The Cigarette

As mentioned above, director Snygg has been making midnight movies for decades under a variety of monikers. I saw his Playmate Of The Apes years ago and was impressed by the amount of creative effort on display. The Cigarette shows that my initial positive impressions of Snygg’s talent were well placed, as this is an excellent hyper-charged gore parade.

The over-the-top gore FX by Brandi Rae Moore is magnificently gruesome for the budget level. Nowhere is this put on better display than the delightful grade school slaughter sequence, where some adorable children murder other children and adults with unbridled glee. From *Bad Seed* to *Omen*, I have always enjoyed the cinema concept of the killer child. *The Cigarette* depicts the finest murders by children since *The Children*. Snygg and his young performers hit that perfect note of hilarity and revulsion as the blood sprays across the crayon drawings.

It is just one float in the movie’s splatter parade, but it is absolutely a showstopper that makes this required nourishment for gorehounds. Paws up, snouts down, that is how we go to town!

“The over-the-top gore FX by Brandi Rae Moore is magnificently gruesome for the budget level.”

The flame under this rocket is the talented Flores, being both the originator of the story and her own main character. While I always commend actresses for writing their own material, Flores deserves extra commendation for establishing a unique style that she can play to the moon. Her lazy, irresponsible, selfish grown-baby routine is recognizable by audiences who are irritated by such behavior, as well as the bunch who purvey it.

She can be funny but also reins it in enough not to parody the material. What I am really blown away by is her concept here, as it is molded from real New York headlines with the guts of high exploitation. I love how Flores marries the medical horror movie with grindhouse-level carnage like a back alley Michael Crichton getting high on blood.

The pacing is excellent, with dripping pools of good stuff regularly dispensed right where it needs to be. It is obviously street-level, but Snygg puts in a lot of work on cool lighting and unusual angles. The Cigarette is the cinematic equivalent of a nicotine head rush and is just as addictive. Light this m**********r up, and you will see what I mean.