The Worst Film Ever

Thanks for the memories!

Memorable, crazy movie

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks) was once a top film editor. Then a nasty accident resulted in the loss of some fingers, and he ends up cutting trashy horror pictures. Murders begin to plague the production of his current film, and the inspector on the case (Matthew Kennedy) is sure he's responsible.There's a fair amount of suspects in this very knowing, dead-on parody of the Italian murder mysteries known as Gialli. The Canadian filmmaking collective Astron-6 (including Brooks, Kennedy, and co-star Conor Sweeney, who plays untalented actor Cal Konitz) obviously took a fair amount of care with this one, and had a bigger budget than usual. They also shot it in 2.35:1 to keep it stylishly connected to Gialli of the past. The story has its share of twists (among them, the ending), and it keeps viewers amused and interested. The gore is delightfully way over the top, and nicely realized. The film is not always terribly funny, but when it hits, it hits HARD. Among the brightest gags are references to both Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci; Fulci's body of work in particular gets a frequent shout-out. The music is great - among the composers credited is Claudio Simonetti, so it's no surprise that the score is Goblin-esque at times.The acting is much like what one would see in a vintage Giallo. Brooks actually does a passable Italian accent, and is a likeable hero. Kennedy is fun as the bumbling inspector. Paz de la Huerta ("Nurse 3-D") vamps it up something fierce as Rey's wife, a faded former film star. Laurence R. Harvey ("Human Centipede" 2 and 3) is a flustered priest, Tristan Risk ("American Mary") the sexy Veronica, but German legend Udo Kier is rather wasted as the briefly seen head of an asylum. Still, it's always nice to see him in anything.Overall, a good, respectable effort, worth a look for any fan of the Gialli genre.Seven out of 10.

I can only be entirely honest here and admit that – for me personally – "The Editor" was a big disappointment that could never at one moment live up to the (admittedly far too high) expectations that I had set for it. The expectations were high because the guys responsible are usually bona fide geniuses! They are Astron-6, a collective of six young, creative and pleasantly deranged horror fanatics. They previously delivered festival favorites like "Father's Day" (a totally deranged tribute to vile and rancid 70s grindhouse exploitation) and "Manborg" (a downright ballistic and hyperkinetic Sci-Fi tale). When I first read that these same blokes were working on film that would spoof and simultaneously pay tribute to the Italian Giallo, I already labeled it as successful before production was even finished. I made one vital mistake, however… I love the giallo too much to see it spoofed! "The Editor" mocks – albeit respectfully – all the elements that yours truly worships about this overlooked horror sub genre, like the excessively violent murders, the explicit sexual footage or the overly eccentric cast of characters. Several cast and crew members of a sleazy and exploitative pulp movie are savagely murdered. The investigating macho police detective is rapidly convinced that editor Ray Cisco is the culprit. After all, he's an introvert and frustrated loner who once had a bright future in front of him, but he lost his valuable right hand's fingers in a freak accident and went so mad that he even spent time in a psychiatric clinic. Naturally he can't accept that he now has to edit inferior trash movies while his own wife hates his guts and nobody on the sets has any respect for him. I certainly don't intend to sound like a sourpuss, but the only thing that "The Editor" does is enlarging the clichés and prejudices that are irreversibly associated with the giallo genre even though they aren't fair or truthful to begin with! Yes, the dubbing in English of Italian movies is often horrendous, but that's hardly ever the films' own fault. If you take the effort to track down the original versions with Italian audio, you don't have this problem. And yes, several gialli contain absurd plot twists, but I can also list at least 50 films of which the denouements are truly intelligent and original. Most of all, gialli are known for their extreme sex and violence, but in many cases these same films also feature genuine suspense, unsettling atmosphere and truly imaginative cinematography. Those are aspects that Astron-6 (deliberately?) left out. Still, I want to state again that "The Editor" is nevertheless a film with a lot of entertainment value. It's a funny and unpretentious movie with a grotesque plot, flamboyant characters and messy gore effects. There's one particularly hilarious gory sequence where the face of a young actress is literally stripped off, as well as several moments that refer to the non-giallo work of Lucio Fulci, involving tarantulas, eyeballs etc. One last thing I didn't quite understand: if Astron-6 wanted to spoof the giallo, then why didn't they invent a typically long and (beeldrijk) title? "The Editor" sounds so ordinary, while the film easily could have been named something like: "There Are Strange Red Drops On The Floor Of The Editing Room"I really do wish to grab the opportunity to promote the giallo genre, of course! In case you enjoyed this film, please seek out the truly worthwhile titles of this marvelous Italian crime/horror sub genre. You can't go wrong with the landmarks of Mario Bava ("Blood and Black Lace", "The Girl who Knew Too Much") or the 70s movies of Dario Argento ("Bird with the Crystal Plumage", "The Cat O' Nine Tails", "Profondo Rosso"), Lucio Fulci ("Don't Torture a Duckling", "Seven Notes in Black") or Sergio Martino ("The Strange Vice of Ms. Wardh", "Torso", "Case of the Scorpion's Tail"). But there exist also many and truly magnificent gialli masterpieces from lesser known directors that are absolute must-sees as well: "What have you done to Solange?", "The House with the Laughing Windows", "Plot of Fear", "Black Belly of the Tarantula", "The Red Queen Kills Seven Times", "Who Saw Her Die?", "The Blood-Stained Butterfly", "House of the Yellow Carpet", "Short Night of the Glass Dolls", "Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion"… The list is incredibly long!

I hate to give this such a low mark, because there were at least half a dozen times in the first half hour when I thought The Editor was about to blossom into a note-perfect giallo homage. A few brief scenes mimicked exactly the kind of bad dubbing/dialogue/acting/lighting/fashion etc of the original 70s Italian giallo horrors it's clearly inspired by. Frustratingly however these were just teases, and the film seemed more interested in being some kind of hip underground indie-flick slasher that didn't remind me much of anything giallo based, and it started to *seriously* drag. The lead character's virtually comatose performance didn't help much, and the plot soon got impossible to follow. After 45 mins I didn't really know or care what I was watching any more.Overall The Editor is nowhere near as bad as the absurdly boring Berberian Sound Studio (the closest modern-day comparison I can think of), but I wish they'd concentrated more on paying tribute to the classic giallo clichés instead of becoming a directionless and rather average slasher.

Went to see it @ TIFF, the movie was super funny, lots of gore and sex, cult actors (UDO KIER !!!!)....cant go wrong with that kind of mixthe movie spoofed so many old giallo's (blade of the ripper, your vice is a closed door, the new york ripper, suspiria ), intentional bad acting , bad editing (the irony !!!!), ... makes you realize that the makers must have gone thru a lot of sleazy euro- trash titles to make this one. The soundtrack was amazing ,cinematography was top-notch .However, the movie kinda gets sluggish in the middle (especially act 2), but the ending makes up for it.... Congrats to the ASTRON 6 team... clearly the best movie they have made (also check out father's day and manborg from the same team)....definitely would recommend it to any euro-horror/ giallo fan....