• Straight to Video
• Director: Dave Wascavage
• Written by: Dave Wascavage
• Running Time: 77 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: UNRATED
• Cast: Juan Fernandez, Dave Weldon, Dave Wascavage, Mary Wascavage, Loretta Wascavage, Michelle Hanna, Lori McKeown, Sarah Lakshmi

Director Dave Wascavage’s "Tartarus" is a visionary masterpiece, not quite like any micro-budget film you've ever seen before, nor will likely ever see again. Hard to define, this film is a disturbing, evocative excursion into the human psyche, merging elements of ufo folklore, urban legend and traditional nightmare scenarios, into an unforgettably daring visual palette.

The film opens with John, played by Juan Fernandez (2004’s “Suburban Sasquatch“), as he dashes through a dark forest in a frenzy. He’s attempting to elude a large black saucer-shaped craft which is hovering ominously above the tree tops. Using the darkness as cover, he rushes out onto a side road where he flags down a passing car. The female motorist immediately senses his urgency and offers to take him anywhere he wants to go. Before long, the craft is descending upon the car and in the craziness John ends up yanking the wheel away from the woman, sending the vehicle careening into a tree. As the car fills with smoke, John leaves the driver to die, choosing instead to save his own behind. He charges off into the woods, eventually finding an open clearing. He notices that the craft has quietly settled in the middle of the open hollow and a strange being stands outside staring at him menacingly. He remains stationary, sensing that there’s nowhere left for him to run and nowhere left for him to hide. As the being draws closer, John falls to ground in agony, suddenly enveloped in an electrical current. “I don’t want to go back! I don’t want to go back!” He screams, to no avail. It’s too late, as John (and the audience) quickly discovers. His fate is sealed. His path is chosen and, interestingly, John has only himself to blame.

The first ten minutes of “Tartarus“ is a visceral explosion, which includes so many strange oculars, rapid editing, off-beat lighting and wild special effects -- it’s hard to process it all in a single viewing. Interestingly, this is only a pre-cursor for what is to come. The rest of the film is just as unrelenting visually as it charts the dark recesses of the human mind in a way that few films before it have. When John eventually awakens, he’s inside the cold dark craft, fastened to a large table. A strange being, not unlike the greys of ufo lore, is observing him with sinister intentions. For several minutes, we watch as John is subjected to a series of brutal and gruesome experiments including having liquid – including sperm, urine and plenty of blood -- siphoned from his penis; he has a giant probe wedged into his anus; his knees are broken with something liken to a futuristic sledge-hammer and one of his hands is amputated -- all without the benefit of aesthesia. Don’t feel sorry for John, though… not yet. As we soon learn, John might have had it coming.

At first glance, John appears to have the perfect life. He’s attractive, muscular, rich, and he’s still quite young, in his early thirties. As the story progresses, however, we discover that John isn’t a very nice guy. In fact, John is about as vile a human being as it gets. If there’s something criminal going on in his small town, there’s a good chance that John’s involved. To start, he’s being investigated for embezzling a million dollars from his company. His wife has left him after she learned that he impregnated her little sister. Thankfully, she doesn’t even know about John’s frequent late-night trysts with the town’s local prostitutes. He’s also a crack addict and an alcoholic and he has a vicious and violent temper -- something he nearly demonstrates on an unfortunate streetwalker. To make matters worse, he’s being sought for the hit and run death of a wheelchair bound pedestrian. No shades of grey here folks. John is rotten to the core. To our, and John’s, surprise, we also discover that he’s no longer alive. See, John was killed several years ago during a drug bust that went awry. Everyday John wakes up in this new world where nothing, if anything, makes a heck of a lot of sense. “This place,” he’s told, “exists in between Heaven and Hell” This place -- similar to Purgatory -- is called, of course, Tartarus. Unlike Purgatory, however, the hapless souls that wind up in Tartarus are given a series of litmus tests before salvation or damnation is granted. They are forced to relive those moments in their life when they’ve done something wrong and are given a choice to do something good. The chance to trace a new direction, by altering their past. If they choose the path of righteousness, they are slowly on their way to redemption and ultimately, salvation.

Problem here is that our friend John just can’t seem to get it right. Every choice he makes is the wrong one. Every choice is cruel and self-serving. Even when the path to redemption is revealed to him, John still won’t accept his gift. “You’ve been here for years,” he’s told. “It’s like you’re setting some kind of record.”  John knows full well that he is doomed to live each day -- each moment -- over and over again in a cycle of pain, desperation and sadness but he will not relent. He accepts it because he’s too stubborn to give in. Too stubborn to admit that his decisions might be wrong. Reflecting on his life, John is unapologetic and never wavers from his “me first” philosophy. I guess you could say, it’s sort of like A Christmas Carol if old Ebenezer decided to stay with his ‘Ba Humbug’ attitude. Late in the film, John, sensing that this nightmare will never end, manages to elude his captors momentarily by jumping out the window of the spaceship. This sets up the final chilling act. It suggests that all of John’s escape attempts are doomed to failure because, as it turns out, he has never actually left the table -- not once.

"Tartarus” was my first experience with a Troubled Moon Films production and I have to admit, they’ve got a good thing going over there. In this production, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives at every turn, starting with the acting and moving through to the special effects. Juan Fernandez, who had a small part in Dave Wascavage’s third film, “Suburban Sasquatch”, is surprisingly effective in the lead as John. Fernandez has a unique look that seems to convey both obstinacy and regret. On the surface, Fernandez plays it cool, but behind his cold eyes exists a tortured soul. Two scenes, one involving his wife, and the other, his abusive father, play as gut-wrenchingly emotional pieces, with Fernandez coming through convincingly where other less-talented actors might have faltered. Plenty of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) is used to move along the story as well as provide some interesting visuals. Considering the budgetary limitations involved, one can only declare the CGI effects in “Tartarus” to be a success. The directing is also top-notch. Dave Wascavage’s peculiar visual style seems perfectly in synch with his unique approach to story-telling where dreams, recollections and hallucinations are merged into a single timeline that is played out in an unending loop with no beginning or end. The human mind is a tricky place where anything is possible and Wascavage knows this. Coming away from “Tartarus” one is sure to have plenty of questions. Heck, even I have questions, but trying to figure out what is happening is just another thing to love about the film.

Following my viewing, I immediately beat a path to the Troubled Moon Films website to see if I could purchase any of their other titles. To my surprise, however, only one title, “Fungicide”, is currently available for purchase as part of Brentwood Video’s “Drenched in Blood” DVD 4-Pack. His other titles, “Zombies By Design”, “Suburban Sasquatch” and “Revenge of the Earth Chomping Intergalactic Space Marauder”, like “Tartatus“, are currently available for purchase on the Troubled Moon Films website. Dave Wascavage is a director I’ll definitely keep my eyes on.