FIRE CITY: END OF DAYS (2015)

Studio:       Uncork’d Entertainment
Director:    Tom Woodruff Jr.
Writer:       Brian Lubocki, Michael Hayes
Producer:  Brian Lubocki, Michael Hayes
Stars:     Tobias Jelinek, Danielle Chuchran, Kimberly Leemans, Eric Edwards, Simon Sorrells, Pele Kizy, Brionne Davis, Derrick L. McMillon, Kristin Minter, Harry Shum Jr., Jen Oda, Keely Alona

Review Score:

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Summary:

Demons living in disguise among humans find their existence threatened when they become unable to feed off the misery of mankind.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Disguised as a human, demon Atum Vine prevents human Andre from assaulting Sara, the daughter of Andre’s alcoholic girlfriend Jane, in the basement of a rundown Los Angeles tenement where demons clandestinely live alongside humans.

Status Quo – In the same building, human Maria visits disguised demon Madame Cornelia for a tarot card reading. One of the cards becomes black obsidian glass and shatters. Surprised that a human can see the glass, Cornelia reveals her demon form and kills Maria. Cornelia dons a helmet enabling her to communicate telepathically with similar demons and explains that her card reading signaled the arrival of a new “Interpreter of Signs” to join their ranks. However, the other voices are distressed to discover that the card was black instead of blue.

While looking for fellow demon Dooley, Vine stops by Cornelia’s apartment. Cornelia tells Vine what happened and reminds him that humans should only be able to see into their world if they are first touched by a demon.

Vine eavesdrops on the apartment of human couple Frank and Lisa while they argue and physically fight with each other. As the demon responsible for procuring human misery in drug format to keep other demons alive, Vine visits reptilian trio Mace, Tripp, and Helo, who plot to kill Vine if he is ever unable to supply them with sustenance. Meanwhile, demon hooker Amber loses her human disguise while with a client.

Vine discovers Sara running away from home, but chooses to not intervene. Jane slaps her daughter and forces her to return to their apartment. When Vine later finds Dooley dead, he collapses and has a dream in which he uses his gun to rescue Sara from Andre’s assault.

Transmutation – Vine wakes to find the building strangely brighter. Andre is now kind to children while Frank and Lisa are no longer fighting. The resident demons are distressed to discover that the humans are suddenly happy, thus preventing them from feeding on human sorrow. Cornelia explains that disease has come from another plane to infect the humans.

Vine shows Dooley’s body to Cornelia and finds a small red feather. Taking the clue to boar-headed demon Ford leads Vine to conclude that a rogue demon is somehow influencing humans.

Cornelia sends Vine out of the building to find more misery. Vine is abducted and taken to a strip club run by Tarqus, a demon from a different faction. Once Vine is inside the club, the demons there are suddenly unable to feed and turn violent against the humans. In speaking with a happy human working at a diner afterward, Vine realizes that his presence is what turns human behavior positive.

Vine returns to Cornelia and discovers that she arranged his encounter with Tarqus to test her suspicion that Vine was actually the source of infection. Cornelia tells the other demons that they are diseased, not the humans, and tasks everyone to interact with human residents to find their misery.

Amber is unable to seduce Frank and Lisa. A black cloud materializes into a shadowy figure in Ford’s apartment and incapacitates him. After having sex with Vine, Amber explains that interpreters can only die by committing suicide. Vine finds another red feather upon discovering Ford collapsed. Vine and Cornelia fight.

Vine visits Sara, Jane, and Andre and sees them dining as a happy family. Vine privately reveals his demon form to Sara and she points him in the right direction with his red feather clue.

Helo kills one of his reptilian brothers.

Using a ritual told to him by Ford, Vine is finally able to successfully conjure the entity responsible for Dooley’s death. The encounter with the spirit forces Vine to realize that the demon disease was brought on by Vine developing compassion for humans through his encounter with Sara. Cornelia insists that the only way to end the hunger is for Vine to kill Sara.

Sacrifice – Fearful that he will not sacrifice Sara to save the demons, Amber attacks Vine, but Vine kills her. Meanwhile, Cornelia finds Ford and Ford confirms that Vine has been prophesized as the new interpreter before Cornelia kills him.

Unable to kill the human girl, Vine tries sneaking Sara out of the building. The other demons attack. While Vine kills one of the remaining reptilian demons, Helo and Cornelia capture Sara. Vine follows them and kills Helo.

Cornelia confesses that Vine has been chosen as the next interpreter, but he must first kill the girl to end their famine and begin his training. Vine refuses, protesting that demons are the real disease because they should not live among humans.

Cornelia moves to stab Sara, but Vine forces Cornelia to stab herself instead. Sara then transforms into a red bird and flies away. Vine follows and is shocked to find Sara’s corpse buried under dirt in the basement.

The demon entity manifests itself in Sara’s form and tells Vine that Sara has actually not yet died by Andre’s hand. Vine returns to present reality where he saves Sara from Andre and returns the girl to her mother Jane. Vine then prepares to rescue a young boy abducted from a nearby town.

