I’d like to say that I took this brief gap to clear my mind and sanity from Shark Exorcist; the truth is that I watched Little Evil and got more comedy than horror, and felt it wasn’t worth the time to review…

At least Little Evil was entertaining, unlike Wounds.

I’m not entirely sure what I just watched. I was expecting some Simulacra type horror, I think? Certainly not this cockroach snooze fest. So many questions left unanswered, so much to process in my tired brain while I write this rough draft.

What was the point in this film?!

At the time of writing this sentence, I have slept, fed and watered, and I’m still no clearer on what I wasted my time on; I still find myself staring into space trying to process the reasoning of some of the characters, the cockroaches, the portal/hole thing, who those teens were.

Was there some kind of cult? What is ‘Translation of Wounds’ Volumes one through three? What was summoned and why did it choose Will?

Was Will’s girlfriend, Carrie, fucking her professor?

I believe that a great film ends in a way that doesn’t have me deep diving into the net to find an explanation for the ending…or the film in general; unless it’s intentionally written for a sequel everything should be answered and wrapped in a bow – even this so-called ‘psychological thriller’ needs to fill in a lot of the gaps.

The premise of the film is that bartender, Will, finds a phone that was dropped in the bar after patreon, Eric, is glassed during a fight. Will takes the phone home and begins receiving messages from Garrett asking for help, that there’s something at home with him.

Carrie is IMMEDIATELY suspicious that Will is cheating once she spots the phone the next day. Yes, Will has an obvious thing for his friend Alishia, but there’s no background information that anything has happened between them before, and said friend has Jeffery. I’m much convinced that Carrie IS fucking Prof. Steve though.

Will gets a text on the phone from Jason and tells him about the ‘pretty pictures’, leading Will through the gallery to some gorey photos and a strange video of a severed head; then he tries to call Garrett (and only ever Garrett for some reason), the phone makes some weird sounds and that’s that. Will is now the chosen one!

Will decides to take the phone to his cop friends, but receives another text from Jason. Will is the ‘chosen one’ and they need that phone back. I assume Jason and his friends have been tracking the phone since someone has been seen in previous scenes following Will around; so once Will hallucinates that the phone is a giant roach and that he’s covered in them, one of the teens manages to grab the phone again and disappear.

Will continues on to the station to report the teens, but now lacks evidence without the phone; he proceeds to give a statement along these lines:
Cop: Did you get the plate number?
Will: Yeah, it began with a six.

No, Will, you did not get the plate number.

Will makes a move on Aleshia. Boring.

Will comes back from his cheating to find Carrie staring at some portal thing on her desktop. He digs a little deeper and find out she’s looked into Garrett and found him on a forum about some ritual that believes human are portals for other worldly beings – which then led to her staring at the screen. It still doesn’t explain the Translation of Wounds or anything.

After a weird dream involving Garrett, Will goes to work but Jeffery comes in all pissed that Will made a move on his girl; Carrie then texts him with an ominous ‘there’s something here with me’ and a picture of something sat on the bed. When Will rushes home, he finds her staring into the portal thing again – she’s been there so long she’s wet herself. He almost drowns her in the bath trying to clean her up.

Will grows a pair and dumps Carrie the next morning, which she takes eerily well until he brings up the phone; then she quotes some philosophical shit about him being an empty shell. It made me wonder if she was either possessed or just crazy.

In search of a place to stay now that Carrie’s thrown him out, Will ends up at Eric’s, who still hasn’t fixed his face from the glassing two or three days before. Will remembers Doug phoned him to say Eric had a gift for him, and when questioned Will is led to the phone in the draw; Jason has text him.

Have you found the gift, wrapped in flesh?

As it dawns on Will that it means Eric’s face, the apartment begins to fill with roaches and covers the camera lens just as something interesting is finally about to happen.

The credits rolled and I was pissed off that that was that!

I’ve made my feelings clear at the beginning of this review over all the unanswered questions. Straight to the rating.

1/5: Only because Eric’s face looked convincingly gross at the end.