this dialogue can seem both tedious and pedestrian.
Story does a respectable job in his portrayal of the damaged soul, and at times offers up memories reminiscent of one Mr. Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, but it’s the slowdown that will whittle away at your patience (at least it did mine) and almost slams the brakes so hard that your skull bounces off of the dashboard – quick on the startup, even faster to decelerate, and that is nothing short of a terminal diagnosis for a presentation with a 75-minute life span. My advice for those looking for the real deal when it comes to true schizoid delirium on tape? – Google some of Lopez’s actual video diaries, as that’s the kind of stuff what will keep you up at night, because when it comes to this kind of “madness,” my prescription would be to sleep it off, and save yourself the psychological wear and tear on your melons.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