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Review:

A young girl flees into the basement of a rundown Los Angeles apartment building.  A large man corners her, but is chased away by a trenchcoat-wearing figure who morphs into a horned demon after the large man leaves.

A woman visits a fortuneteller.  When one of the cards turns into shattered obsidian glass, the fortuneteller suddenly changes form and tears out the woman’s throat.  She then dons a demonic version of Cerebro and a cacophony of disembodied voices is excited to learn that a new “interpreter of signs” has been heralded, until they discover that the card was black instead of blue.

Looking for someone named Dooley, previous demon Atum Vine visits the fortuneteller.  Afterwards, he eavesdrops on a woman beating her husband with a metal pot while the large man from earlier resets his sights on the young girl.  Vine next visits a trio of reptilian thugs and they cryptically discuss procuring sustenance of some sort before plotting murder behind Vine’s back.

A hooker spontaneously sprouts a tail.  A woman beats her would-be runaway daughter.  A dream sequence romanticizes a gunshot death for the wannabe child murderer from the opening.  And Vine finally finds Dooley, albeit dead and with a small red feather as the only clue to his killer.

If you are somehow able to penetrate the fiction featured in the first 20 minutes of “Fire City: End of Days,” stop watching immediately and apply either for Mensa membership or some sort of elite think tank position at a rocket propulsion laboratory.  The rest of us with mere mortal minds eventually learn that the movie’s true story is a somewhat straightforward one of a conflicted hero earning redemption.  Yet the film chooses such a complex way of telling his tale that anyone would be forgiven for giving up before the end of act one.

Previously subtitled “The Interpreter of Signs,” and piggybacking on the 2013 short film “Fire City: King of Miseries,” “Fire City: End of Days” is a partially-crowdfunded dark fantasy noir directed by acclaimed creature creator Tom Woodruff, Jr.  Noted for memorable makeup work on too many movies to mention, Woodruff is also one half of the founding team behind practical FX studio ADI.  Woodruff’s partner Alec Gillis previously took the Kickstarter route with his directorial debut “Harbinger Down” (review here), and “End of Days” marks Woodruff’s employment of a similar strategy for his own first feature.

Obtuse introduction aside, “Fire City: End of Days” focuses on Vine, a demon bearing a passing resemblance to Hellboy in more ways than one.  In this version of Los Angeles’ seedy underbelly, demons coexist in disguise among humans, and subsist on the misery of mankind in demon drug form.  Vine is the dealer responsible for keeping his clan fed.  So when the humans in their dilapidated tenement suddenly start leading strangely happy lives, the others turn to Vine for answers as to why they are going hungry, and why other demons are turning up dead.

“Fire City” is a terrific celebration of creative creature designs and the premise promises an intriguing blend of grim gumshoe mystery with horrific urban fantasy.  Unfortunately, the dismal world where it all takes place is bathed in such perpetual bleakness that it is never a fun place to be.

Given the film’s themes and its underlying underworld of demon denizens, a certain level of darkness is essential.  But “Fire City” is not just dark.  It is depressing.  Populated by demon drug dealers, sleazy prostitutes, and murderous mutants while featuring scenes that include repeated spousal abuse and attempted child rape, an hour and 40 minutes becomes an uncomfortably long time to spend confined almost entirely within one dank L.A. housing tower.

Virtually every character hates every other character, too.  Excluding the hooker and her john, for the four core couples that do pair up there exists a scene where one person physically attacks his/her partner (or in Andre’s case, Jane’s daughter Sara).

The film could be stylish about its sadness.  Instead, it is mired in so much misery that it has a hard time being enjoyable escapism.  Does the epilogue really have to be based on another child abduction?  “Fire City: End of Days” is like Clive Barker’s “Nightbreed” (review here) meets “Law & Order: SVU,” except gloomier.

On the plus side, the demon makeups are as well-crafted as one might expect from the talents of Woodruff and his team.  There are the curious exceptions of Amber the demon hooker looking like a smashed mold from a rejected “Star Trek” design and Ford the pig demon looking like a simple Halloween mask, however.  The latter’s obviously ADR-dubbed voice in particular stands out as a red thumb amongst otherwise outstanding beasties.

Tobias Jelenik, memorable from a minor role in “The Possession of Michael King” (review here), is also very good as Vine in human and demon forms.  Jelenik’s frame and certainly his sandpaper voice both bring to mind a younger incarnation of Michael Wincott.

The film’s concept and ambition rate higher than the overall score reflected here.  It is just so difficult to see through the dour tone and heavy spirit at the greater promise “Fire City” might have to offer.

With its depiction of demons as detoxing druggies suffering from withdrawal, and shots of unbuckled belts and open-hand slaps meeting the face of a child, “Fire City: End of Days” wants to confront challenging ideas and uncomfortable subject matter.  But requiring Wellbutrin during and a suicide watch after is just not something desirable from monster fantasy entertainment.

Review Score:  55

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