Lousy Lottery 25: Oh Mother! It's Verotika!
Welcome, friends, to the Lousy Lottery! Here’s how it works. First, I post four movies to a poll on Twitter. Fans vote to pick which movie to make me watch that week. I watch it, review it and spread the word about an amazingly awful, terribly terrific b-horror flick.
This is week 25! This week we take a look at the most recent movie we’ve ever profiled, 2020’s Verotika and, frankly, I may never forgive you! But first, let’s talk plot.
This movie is an anthology and like any good horror anthology, it has a central emcee who guides we the viewer through the maze of horrors. With Verotika, the host is some sort of demon woman (I think) played by porn star Kayden Kross. I don’t know what she’s after or what her point in all this is, but she is basically nude the whole time and has little devil horns, so that’s cool I guess. She introduces the segments, three in total. First up, we have The Albino Spider of Dajette.
In this tale, we meet Dajette who is some sort of stripper or escort or erotica model or some sort of something. For reasons that are probably super meaningful to Danzig but seem super dumb to us the viewer, Dajette has eyeballs for nipples and when she falls asleep this white spider that seems to always be near her comes to life as some sort of bloodthirsty humanoid. Again, I have no idea why these things are the case, but they are. Dajette decides she’s sick of the spider’s shit and hatches a plan. Why she doesn’t just squish the spider while she’s awake, the world may never know. Her plan, instead, is to take sleeping pills to kill herself and call the police. She times it just so that the police show up while she’s asleep but not quite dead. The make up, special effects and creature effects are all high school play level quality.
The second segment is called Change of Face and is about a stripper who collects the faces of other strippers a lá Maniac. To be quite honest, I had zoned out so much by this point that I really can’t remember much of this segment other than that it meets the above description and is full of vast quantities of nudity. I don’t mind moving on, however, because the last segment was my favorite by a country mile. Anyone familiar with Danzig’s work as a musician and visual artist knows he has a deep abiding love for medieval occult imagery. From his famous devil skull logo to his rock operas about evil kings and fallen angels, Danzig’s imagination seems to live in that dark castle from the end segment of the movie Willow.
As such, it’s clear he spent the most time and care on the final segment, called Drukija Contessa of Blood. This segment exists in the dark castles of medieval Europe. The production design and costume work is actually pretty damn good. Drukija, played by Alice Haig, brims over with presence and is absolutely gorgeous in her sheer chainmail gowns. Her performance is so good that it stands out as a stark example of why hiring legit actors is always a better idea than porn stars. Sure, the latter may be more willing to get nude and more willing to party after wrapping, but you just can’t beat a true professional at actual acting. Drukija wears a crown of spikes and skulls and has a massive kink for blood and bloodletting. She takes it so far that she actually starts bathing in the stuff. Haig really nails the passionate stares and bloodlust and makes it by far the best segment of the three. Even so, I barely remember how it ends and none of the other actors or characters stuck with me. So, even the best segment is still pretty meh.
Danzig was once a hardcore rocker whose work I couldn’t get enough of. Then, something happened. He became hugely successful. For some, this changes little, but for others they start to insulate themselves with ‘yes men’ and simply aren’t challenged anymore. With no one to push back on them, they often don’t listen to good advice and begin to believe in their own mythology. Danzig has long served as a great example of this. He took more and more control of his music and for some, like Prince, that can work out just fine, but only if one has the talent to handle the load. Verotika is the latest example of this and, well, it’s just as underwhelming as the music he’s made for the last decade or two.
He wrote, directed, produced, edited and, hell, even did the photography direction for this film. Again, that’d be fine if he was a cinematic mastermind, but, well, he ain’t. Even the likes of Tarantino and Coppola don’t take on so much and for good reason. Perhaps Alex McLevy said it best when he described Verotika as “that rare fusion of painstakingly expressed love and total lack of ability that deliver the best of bad cinema.” It’s clear Danzig had a passion for this tale. He took on just about every role in the production of it. Without the talent to enable him to successfully take on so much, though, the end result is an unintentional comedy.
The wig work might be the worst I’ve ever seen. Some of the decisions, like setting the first segment in France yet clearly not shooting it in France and getting nothing but American porn stars who can’t do French accents play the main characters in the segment, are just truly cringe-worthy. The entire first segment was just terrible. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but even the nudity wasn’t done well. What I mean by that is that Danzig decided to fill the cast with porn actors and, well, they’re just sort of nude all the time. Never once was that nudity alluring or sexy, it just was, well, there. If all of this was packed into a fun, rip-roaring horror-comedy, I’d be singing it’s praises from now to eternity. Instead, the end result just feels like the result of no one pushing back on Danzig and all his ideas being greenlit. In other words, it doesn’t feel intentionally funny or fun, it feels like someone trying very very hard and missing the mark.
That said, the final segment, I greatly enjoyed. It had this aesthetic like that of Willow or Conan the Barbarian. Add to that vibe the great performance by Aussie actress Alice Haig, who absolutely nailed the lead role of that third segment. From her look to her performance, I wanted to pledge my fealty to this blood-drenched queen. Was this segment and Haig’s performance enough to make it a worthwhile watch? No, not really. It is a silver lining though. This movie isn’t very fun and it isn’t very interesting. It has rare moments that intrigue, but overall it’s just sort of forgettable. If you’re going to watch it, I suggest you get quite intoxicated first. At least this way you’ll have some fun and end up forgetting most of what you watched.
Also, don’t forget to see what’s coming next in the Lousy Lottery. Make sure you tune into Twitter later today and vote for Lousy Lottery 26! My handle is @MrJosh79, look for it and don’t forget to vote!
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