THE SONG OF SOLOMON (2017) Blu-ray
Director: Stephen Biro
Unearthed Films/MVD Visual

When is an AMERICAN GUINEA PIG film not a GUINEA PIG film? When Stephen Biro takes on the exorcism sub-genre with THE SONG OF SOLOMON, on Blu-ray from Unearthed Films.

Young Mary (Jessica Cameron, CAMEL SPIDER) has been sleepwalking, holding conversations with no one else in the room, and having nightmares; but it is not post-traumatic stress disorder as it preceded her compelling her father (director Stephen Biro) to grisly suicide with accusations of sexual molestation and the murder-for-profit of his own parents. Her frightened mother Susan (Maureen Pelamati) seeks help from a family counselor (Scott Alan Warner, NIGHT HUNTERS) but Mary's claims to be one of the demons subjugated by King Solomon who will be free when the Antichrist is born have him recommending Susan seek the help of colleague Dr. Johnston (Josh Townsend, NEVER GO BACK). Rather than diagnosing schizophrenia, Johnston administers medical care while referring the case to the Vatican; whereupon, The Ordinary (Andy Winton) of the Catholic Diocese approves an exorcism and ventures out to personally recruit exorcists for the task. He assigns Father Blake (filmmaker Jim Vanbebber, DEADBEAT AT DAWN) who has exiled himself to a parish on the far side of the world after his turn expelling a demon, and provides an assistant in untried Father Lawson (Scott Gabbey). Armed with one of the Golden Bibles of Antioch – divided into three volumes for expelling demons, baptizing the most unholy, and raising the damned – they begin the ritual, but Mary exploits their weaknesses and exposes their secret sins. The Ordinary also assigns Father Corbin (composer Gene Palubicki) whose successful exorcism committed suicide after achieving salvation, causing him to turn away from the vocation and focus his writings on worldly evils, and depicting spiritual evil as mental illness in spite of (or because of) his experience; however, his own propensity for great violence also proves to be his vulnerability. Brought on as a "Hail Mary Pass" is Father Powell (David E. McMahon, SAFE HAVEN) who believes himself damned after failing to save a possessed girl but is offered a chance at redemption by The Ordinary.

The Japanese GUINEA PIG series of films made a splash in the United States on the bootleg circuit when film critic Chris Gore gave actor Charlie Sheen a copy of FLOWERS OF FLESH AND BLOOD who mistook the dismemberment of a woman by a samurai as a real snuff film and turned it over to the authorities. Writer/director and former video store owner Stephen Biro brought the GUINEA PIG series officially to America on DVD through is label Unearthed Films which has continued to import extreme cinema but has more recently also turned to original productions with the authorized idea to continue the series as AMERICAN GUINEA PIG, starting with the Biro-directed entry BOUQUET OF GUTS AND GORE and the Koch-directed BLOODSHOCK. Identified as an entry in the AMERICAN GUINEA PIG series in some materials and references, Biro's THE SONG OF SOLOMON sheds the clinical, monochrome, singled-mindedness pseudo-snuff approach of the previous two entries in favor of something more ambitious in terms of visuals and performance, with Biro's script attempting to best the grueling experience of the crown jewel of the possession genre THE EXORCIST. The film cannot help but reference the Blatty novel and Friedkin film because of its own concern with authenticity in the exorcism ritual and the physics-defying demonstrations of possession; however, there are some other nods in the form of priests with physical or emotional weaknesses, a single mother on the edge, and some shots of the staircase leading up to Mary's bedroom that seem familiar. While the graphic effects of Markus Koch (WE ARE STILL HERE) and Jerami Cruise (MURDER-SET-PIECES) feel like the film's raison d'être – broken bones protrude through skin, eyes are pulled out, faces are lacerated and ripped, throats are slashed, tongues are pulled out, and one guy actually reaches into his gaping throat wound and pulls his tongue out through it – but what keeps THE SONG OF SOLOMON truly diverting is not the succession of set-pieces but a screenplay that is actually thought-provoking. It asks why the church would not want the Antichrist to be born since it means definitive proof of God's existence – even if it requires waiting seven years for Christ's return – while also commenting on the possession sub-genre's flaw of putting up against ultimate evil intercessors experiencing dramatically-necessitated crises of faith or are so debilitated by their own personal (non-supernatural) demons that it seems arrogant and even suicidal of them to step up to the plate. Both Blake and Corbin are reluctant to take on another demon but do so not because of their faith but for reasons that could be deemed self-serving however well-intentioned, while Powell's feeling that he is just an "empty puppet of the Lord" is dismissed by The Ordinary with the equivalent of a bureaucratic technicality. Indeed, it appears as though The Ordinary is just throwing priests at the problem, with Powell virtually ordered to pay lip service to the rites of exorcism. A strain of reflexive humor subtly also comments on the contrivances of the film's own structure, with lines like Susan's "Dr. Johnson, another priest!" undercutting the Corbin's Merrin-like arrival or the necessary cutaways to a stupefied Corbin seeming to underline the comically lengthy scene of Mary upchucking her guts Fulci-style and then swallowing them back into place with intentional levity in place of failed intensity. Performances range from uneven to over-the-top, with Palubicki and McMahon faring well while Cameron is consistently good considering the extreme requirement of her role with the threat of being upstaged by the prosthetics. The location work is frequently striking and the photography of Chris Hilleke (A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE) impressively slick, while the scoring – credited to actors Palubicki and Gabbey along with series composer Kristian Day, Jimmy ScreamerClauz, and Jimmy Wright – is understated and supportive while eschewing the shrieking strings and dissonant instrumentation of its model film. The elements of the film never quite cohere into a hallucinatory experience of the likes of Jodorowsky or Richard Stanley, or even the religious odyssey of EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC, but THE SONG OF SOLOMON is a promising piece that does set itself apart from the AMERICAN GUINEA PIG banner.

