There are no known stars in the Canadian indie project “Vicious – Night of Violence”. Anyone who likes hard and rousing bloody thrillers should get their money’s worth here. Especially since two subgenres are presented in one film: what starts as an intense revenge thriller, develops unpredictable but presented quite coherently into a scary-violent shocker with masked invaders.
“Vicious – Night of Violence” can be seen tonight from 10 to 11 February 2023 at midnight on Tele 5. In the night of 12 to 13 February, a rerun will be shown around 12:40 (note: there are always small shifts in the late hours!). If these dates do not suit you, the thriller can also be streamed for free in the broadcaster’s media library until March 13, 2023.
If you don’t feel like commercial breaks or would rather see “Vicious – Night of Democracy” with the original sound, there are other options. However, you would have to put a little in your pocket for it. The film can be purchased or rented for a few euros from the usual online providers as “video-on-demand”. DVD and Blu-ray are also available, but only as an English entry titled “For The Sake Of Vicious”:
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“Vicious – Night of Violence” on Tele 5: That’s the story
Nurse Romina (Lora Burke) comes home after a long, hard shift at the hospital. Instead of finding some peace and relaxation in her modest home, she meets a strange and maniac Chris (Nick Smyth) in her living room. But it gets worse: he’s not alone.
In Romina’s bathroom, he tied a hostage to one of the chairs and nearly beat her to death. What Chris thinks he has good reasons for, he explains to the terrified woman. He’s sure that guy named Alan (Colin Paradine) raped his daughter.
There’s another escalation to this already pretty frightening scenario. Because suddenly three heavily armed, bizarrely masked intruders gain access to the building, who are apparently prepared for anything. Romina, Chris and Alan must team up and fight for their lives together…
Two Men, One Idea: “Vicious”
Vicious is directed by Gabriel Carrer (The Demolisher) and Reese Eveneshen (Defective). The Canadians have been friends for many years and always help each other in the most diverse roles (actor, editor, cameraman, lighting technician, set designer, composer, etc.) on their respective projects. However, here they shared both directing and work on the script for the first time.
If you look specifically at the extremely violent second half of the film, it’s hard to believe: the idea for “Vicious – Night of Democracy” came about during a leisurely lunch together in the food court of the local shopping center in their hometown of Cambridge. , Ontario. The duo apparently passed each other’s ideas like tennis balls before Eveneshen went home after dessert and wrote a first draft of the script. Both men reworked it a few more times, and after scraping together a few thousand dollars in their additional capacity as producers, shooting was almost ready to begin.
Unable to make huge financial leaps with their thriller, the two had to improvise accordingly. The main setting of the story is the house of the nurse Romina, who is played by Lola Burke (“Motherly”, “Lifechanger”). Instead of renting a studio for a lot of money, Carrer and Eveneshen asked local developers if they could rent an empty house that had been demolished for a few weeks.
The two lucked out and found a property that would sit vacant for a good month before being demolished. Day and night they have refurbished the shed with a small team to get it in good condition. They installed wiring and plumbing, moved walls, painted and wallpapered them so that the rooms looked a little tired but still livable. And that only to turn everything into rubble again during the two-week shoot and splash it with liters of fake blood.
The house in question has now been razed to the ground according to plan and the building has been developed for other purposes. What has remained, however, is a film that shows what is possible with enthusiasm, ingenuity and a lot of sweat. “Vicious – Night of Violence” has been performed at a long list of prestigious festivals on four continents – including at Telluride in the US, Sitges in Spain, Fantasia in Canada, GrimmFest and FrightFest in the UK and HARDLINE in Regensburg. In addition to the relatively huge publicity for their small indie film, there were also a number of awards and accolades, including a large number of audience awards.
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