‘GLORIOUS’ is a dark and comic Lovecraftian horror that is as original as it is absurd. And downright nasty to boot.
Now showing on Shudder, the film stars Ryan Kwanten of ‘Home and Away’-fame as Wes, a seemingly heartbroken and down on his luck man living out of his car and looking pretty dishevelled.
Wes stops at a grungy rest stop bathroom to freshen up after a night of drunken debauchery that he has little memory of. He quickly finds himself in bit of a pickle when a soft-spoken malignant God, voiced by J.K. Simmons, prophetically propositions him from the next stall.
As it turns out, there’s more awry in the universe than Wes’s love-life and, somehow, only he is equipped to put it right.
Directed by Rebekah McKendry, the film is worth the watch – if only just to savour Simmons’ lingering and honey-combed drawl for 79 minutes.
The voice of the unseen deity with the unpronounceable name speaks to the hungover Wes through a ‘glory-hole’ in the next cubicle, hence the film’s title.
Of course, with a thumping headache, Wes is convinced he is either hallucinating or the victim of some kind of sick joke and is desperate to escape. But as the bizarre reality of his situation sinks in and his head becomes filled with the philosophical and cosmogonic musings of this dry-witted universal life-force, he realises there’s only one way out.
Thankfully, satisfying the whims of the bathroom-bound cosmic god isn’t, despite their sordid surroundings, anything as perverted as our protagonist had first imagined. However, the price is a significant one, and the clock is quickly ticking down.
Unhinged and histrionic, this is a far better movie than it really has any right to be, despite the fact it is let down by a rather straightforward ending.
The truth though, it would appear, is out there!
(3/5)
