I review a lot of films. I review horror, comedy, drama, documentary, television series, you name it (with a distinct emphasis on horror); I even review books on the regular. In any given week, I watch at least 7 or 8 movies and review virtually all of them (along with keeping up on college football and pro wrestling). I live in front of a screen. The point is that I see a lot of work- the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I’m also human. As much as I try to be objective whenever possible, I still form snap judgments when watching a trailer to decide if I want to take an assignment. I’ll be honest: when Sonny Mahal (one of the story writers of Art of the Dead) contacted me, I had my doubts. The trailer looked a little cheesy (not to put too fine a point on it), and we all know there’s good cheese and bad cheese. Still, I was in the mood to live dangerously. I said “Fuck it. Let’s do this shit!”
Art of the Dead tells the story of an unsuspecting wealthy family who purchases a collection of seven animal paintings- a pig wallowing in mud, a goat cavorting through a field, snakes winding through a verdant tree, a bloated frog on a lilypad eyeing a fat dragonfly, a radiant peacock strutting its stuff, snails doing a whole lot of nothin’, and a wild-eyed lion bursting through the foilage. In other words, they’re animal representations of Gluttony, Lust, Envy, Greed, Pride, Sloth, & Wrath (respectively) a.k.a. The Seven Deadly Sins. What the rich family doesn’t know is that the obscure struggling artist who painted them sold his soul in order to create his masterpieces. They’ll soon fall under the possession of the evil art, becoming living caricatures of man’s worst sins.