The Special: 3 reasons why this film will become your guilty pleasure

3. Body Horror Beyond Belief

For fans of David Cronenberg’s The Fly and other body horror classics, you will not be disappointed with The Special. SOTA FX and puppeteer and makeup FX artist, Mark Kosobucki have truly gone above and beyond. There is no need for CGI.

Taking their cues from Seth Brundle’s transformation in Cronenberg’s classic film, you may cringe at what you see onscreen but it is a masterpiece, pure and simple. The way that the ugliness of someone’s soul can manifest itself in a variety of ways is on full display and the audience gets to witness that metamorphosis firsthand.

If you crave nostalgia in your horror films, The Special is very much the child of Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond and Philippe Mora’s The Beast Within.

2. Smart Direction

Harrison Smith knows horror. He understands how less is more. The Special is actually a quiet, dark film. There are no jump scares.

Everything that is terrifying is psychologically driven. Case in point, we don’t see anything questionable. This is not an exploitation production. So, when Jerry is interacting with the box, it isn’t porn. We don’t know exactly what is happening and that is the point.

It is what we don’t know that chills us to the core. Smith could have chosen to reveal the racier aspects of this story but he wisely decided to use restraint. We have no idea what is in the box or how it even functions but we think about it.

When watching this film, we are obsessed with Jerry and his situation. We are taking the trip into madness with him.

Davy Raphaely as Jerry is the focus of most of the movie and he isn’t spouting dialogue all the time so we have to rely on the camera to set the tone. Smith does a masterful job of allowing the story to evolve which makes the consequences of Jerry’s actions even more dire and ultimately tragic.

1. The Power of the Written Word

Mark Steensland and James Newman have written an original and powerful work. They are almost Kafkaesque in their approach to Jerry’s character arc.

We see him change before our eyes as a direct result of his interaction with the box. That single-minded obsession and drive kills everything he loves. He lives for the intense physical pleasure that he derives from the object.

In that way, Steensland and Newman conjure up their own version of Hellraiser where Jerry manipulates the box to summon his personal Cenobites. It is this war within himself that we as audience members get involved in.

The story focuses on society’s need for instant gratification no matter what the cost. As long as one person is satisfied, it doesn’t matter about anyone else. We just see this concept manifested through Jerry’s never-ending quest to experience sexual pleasure and the deadly consequences that obsession brings with it.

This film, thanks to Steensland and Newman’s script could very well attain cult status. After all, who doesn’t want to know, “What’s in the box?”

Does The Special sound like a film you would check out? Let us know in the comments.