Art of the Dead is a 2019 thriller about a collection of paintings that unleash horror on an unsuspecting family corrupted by the seven deadly sins.
Douglas Winter (Richard Grieco) excitedly arrives home with the last painting of a series he’s long been collecting. He rushes to tell his family, though they seem entirely uninterested, and well, there’s good reason for that, one Douglas discovers when he stands among his gallery, the paintings themselves seemingly seizing upon his mental faculties in committing true horror. Jump ahead and these ‘works of art’ are now up for auction, with Tess Barryman (Tara Reid) selling them off at great expense to Dylan Wilson (Lukas Hassel) and his wife Gina (Jessica Morris), though former priest Father Gregory Mendale (Robert Donavan) offers them a stern warning, he having already had a run-in with these deadly canvases.
Movies are changing, as they should, and as large scale studios release ever-increasingly bloated films with expensive set pieces and visual effects – along with top tier talent and huge marketing budgets – running parallel to them are the smaller titles, carving a large swath though digital streaming services with a veritable storm of modestly-produced, independent features that knowingly don’t have the capacity to compete at that level, so instead embrace a kind of earnest parody of the whole business. Think of the Sharknado franchise and a plethora of so many more, doling out cheaply-made films with purposefully over-the-top acting, cheesy effects, and lots of camp. They are of course bad movies, but also undeniably entertaining, simply because, well, if you’ve seen any, that’s the answer.
With co-writer and director Rolfe Kanefsky‘s latest entry in the tank, we get Art of the Dead, a textbook edition of this kind of film-making, a triple A plot in a B-movie production. It’s not that it’s a bad movie, or at least as notably bad as you might figure, the film actually fairly well made with a lot of attention to detail that is a bit surprising, including a fun story and some charmingly silly performances. The paintings represent the Seven Deadly Sins, long since fodder for movies and television, each cursed in delivering madness upon those that possess them. It’s hardly original, but that’s also not the point. Either way, how that happens is appropriately icky as the film firmly takes hold of the potential for gushers of blood and assorted violence (with loads of low-end practical effects), none of it the least bit authentic but directly inline with expectations. That’s most likely a plus for many watching.
The cast all sit up front on this ride with Donavan easily the most spirited of the bunch, gleefully adopting the most up-to-eleven of the bunch. He’s great fun to watch homage-ing to a degree the forefathers of his character, while Reid, who is this sub-genre’s reigning queen coasts along on autopilot. It’s all hokey with tongues thrust un-apologetically in cheeks, making this a dutiful little horror film with some edge but not much else to make it all that significant. If you’re no fan of these kinds of movies, this isn’t going to change your mind. However, if you are, then Art of the Dead is next on your list.