Night of the Tentacles (2013)

AKA: Heart Attack

Director: Dustin Mills

Writer: Dustin Mills

Composer: Dustin Mills

Starring: Brandon Salkil, Nicole Gerity, Melissa Blair, Michael Blair, Jackie McKown, Eugene Flynn, Dustin Mills, Josh Eal, Michael Blaie

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  Kiss your ass goodbye!

Plot: This is the Night of the Tentacles! In this obscene Faustian tale a young artists sells his soul to Satan for the new heart he so desperately needs. The only catch is that the heart is a tentacled monstrosity with a hunger for human flesh! Will Dave get the girl of his dreams? Will he run out of neighbors to feed his infernal heart? Will Delilah ever finish urinating? Find out in NIGHT OF THE TENTACLES!!!

My rating:  6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

When it comes to low budget, makin' lots of movies mother fuckers, I dig Dustin Mills...to a point.  His movies have some good and some bad (compared to a lot of filmmakers in the same situation who just churn out crap).  Usually the good can outweigh the bad and that's what happens here.  The story feels familiar but Mills has some good dialogue at times and there are the occasional jokes that land and have me laughing out loud.  Now considering this is what it is, the acting is serviceable and Salkil does a pretty good job in the lead as Dave.  Film buffs will appreciate some of the humor more than others.  There's a little bit of nudity (nice) and there are some kills and gore (nice).  The movie's only an hour and a half long but it feels longer.  Part of the problem is being stuck in Dave's apartment except for a few scant minutes of shots in another tenant's apartment.  What's worse than that is the color grading given to most of the film.  It'd be nice to see some natural light to break up the reds, greens, blues and so on.  Was that done on purpose to cover up something?  Maybe the lighting was shit from the beginning and this was a way to salvage it?  Beats me.  But the other worst thing about the flick is the voice of the heart/monster (Flynn).  It's partly a horrendous British accent by someone who thinks Crocodile Dundee is a Brit and it's partly laughable because it's so bad and the accent is all over the place from British, Australian and American (did I miss any?).  It's painful to listen to at times.  Despite all of that there is enough to like in Mills' third film to warrant checking out.  I've now seen his first four features.  I should skip ahead to something more recent.  This guy's a work horse.  He's made twenty features since 2010 with another one in post.  I don't care if his were the worst movies out there (which they are far from it)...that's impressive and I'm envious.