Midlands Review of Big Foot, A Wasted Life and Elevaterror
A Wasted Life is next and this 12-minute fable is far darker in tone and style. A boy in bed is awoken by thunder and lightning and begins to imagine Gorilla faces and as with his other film, Charlish uses an interview to frame parts of his story around.
From star-childs and mushrooms to freaky clowns, the film is a bizarre mix of nightmarish imagery and familiar horror iconography including intimidating step-mothers and Psycho-esque houses.
A Wasted Life’s “narrative” is described as being of a troubled orphan who cannot be his true self whilst yearning to be free from paranoia. For me, the film confusingly sets some of this up but without the description it would be hard to fathom any of that.
However, the narrative does feel secondary to the weird images and schizoid construction which was a joy anyways. Strange imaginations and unusual interactions spew forth from Charlish’s mind and the mix of photo-realism and more traditional animated elements expertly throws the audience away from anything they may consider normal.
Reflecting the protagonist’s fractured mind in its editing and delivery A Wasted Life is more about mood than story but those who want to be freaked out will have a blast from the start.
The final film is Elevaterror (great title) which sees a repairman head to a tower block at night to fix a faulty lift. “Any hour, any tower” is the company’s motto but the mechanic’s positive attitude is in stark contrast to the bloody scenes he visualises. A bevy of devil dolls appear and, it may be my twisted sense of humour, but the film is the funniest of Charlish’s three with some OTT death and hilarious incomprehensible baby babble sounds.
From sasquatch to parrots via horror and frightening fantasy Charlish’s hand-drawn and mixed-media style floats somewhere between Terry Gilliam’s cut-outs and South Park’s flat animation with a dash of freakish philosophy to boot.
Tapping into the darker side of the human condition, the three films have a number of repeating motifs involving ancient legends or the supernatural. And this leads them to be a chilling but satisfying ride into a gruesome world of dread and the macabre that I dare you to watch. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Michael Sales
