Anamorph Review

Written by: ArsonCuff   

One could easily say Anamorph is a knock-off of the movie Seven. Which is to imply that it is inferior and the filmmakers borrowed heavily from the concept. However if you want to delve into the meat of pop culture like that, then you could pretty much lay knock-off status on every movie ever made from a certain point on. Anamorph stands on its own as a direct to DVD feature, though it isn’t the tallest kid in the class.

Anamorph was written and directed by Henry Miller, with some writing also being accredited to Tom Phelan. It stars Willem Dafoe, Scott Speedman, Peter Stormare, and Clea DuVall.

The plot: A serial killer thought to be dead has resurfaced, taunting one of the original detectives to chase him the first go-round. Or is it a copy-cat? The killer is an artist, placing his victims in art ranging from human ink wells, to dismembered sculptures. Anamorph is short for Anamorphisis which pertains to art, in this movie, in such a manner that it means pictures can change and be of a totally different thing if you look at them from a different angle.

Caution: There is a slight chance for spoilers ahead. (that is if you are watching it and expecting a certain sort of twist involving killer identity)

The acting in this movie isn’t bad. There aren’t any moments for the stars to really show off their stuff and stand out. It is all kind of low key, slow, and moody. The concept fueling the killer is of interest, but it is in the killer that the movie falters as well. They give him a weird, creepy name in “Uncle Eddie” and they also give him an elaborate series of signature murders. I mean, the “art” of this movie is grotesquely interesting stuff to behold. However, aside from speculation  and the art making a statement about him itself, Uncle Eddie is never in the forefront. He is never given a “character” in the traditional sense of  having dialog and the actor joining in on trying to entertain you as a viewer. They were going for a more dramatic thriller as opposed to wanting to give you an iconic horror genre villain, surely, but it still ended up being too bland because of it. I wanted to know more about the man behind the crimes.

I mainly kept watching just because I wanted to see if there would be some new creative twist at the end. The ending was more disappointment than not. It is not a happy ending and it is not the worst ending, it just didn’t really do it for me, but then who am I to be the final word of criticism for a film?

Anamorph works as a movie you can play on the screen at the same time that you are doing something else. One could easily say Anamorph is a knock-off of the movie Seven. I could have easily just ended this review after having said that. You get the picture.