Review by Ben Bussey
It’s 2013, and as the V/H/S movies and The ABCs of Death have firmly established, the anthology horror movie is very much back in vogue. Is this why Little Deaths is only reaching DVD now, more than two years after it was first screened? Maybe; maybe not. But we should be happy enough to welcome it into the fold. Dispensing with the usual bridging device, this movie gives us three completely separate stories from distinctive British horror filmmakers Sean Hogan, Andrew Parkinson and Simon Rumley.
As the title might imply – what with ‘la petite mort’ being a euphemism for orgasm (thank you, Alexis Arquette in Bride of Chucky) – while the stories may be unrelated, sex plays a major role in all of them. It’s interesting how the short narrative format seems to attract more filmmakers to tackle stories with sex at the forefront. This was very much the case with The Theatre Bizarre, and more than a few chapters of The ABCs of Death – and of course V/H/S, whose sleazy handling of the matter was a huge part of what made that film so distasteful to me, and to plenty of other people I could mention (including but not limited to our own Annie). And of course, Little Deaths predates all those anthology movies, even if it’s the last to gain a wide release. I’d say Little Deaths might anticipate the less-than-sunny view of human relations that we have had in anthology horror movies since; but hey, this is horror, it doesn’t tend to take a particularly sunny view of anything.
I’d rather avoid summing up the plot of each film, simply because when discussing a short, it’s all too easy to inadvertently give too much away. Like all good horror short stories, these present you with a grim little world which, by way of various twists and turns, only gets grimmer, not to mention a good bit weirder. We have lies, manipulation and betrayal in abundance, people revealing themselves to be more than they first appear, and naturally a succession of very downbeat conclusions. While fantastical elements are present, with one instalment boasting a supernatural twist and another even a streak of sci-fi, there remains a degree of blunt realism. As will come as no surprise to anyone who’s seen Simon Rumley’s previous films, his concluding chapter is by far the most realistic, and almost certainly the most grim.
Yes – the words ‘grim,’ ‘dark,’ ‘moody’ and other such miserablist synonyms can all be applied to Little Deaths. Subsequently, what we’ve got here is a film which is easy enough to admire, but – to my mind – doesn’t offer much to actually enjoy. And I know, that probably isn’t the name of the game here, particularly with Rumley’s entry – much as how no one was meant to come out of The Living and the Dead or Red White & Blue with a big old sloppy grin on their chops. I guess we must again take into account that Little Deaths was made in 2010, and first shown in 2011; the last gasp (or so I truly fucking hope) of the torture era. We have incarceration, abuse, people tied up and tied down, rape – all those essential elements of 2000s horror which have long since grown tiresome in their overfamiliarity. No, Little Deaths is not eroticising its atrocities – the intent is to unnerve the viewer on a deep, gut level. Which is fine. But, for this writer at least, that approach has run its course.
Still, having said all that, Little Deaths definitely warrants attention. It’s very atmospheric, it looks and sounds great, and boasts good performances all around. Above all, it highlights a distinct approach to the genre being taken by British filmmakers, boding well for the future of the genre in the UK at a time when, to be frank, a lot of new British horror is falling way short of the mark. Whilst their work might not always resonate too deeply with me personally, I do appreciate that we need filmmakers like Rumley, Hogan and Parkinson, venturing outside of the obvious with noble experiments such as this.
Little Deaths is out now on Region 2 DVD, from Monster Pictures.