Shot on the Sony FS7 XDCAM 4K camera, THE SONG OF SOLOMON comes to Blu-ray in a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen transfer on a BD50 that presents the feature cleanly without the encoding challenges of film-look grain while the outtakes suggest that the color regrading consisted of minutely pumping up the saturation, lending warmth to skin tones and candlelight, as well as richness to some exterior greenery and neon gels. The LPCM 2.0 Stereo track boasts clear dialogue and scoring while the sound design is relatively restrained to onscreen noises, shrieks, cries, screams, and the sounds of breaking bones and gut-spillage. There are no subtitle or captioning options.

The film is accompanied by a pair of audio commentary tracks. The first features director Biro and actress Cameron, with Biro self-conscious about his acting in the opening scene but not offering up the "the original actor didn't show up" excuse. He discusses the film as a step up from his previous film, with a longer shooting schedule, an actual budget, and paid actors, and also provides background on his extensive research as well as information on the Florida locations, including the Warlock Mansion and its statuary-festooned grounds used for the Haitian parish of Father Blake (which he obtained permission to shoot through an artist friend/rare book collector in exchange for giving her an authentic book from the Vatican on exorcism of which he owned two out of the two-hundred print run). Cameron discusses the physical demands of her role – including the large Sclera contact lenses – but speaks complementarily of her co-stars and the crew, particularly Warner who was already the film's grip and working on a number of other uncredited behind the scenes positions when he volunteered to play the counsellor in a bridging scene added at the suggestion of the actress.

The second track features Biro, effects supervisor Koch, and effects artist Cruise who not only discuss the particulars of the film's effects – including the "Colombian necktie" scene – as well as how the sweat of the actors and the Florida heat made it difficult for prosthetics to adhere but also several planned effects for which there just was not enough time leading to compromises. Biro provides more background, including putting together the authentic vintage exorcism kit from several he had acquired over the years (all of which seemed to be missing one piece or another), scouring AirBNB for the location house, and expressing doubt about Vanbebber's thespian abilities when he said he wanted to play Biro's Merrin. It is here that the three also address their dissatisfaction with other exorcism films that place more emphasis on building up characters they do not care about – including the priest with a crisis of faith – and skimping on the details of the exorcism.

A feature-length behind the scenes piece (70:22) visits the workshop as Cameron and others had their body parts cast, we get a look at all of the steps of the internal organ creations which look almost toy like before painting, the construction of the bed the night before shooting, as well as the blocking of some effects sequences, and a look at the organ upchuck without cutaways (showing what Cameron put herself through for verisimilitude). A series of outtakes (8:31) include blown takes, unused footage from the opening credits montage, as well as B-roll material shot on the Warlock Mansion grounds. A trio of interview starts with actress Cameron (20:52) who repeats some of the anecdotes and accolades for her co-stars from the commentary track, and working with Koch and Cruise, as well as her admiration of Biro's passion for the subject matter and the discomfort of lying on the bed constructed for the film which had removable and shifting pieces that allowed for various body parts and her entire torso to drop below to be replaced by the prosthetic pieces. In the interview with Biro (23:37), he expresses his belief in demons and exorcism, his Christianity, and mentions references some of the books he has written on the subject. He also discusses his twenty-year plus friendship with Koch. He also reveals that the AMERICAN GUINEA PIG was not used on the film in hopes of reaching a wider audience that might be put off by the reputation of the series. In his interview (28:07), Koch recalls visiting Biro's video store shortly after making his feature ROT which Biro shot down (Biro believes he must have confused it with some other film) but years later wanted to distribute Koch's 100 TEARS only for the film to be distributed by a company Biro was suing for non-payment. He then provides some background on the Japanese GUINEA PIG films and how he pitched to Biro an American version which lead to the director getting permission for a "continuation" of the series (although Koch mentions that the upcoming AMERICAN GUINEA PIG: SACRIFICE is a semi-remake of the Japanese entry HE NEVER DIES). The interview with director of photography Chris Hilleke (35:15) has him revealing that he knew he had to step up his game to shoot this film while admitting he was more at ease shooting the effects since he had faith in Koch's and Biro's knowledge of shooting with how the scene would come together in the editing in mind. From his documentary shooting, he took the practice of keeping the camera rolling due to the limited amount of effects materials and the possibility of something going wrong, noting the shooting of the upchuck sequence which would be augmented with the later cutaways to Palubicki along with some inserts featuring a puppet body.

A picture gallery is also included. The disc closes out with trailers for AMERICAN GUINEA PIG: BOUQUET OF GUTS AND GORE, AMERICAN GUINEA PIG: BLOODSHOCK, AMERICAN GUINEA PIG: THE SONG OF SOLOMON, AMERICAN GUINEA PIG: SACRIFICE, DREAMING PURPLE NEON, RED KROKODIL, ATROZ, FRANCESCA, 100 TEARS, and WHERE THE DEAD GO TO DIE. The back cover also lists interviews with actors Palubicki and McMahon that do not appear on the disc, and Biro has confirmed it was a misprint but that the considerably shorter interviews may appear online. A three-disc limited edition is also available in a foldout digipack with the film on Blu-ray and DVD along with a CD soundtrack. (Eric Cotenas)

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