 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: The Welder • Year: 2021 • Country: USA • Director: David Liz • Main cast: Camila Rodríguez, Roe Dunkley, Vincent De Paul, Crist Moward • Runtime: 86 minutes • Production company: Five Arts Films • TRAILER
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Although the initial moments of the horror The Welder (2021) might remind us of many other stories already seen, with the main character Eliza, a former military soldier dealing with a traumatic event that causes much friction with his loving and caring boyfriend and with her concern mother, the movie quickly tries to maintain a personality of his own and brings new fresh ideas to the panorama. The couple decides to take some days off from their routine and rents an isolated farm in the middle of nowhere. But the strange owner and the bizarre maintenance handyman are hiding a very dark secret that will turn their little escape into a nightmare.
Both for the themes dealt with and also for the direction the movie takes, the influences of Jordan Peele’s masterpiece Get Out (2017), Mary Shelley’s immortal tale Frankenstein, and even The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) are basics for the inception of The Welder (2021). The movie has a strong racial component but, as it happened in Get Out (2017), here the villains are not right-wing rednecks or nazi sympathizers but a man who lost his black wife in a racist crime. And his obsession to erase society’s racism leads him to perpetrate the most horrific actions.
The story in The Welder (2021) is solid, and the characters are well designed so one can feel sympathy for them, which is something that not always happens in low-budget horror movies and yet it is an essential thing. And as the tension escalates between the young couple and the property owner, one can only wait for the violent action to start. But, perhaps the biggest problem for the movie is that the plot twist is too extreme and the filmmakers focused too much on making the happenings as much gory and fucked up as possible and forgot in keeping plausible storytelling.
Becoming a violent blood feast is not the problem, of course. The main issue is a storyline that had the feet on the ground becoming an almost surreal willy-nilly slaughterhouse action that breaks the sobriety of the film and turns the watch into a confusing mess. That said, it is worth praising that the gore scenes are enjoyable in the creative aspects. Good practical effects and they get generous in blood.
Camila Rodríguez, Roe Dunkley, and Vincent De Paul carry on with the acting duties in an efficient way surrounded by the beauty of the Florida nature life. The co-writer and director David Liz builds a somber story from the very first minutes, first dealing with the post-traumatic disorders the protagonist is suffering and how that affects her regular life, a situation that is easily tense and not pleasant. And when the couple arrives at the cottage it is evident that something is wrong with its inhabitants, evidenced in the intense and bloody final act. A combination of elements which should form an attractive feature to enjoy. But, in my personal opinion, and as mentioned before, I felt totally out of place in that final act. In the end, the violence I was craving finally arrives and, yet, something is not right. Hopefully, this is my personal appreciation and any other viewer of the movie enjoys the ride from start to end.
RATE: 6/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt11091504
