With great power comes great amounts of bloodshed, as can be seen in the found footage superhero horror feature Vengeance X, written and directed by Rogelio Rios. The film opens with a viral video of a woman screaming in her kitchen. Every time the woman turns off the kitchen light, her camera picks up the silhouette of a figure that is gone when the light comes back on. The video was shot by Ami, who went missing right after the clip was uploaded. This event drew video blogger William Floss (Rogelio Rios) to Ami’s house for an investigation. Floss plans to spend the night in the haunted house, with his followers watching what happens.
Floss starts in the basement, where his camera does pick up some very scary spectral action. Against his better judgment, he goes through with spending the night, with his followers being able to see the strange s**t that happens to him as he sleeps. Even in the broad daylight of the following day, Floss is still hearing weird growls. Before Ami lived there, the house used to be owned by a serial killer named LearX. LearX believed he gained superpowers from murdering people with evil motives and poor moral rectitude. Soon, Floss starts seeing another mysterious figure, one that looks just like him, with a camera pointed back at him…
With a running time of just over an hour, Vengeance X is packed to the hilt with non-stop outrageous occurrences. Instead of doing a slow burn horror build-up, Rios douses the storyline with light fluid for a speedy inferno of fright. The first supernatural occurrence Rios reveals is closer to the terror level seen in the third acts, going for the gusto right away. This allows Rios to establish a firm horror foundation to start building the superhero mythology on. I love superhero horror, by the way. I saw Brightburn on its opening weekend, spent three years actively waiting for The New Mutants to be taken off the shelf, and still dream that someone will adapt Brat Pack to the big screen.
“Floss plans to spend the night in the haunted house…”
It is fascinating to see how Rios is able to distill a superhero origin story out of a haunted house setting. It is a plot path with many twists and turns, with many instances of entertainment madness. Some of this stuff, like the dinosaur chase, is so crazy that it works grandly. There is also the grand elevation of applying superpowers to beginner in-camera effects, which is a laugh riot. Rios does an excellent acting job, playing a blogger in an authentic fashion, especially when he gets scared. Rios also repeatedly brings up in Vengeance X how the Floss character keeps himself in dangerous situations in order to get views from subscribers. This point is so apropos that it can poke your eyes out.
As much as I appreciate the stripped-down story momentum, I felt the introduction and exposition of the LearX character were too rushed. There should have been a more creepy way to work LearX in, instead of a “by-the-way” explanation and a composition book appearing out of thin air. There is a brief, unnecessary nod early on to the Paranormal Activity movies that makes Vengeance X very derivative for several moments before getting back on track. Also, some of the CGI, particularly the goblin-looking figures, chug out too hard. The CGI on the stretching arms and the above-mentioned dinosaur look great, but the goblin demon doo-dahs look pitiful, even with the generous allowance found footage allows.
These are not deal breakers, as it is amazing how Rios builds an intricate dark universe out of no budget at all. This is one of the most ambitious one-man shows I have seen, so it is forgivable if Rios only gets most of all the myriad of things he is reaching for. This is definitely a very unique way into a superhero origin story, which makes one wonder how many hauntings are actually people developing powers. Even when it isn’t 100% successful, it is 100% wildly entertaining. If you want to see what real street-level entertainment feels like, prepare yourself for the cheap thrills found herein. Watch Vengeance X to get yourself hip to superhero horror, as it turns out, Dracula isn’t the only one wearing a cape with a taste for blood.
"…packed to the hilt with non-stop outrageous occurrences."
