Be ready to enter the nightmare world that exists between the shadows in author/director Jeffery Husselman’s sinister characteristic Streetwalker. Ruby (Corissa Gabor) is a intercourse employee who fills her time between methods watching monochrome sermons by late-night TV prophet Isaiah Russ (Nick Villaire). Ruby solely has just a few buddies on this chilly world: fellow intercourse employee Zoey (Ray Hansen) and nice-guy buyer Roy (Keith Ortiz).
Nonetheless, eerie issues begin to happen within the corners. One night time, Duffy (George Weslyn), an everyday who asks Ruby to make use of the identical fragrance his spouse does to be able to cowl up the physique fluid odor, pays further for an evening of laborious drug intercourse that lands Ruby within the hospital. A fruits of ugly rituals happens. Ruby turns into conscious she has gotten the eye of an interdimensional being referred to as the Ring Chief (Jeffery Husselman). With out shifting his lips, the Ring Chief whispers of all of the seen issues that actually should not, in addition to all of the invisible issues that undoubtedly are. The Ring Chief and his followers do terrible issues, all of the whereas telling Ruby that her place is with them.
There are much more hits than misses in Streetwalker. It has a terminally hip hybrid visible aesthetic of grindhouse blended with Nicholas Winding Refn. The fake print harm jives nicely with the sunshine storms of drop-dead indigos and violets. Husselman’s appreciation of analog-era tech results in what looks as if a Nineties interval piece. The forgotten world of black-and-white televisions and landlines, again when individuals needed to watch issues as a result of nothing else was on, looms massive.
The filmmaker additionally avoids the sexploitation avenues of the fabric, as a substitute selecting to take advantage of the seedy parts of intercourse work for horror. It is a clever path to absorb this startling new post-exploitation world. That doesn’t imply the film retains its britches on, however the nudity is used for unease and torture as a substitute of poking your pelvic furnace. By establishing a darkness-filled panorama that then has further horrors seem, Husselman double-meats his dread sandwich with out ever having boring, non-horror scenes. It begins creepy and ends horrifically.
“The Ring Chief and his followers do terrible issues, all of the whereas telling Ruby that her place is with them.”
Regardless of all of the horror coursing by means of its design, the film performs extra like a gritty Boulevard drama, even when the cross-dimensional parts seem. This freshens issues up properly. Streetwalker goes within the precise course I hoped the brand new Hellraiser would journey down.
Sadly, I’m not loopy concerning the handheld digital camera. Nope. If we’re dressing up grindhouse, then we should perceive that interval hardly ever noticed handheld outdoors of stories footage. It’s not a deal breaker, but it surely will get tiresome. However the principle situation is Husselman’s efficiency as the highest nemesis. He resembles Coffin Joe with make-up and ears like Spider-Man villain The White Rabbit. Visually, the baddie is just not as unnerving as he must be.
When the Ring Chief speaks, his lips don’t transfer. It’s a lot just like the werewolf-looking satan not shifting his lips within the ill-fated Spawn. The villain stands and grins whereas his dialogue performs over the soundtrack. It appears lazy in the midst of quite a lot of apparent laborious work on the filmmaker’s half. Some form of facial masking or a kind of red-hot animal masks would have corrected this immediately. As soon as once more, not a deal breaker, however undoubtedly a missed alternative for a further stage of ferocity.
None of this could dissuade you from trying out Streetwalker. The sensible transfer of utilizing a gritty drama format to inject doses of laborious horror pays off. And it appears attractive, hyper-stylized, and uncooked on the identical time. This horror providing exhibits why the indie product simply will get you larger typically. These searching for a next-level style providing will do nicely with this.
