The Seven Deadly Sins get bestial (and ridiculous) with director Rolfe Kanefky's latest "flick" ART OF THE DEAD.

After art collector Douglas Winter (21 JUMP STREET's Richard Grieco) brutally murders his entire family and then empties a shotgun into his stomach, The Sin-sation Collection of seven floridly colorful paintings of animals painted at the end of the nineteenth century by obscure artist Dorian Wilde goes up for auction under shady circumstances at the Centurion gallery of dealer Tess Barryman (Tara Reid, URBAN LEGEND). Since it is for charity, wealthy by ecologically green architect Dylan Wilson (Lukas Hassel, THE BLACK ROOM) and his wife Gina (Jessica Morris, REEL EVIL) purchase the paintings for half-a-million dollars despite dire warnings from the crazed Gregory Mendale (Kanefsky regular Robert Donavan, THE FRIGHTENING) about their evil nature. Wilson hangs the paintings throughout his house, gifting one of a lion in the jungle to his college art student son Louis (Zachary Chyz) who has just returned home with his lit major girlfriend Kim (Alex Rinehart). Although dispirited because his teachers tell him he has the technique but not the passion to be an artist, Louis' behavior quickly changes under the influence of the painting, and the apparition of Dorian Wilde himself (Danny Tesla) urges him to put blood, sweat, and tears onto his canvases (his own and those of others). Mesmerized by the painting of a Satanic goat hung over her bed, Gina becomes sexually insatiable; unfortunately, her cravings clash with those of Wilson who is driven by the frog painting to betray his ideals and spend every waking moment pursuing profit. His once awkward teenage daughter Donna (Cynthia Aileen Strahan) under the influence of the snake painting seeks not only to steal the boyfriend of the school mean girl but to become her (or at least, parts of her), and the couple's youngest children start to undergo a slimy transformation beneath a painting of a pair of snails. Concerned, Kim looks into the life of the painter and learns from Mendale – a former priest who plucked out one of his offending eyes after being tempted by the sin of envy when the snake painting was acquired by his parish – reveals that Wilde sold his soul to the devil and was commissioned to paint seven paintings depicting each of the sins, their function to collect the souls of those who give into temptation.

Although director Rolfe Kanefsky – son of GANJA & HESS editor Victor Kanefsky – made his debut with the horror comedy THERE'S NOTHING OUT THERE!, he spent much of the nineties and early part of this century directing entries in a number of series produced by EMMANUELLE rights owner Alain Siritzky like THE CLICK, EMMANUELLE 2000, EMMANUELLE THROUGH TIME, and EMMANUELLE: THE PRIVATE COLLECTION. Following that period, his work became more varied, although still quirky with ONE IN THE GUN a film noir by way of the nineties erotic thriller and LOST HIGHWAY, JACQUELINE HYDE a softcore horror hybrid, and NIGHTMARE MAN boasting an intriguing premise before giving way to conventional slasher antics. His more recent THE BLACK ROOM was a pleasant surprise with a nice balance of gore, sex, and humor. ART OF THE DEAD, on the other hand, is ambitious in concept but Kanefsky's execution is scattershot. While the paintings all look rather cartoonish, the ways in which they are animated with a mix of digital effects, edits, and compositing real animals is done with better finesse than THE STENDHAL SYNDROME's surreal highlights. Performances are all over the place, but the scripting is partially at fault crosscutting between subplots and leading to some abrupt character changes rather than a more creeping and subtle transformation (indeed, the same concept probably could have supported a more character-driven approach). The appearances of Dorian Wilde himself seem most gratuitous since the apparent hybrid of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde, and Jack the Ripper is never scary and his paintings and the backstory related by other characters really should be able to "speak" for themselves. There is some splashy gore by Vincent J. Guastini who got his start on SPOOKIES and has moved back and forth between mainstream stuff like REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and indie horror such as UNDER THE BED, but the sexual content is so underplayed that some full frontal nudity during the climax is more shocking than the horror highlights. Production values are pretty good for the budget with some striking locations and design, and some nice cinematography with only the use of drone photography in place of more expensive aerial work or crane shots having the opposite effect. While a bit of a disappointment, ART OF THE DEAD at least shows that Kanefsky is more ambitious than some filmmakers churning out direct to video product.