Pandemonium brings Milton's work to life
Streaming movie review - Arrow Streaming - Horror
Adaptations in film are ubiquitous, but what is less common is a film built on a piece of classical literature. One of the most famous films in that genre is “O Brother Where Art Thou,” which borrowed heavily from Homer’s “The Odyssey.” And now, coming to Arrow streaming service next week, Quarxx will give us his take on John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” with the new French horror film “Pandemonium.”
The film opens with Nathan (Hugo Dillon) and Daniel (Arben Bajarktaraj) standing at the side of a brutal car accident. As the moments tick by, we understand that neither of them survived the crash but are instead in the opening moments of their afterlife. Two doors appear, one with the sound of choirs and trumpets, the other with the sounds of screams and pain. Slowly, Nathan begins to understand that he is meant for the door leading to hell. When he walks through, he sees a vast room filled with souls experiencing their own torment that he must endure as well. We meet Nina (Manon Maindivide), a young girl who hates her family and wants them all dead, and then Julia (Ophélia Kolb), a mother struggling to parent her bullied daughter Chloe (Sidwell Weber). Eventually, Nathan must submit to his fate.
This was an interesting film in that it is an anthology rather than a straightforward narrative film. The framing story was powerful and set the tone for the film. It is largely a conversation between two men about their sins while avoiding sounding preachy. The additional stories were also interesting, but because there were only two, the film felt a bit incomplete.
The performances overall were quite compelling. Maindivide as the young psychopath Nina was chilling, and Weber was heartbreaking as the bullied teen. Kolb also shines with her barely restrained mania when she discovers that her daughter is dead. This movie has a lot of subtle acting, and it all works well.
The film makes excellent use of makeup and costuming. It features several otherworldly beings, and it was fantastic to see actual monsters interact with humans rather than a digital monster. This is particularly impressive in the first vignette with the monster Tony.
The movie struggles with some pacing issues. It could have benefited from tightening up the first vignette and perhaps adding a third. Although it is just 94 minutes long, the pacing makes it feel a little long. It seems counterintuitive to add more, but three shorter stories would have kept the action moving with more purpose.
The anthology aspect of this film may feel disjointed because they are so disparate in the wrongdoing, but that works well in the context of the piece from which it pulls its name. As a Puritan, Milton would have had a stringent moral code that could have damned any of these souls to hell. “Paradise Lost” was a cautionary morality tale, and “Pandemonium” is as well, though it seems to caution us against some of our harshest judgments.
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This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on May 25, 2024.