Blood in the Snow Film Festival Short Review: GLIMPSE (2016)

GLIMPSE, written and directed by John Nicol (CHANNEL ZERO), is a bleak look at religions obsession with knowing, and controlling, what other people do in their bedrooms. We open on the murder of a Nine Inch Nails fan, as the ‘Cinephile’ (Andres Becker), watches it unfold on celluloid; I don’t see the character so much as a cinephile, but a shut in voyeur with major anxiety issues. He changes film strips multiple times, each time the vignette is stranger, and more telling of how Nicol sees the world; masturbation, 1950’s American xianity, 1950’s Americans with their short sleeved white shirts/black ties/Brylcreem, outlandish anatomical devices, masks, and fetish performances.

The film vacillates between colour and black & white, has no dialogue, an industrial music soundtrack created by Andre Becker (the Cinephile), and feels heavily influenced by Tobe Hoopers original THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. The editing was also quite reminiscent of the chase scene at the end of Rob Zombie’s HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES (another film heavily influenced by THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) with the way it was also edited together with an industrial soundtrack (if I was to hazard a guess, I’d bet Nicol hates Zombie, though, so he may cringe at that comparison).

I expected the film to end with the ‘Cinephile’ strung up, dead, in a tangle of his precious celluloid, and while that didn’t happen, he does end the film sans pants, and appears to be “finished off” if you catch my meaning.

While it is definitely interesting and keeps your eyes glued to the screen, GLIMPSE comes off more as an extended play music video, than a movie; and while it’s gritty, there’s no horror vibe here at all.