Sundance Review: Andrew Bowser’s “Onyx the Accidental and the Talisman of Souls”

Genre comedies are a mixed bag, and for every cult gem like 2010 Tucker and Dale against evil, the beach at Sundance Midnight is known for dropping a bomb. In the opening moments, Andrew Bowser’s fourth film threatens to become such a rejection, with painfully broad comic strokes and jokes that don’t quite land when Bowser introduces his protagonist: himself. The awkward slapstick tone is reminiscent of very early Peter Jackson – especially his shaky debut, bad taste– but once the story picks up and other characters come into the picture, it probably gets better. To the extent that the style and production values ​​mature faster than Jackson’s, developing into a pleasant romp reminiscent of the director’s first proper studio film, The horrors (1996).

Bowser plays Marcus J. Trillbury, an amateur occultist who considers himself the mysterious Onyx The Foruitous. In reality, he lives at home with his mother and stepfather in a childish bedroom full of BATTLRATTS lunch boxes and figurines while earning a meager income as a burger pinball machine. Despite his overt interest in the dark arts, Marcus is actually a kind-hearted, sad sack desperate for a change of fortune. So he set himself the goal of winning a kind of satanic lottery: Marcus’ creepy idol, Bartok the Great (Jeffrey Combs), will choose five of his servants to join him in his mansion, where they will have a ritual will perform to the old god Abaddon.

Against all odds, Marcus is chosen to join the group, three women and one man, and they arrive to find Bartok lying dead on the ground. Their first test is to bring him back to life, which they somehow do, despite the fact that there is an immediate bit of charlatan in this scruffy Anton LaVey likeness. The new characters immediately bring a much-needed seriousness to the project, led by the formidable Mr. Duke (TC Carson), a professor of mysticism who drools at the sight of a book called The Grand Grimoire: “All the unholy knowledge in the world,” he says, “bound in the skin of a fallen angel.” Each is then assigned a character type for the ceremony. One is a queen, the other a viking, the other a werewolf and the other a mystic. Somewhat predictably, Marcus is called the girl of the quintet.

While the storyline is clearly conceived as a vehicle for the writer-director, whose style can (very) generously be described as a Jack Black/Ricky Gervais hybrid, it stands up quite well as one knife out-style ensemble piece (a fair comparison is the British old dark house comedy The house in Nightmare Park from 1973 with a similar undertone of the credibly macabre). Here, however, the tension is entirely supernatural as Marcus stumbles upon Bartok’s true plan more by accident than design. Surprisingly, the stakes are actually pretty high, and despite an inappropriate goth musical interlude (Meat Loaf makes a regular appearance), Marcus is unexpectedly easy to root for.

Whether there is a mainstream audience for this is incidental; Bowser has an internet fanbase backing the film on Kickstarter, and the cast of horror circuit staples Combs (Star of the reanimated films) and Barbara Crampton (star of them all) suggests he knows exactly which festivals he’ll be at next. It could even be a franchise if the role of Marcus is polished a bit, or possibly a whole new actor, but Peter Jackson doesn’t have to look over his shoulder just yet.