A recently released criminal is looking for a good time. He can forget his sins but he can never forget…Gwilliam.
Gwilliam is a short that exists for the sole purpose of proving that anything can be filmed. What baffles the mind further is that the 5-minute short film about a blow job in an alley required the skill and careful attention of three screenwriters. (Brian Lonano, Victoria S. Cook, Kevin Lonano) and the additional attention of Brian Lonano’s directing chops. This is not to discount their skills but it is just to say that, well, s**t. What am I saying?
The short begins with Ex-Con (William Tokarsky) in prison musing with his inmate about how h***y he is and what bar in town is the best place to get some action. The Ex-Con immediately heads over to said watering hole upon release and begins making the moves on the local trash. Rebuffed, the scraggly dude reads a message above a urinal in the men’s room that tells him he will find what he needs in the back alley. What he finds defies any and all expectation.
Props to the entire Gwilliam team for getting behind what is an audacious piece of work. Is it good? That depends on what is good to you. I am assessing it based on what the filmmakers seem to have been attempting. Let’s start with the technical aspects. Cinematography, sound, acting, production design, are all on point. Clearly they are out for a reaction. Well, I reacted and I can honestly say I haven’t been this dumbfounded since seeing CarousHELL. Except with the later, I at least laughed. This just left me thinking, “well good for him.”
I’m not gonna blow the ending for you. But my guess is that you can guess the climax.
Gwilliam (2016) Directed by Brian Lonano Written by: Brian Lonano, Victoria S. Cook, Kevin Lonano. Starring: William Tokarsky, Paul Painter, Wanda Morganstern, Blair Richardson, Sydney Allison Thomas
Gwilliam is worth Matinee (***).
* Norm’s Rating System: Full Price (****), Matinee (***), VOD (**), Don’t Bother (*)
This was the creepiest most disturbing film I’ve EVER seen! Needless to say, the suspense throughout the entire thing was pretty well done. The only thing that I would say I regretted more than anything else however was that it ends after only the one short couple of scenes totaling in all at being around something like six minutes in length, leaving the viewer with a myriad of unanswered questions and lack of knowledge as to what ever ended up happening next… I mean, there HAD to have been more to this story… What happened with the ex-con afterwards? Does he take up with Gwilliam on the regular? And what the f**k IS Gwilliam?! A mutant survivor of Chernoble? A recently cloned Denisovan or Neanderthal with a birth defect? A small puppet being operated by an even worse ex-con and evil serial killer aspiring to go after and kill the main character? A nightmare being had by a third party and none of any of it was even actually supposed to be factually happening… I really would like to know! I get it that the point was to leave all this up to the viewer’s imagination, but I also can’t help but feel a tad disappointed and let down by the fact that there wasn’t more to discover about the nature of whatever THE HELL was going on with… THAT NASTY C*M ADDICTED LITTLE THING THAT’S HIDING OUT IN THE GARBAGE! And why is he hanging out in a trash can like Oscar The Grouch?! … I predict an entire new subgenre of horror fanfiction that’s about to spawn into a new thing now… Haha! Definitely worth watching though, in an odd sort of way…