Blood in the Snow 2013: Discopath Review

Discopath

Discopath

Owing a lot to such 42nd Street sleazefests as Dario Argento’s Tenebre, Lucio Fulci’s New York Ripper, William Lustig’s Maniac, and Canon Film’s shit-tastic New Year’s Evil, Renaud Gauthier’s Quebecois genre send-up and period piece Discopath is a gory, and deliberately silly ode to late 70s/early 80s slashers.

In 1976 New York City, Duane Lewis (Jeremie Earp-Lavergne) murdered a girl who wanted to take him on a date to the local dance club. He flees the country immediately after committing the crime to lie low in Montreal, where he works at an all girl’s prep school as an allegedly mute and deaf maintenance man. Fast forward to 1980, and his bloodlust, triggered by the sound of any kind of music, has been resurrected, and the disgraced Brooklyn detective who couldn’t capture him heads to Canada for a chance at stopping this psycho for good.

Right from the opening sequence where people who obviously speak French and who are obviously still in Montreal are trying valiantly to approximate God awful New York accents, Gauthier immediately lets the audience know exactly the kind of homage he wants to create. The gore effects are excessive and over the top, but the film as a whole is never as shower-inducingly off putting as the movies Gauthier is trying to emulate. It’s a love letter to the kind of trash cinema young cinephiles in the VHS era often grew up with, with sharp, consistently funny writing and a game cast who aren’t afraid to come across as goofy. It’s a great bit of fun.

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Screens

Sunday, December 1st, 7:00pm, Carlton Cinemas (co-presented by Dork Shelf)



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