The Editor (Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, 2014)

The Editor screens on Saturday, October 18 and Sunday, October 19. More information can be found at the Chicago International Film Festival's website here. This is a capsule review. A full review will be published upon the film's United States theatrical release. 

Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy’s The Editor meets the fundamental technical criteria of what constitutes a movie, though let’s just say it’s not an especially good one. To say it is a film with an idea may not be entirely correct, as it is rather a film inspired by an idea. The film attempts to pay tribute to a sub-section of Italian horror films, the giallo, stitching together a Frankenstein patchwork that is The Editor. Full disclosure: giallos aren’t especially renowned formal works of art, though some certainly possess some viscerally appealing aspects (bright colors and bare breasts). The Editor, at over 100 minutes, is not an especially interesting send-up to the genre of filmmaking. The film’s comic and nostalgic appeal is lost within its first ten minutes and what proceeds is a repetitive joke that wasn’t particularly funny in the first place. Surely Brooks and Kennedy saw a void in Italian horror with Dario Argento’s latest works failing to connect - The Editor is unfortunately no better than Argento’s disappointing late work.