The band Suicide Disease is in a creative rut. They have not played a show in ages, nor have they written any new material. Lead singer Jay is convinced writing new songs is the answer. Bandmates John, Menace and Juan feel very strongly about getting back on the road and touring. However, there is a compromise they can all agree on. Their manager AJ has found someone through their socials that has offered to direct a music video for them, for free. That is an enticing offer when you have not been touring, making any money. The band is broke and a free music video can keep them current.
The band travels out of state, with some of their girlfriends along for the ride. The director has arranged to shoot their video in an abandoned mansion deep into the Pennsylvania woods. When they arrive they meet the amiable Mister Director and his assistant Babs. That first night Mister Director is very sociable and friendly, laying out a spread of snacks and drinks for the weary travelers. The following morning however the band finds a very different person behind the camera. Quick to anger and exerting total control over the shoot Mister Director and Babs turn the band into the unsuspecting stars of his very own snuff film.
In any movie, horror or something else, characters need to be a strong point and sadly the characters Don Capria's feature film debut, Director's Cut, are not. Some play to type, specifically there is always a stoner drummer and a lesbian bassist in the lineup of every cinematic band. That may be a slight exaggeration but you know it is mostly true. The lead singer Jay is an insufferable twat, to the point that you are praying for him to die in the most painful way imaginable. Capria chose to write characters that deserve to die, for a reason which he ties together rather loosely in the end with a very weak-ass connection to the band from before they went on their creative slump. And when the insufferable twat is killed the way they were we are left wondering, “We waited for that?’.
Which leads into our villain, played by Louis Lombardi, who also serves as a producer on this flick. He is trying his best, we think. He plays a character confined to a wheelchair so he depends on Babs to do his dirty work. He mostly works in the realm of expressing anger and acting as an intimidator. He does rise to the occasion when chasing the lone survivor but for someone so intent on watching everyone in and related to the band die horribly he let’s this one slide for no other reason than so the film can have a lone survivor to tell the tale when it is over. There is something creepy about the performance in the early goings when he is first meeting the band. But then he is left with nothing more to do than bark orders at the band members as they play to their deaths. This does not make a memorable villain.
There is peculiar sexuality going in this one, folks, starting with the assistant Babs. Played by Lucy Hart, there is no chance that you will be able to ignore her dick. It is just there. All the time. There. Through tight fitting PVC pants. Her dick. Right there. Capria even goes as far as to center on it when Babs is walking along a gangway as she chases one of her victims. There will never be anything wrong with transgender artists in film, it is simply a strange fixation throughout the movie. At the very least we now know that Hart dresses to the left. There’s also an out of nowhere oral sex scene that really has no rhyme or reason for being there. Can we just trust that this particular couple sincerely loves each other without having this scene in your movie? So weird.
The saving grace of any horror flick that stumbles as much as this one does will be the kills and here they’re just not good enough. They are neither scary, imaginative, or particularly gory. Bloody yes, but if you have established that your characters are unlikeable and your audience desires glorious death upon them then you best deliver. Director’s Cut does not.
The fear building is lacking as well. Local county boys who have set themselves up in the big house up the road posed a threat on the ride into the area but that isn’t followed through after that. The band manager AJ who Jay vouches for over and over and over again is along for the ride. He is the first to go missing then we never seem him again. Never again. Nothing. Nothing at all. A comeback to him and what happened to him - preferably something awful - would have really ramped up the tension in this.
One of the first things the band is told when they arrive is, don’t go into the basement. But because people are idiots the girlfriends do. This is where the first “scare” is supposed to happen. Supposed to. The set up is predictable and you are already looking past the girls into the distance to see the the leg or arm poking out from a doorway that is meant to startle you. Except it does not. Because you know what to look for and where to look for it. So then there is this man in a black hoodie who is wondering the halls of the abandoned mansion that Capria does absolutely nothing with. Our thought is that they were there for tech support with all the hidden cameras put up around the mansion.
In the end, Director’s Cut, is just okay. Nothing about it, apart from the transgender henchwoman, really makes it stand out from the dearth of independent horror cinema that’s out there. If Capria was looking to make any kind of statement with their debut horror flick it should have been something other than this. All this said was that it was nothing more than a fear to commit to something big, audacious or even memorable.