- Directed by Rebekah McKendry
- Written by Joshua Hull, David Ian McKendry, Todd Rigney
- Stars Ryan Kwanten, J. K. Simmons, Tordy Clark
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 19 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esqxTzc3lgM
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is an interesting take on Lovecraftian-style cosmic horror. It’s surprising how entertaining a horror movie set almost entirely in a grimey rest area bathroom can be. And mostly carried by only one visible actor. This one is well done, darkly funny, almost silly, and overall very good.
Synopsis
Wes stands in the darkness; he can’t stop thinking about her. He wakes up, sleeping while driving. He drives down the road, barely awake, looking for somewhere to turn off. He finally stops at a rest area. There’s a vending machine with one item in it, and it still steals his money. “Sometimes things seem broken, but it just means you stopped trying,” says the strange woman sitting on a table nearby. She gets the candy bar out on the first try. She advises him to clean out the back seat of the car for somewhere to sleep if he plans to live on the road.
He’s clearly upset about something involving a woman. He calls Brenda on the phone and leaves a message. And another. He does it until the battery in his phone dies. He then gets drunk and burns most of his possessions in the fire pit. He keeps drinking till he passes out.
In the morning, all he has left is a teddy bear. He’s even burned his pants. He starts feeling sick, so he goes inside the restroom to puke. It’s all very dramatic.
“Everything all right over there?” asks a voice from another stall. He looks up to see a painting of a woman with snakes for a head. Where the mouth should be is a hole into the next stall. A glory hole. The voice is coming from the other side. The voice wants conversation, but Wes isn’t big on bathroom talk.
The voice seems to know things it shouldn’t. They talk about vomit and bacteria, which turns out to be a conversation. Eventually, Wes looks under the stall and doesn’t see any legs in there. Wes goes to leave, and the voice says his name is “Gatonovewa” or something that sounds like that, the name of an ancient god. “I am that god.” Yes, it’s a god living in a rest stop restroom stall with a glory hole on the side.
Wes climbs up and looks over the stall, and finds himself outside on the ground. He gets a vision of Brenda and then wakes back up in the stall. Wes then finds he is locked inside the restroom; the voice says he can’t leave until they’re done here.
The voice says that this isn’t a chance meeting, it’s fate. The voice is very sympathetic to Wes’s plight. Wes opens the air vent and crawls through the tunnels, ending up right back where he was. “The universe has a favor to ask,” it says.
The voice then gives us an animated origin story explaining exactly who he is. He was created to destroy all life in the universe, but he doesn’t want to do that. Unfortunately, the god is about to manifest into a physical form, which will allow his father to force him to destroy literally everything. He needs to stay ethereal, not physical. Only Wes can stop the transformation. “You need to satisfy my physical form. There’s only one part of you that can do that,” says the glory hole.
Gary, a guy from the Department of Transportation, shows up to do a regular inspection of the facilities, and he cleans up the mess that Wes made the previous night. He eventually hears Wes’s screams; the voice warns that there will be consequences. Gary comes inside, and soon, they’re both locked in. The voice tells Wes to go into the next stall, and then the voice takes care of Gary. It literally rains blood in the restroom; there’s nothing left of Gary but a leg.
“You need to satisfy my physical form,” repeats the glory hole.
Will Wes eventually do what the voice asks and save the universe?
Wes drops his drawers and uses the glory hole. “What the hell is that?” asks the voice. “Your genitals are irrelevant to the universe. I need a piece of your liver.” A broken piece of glass slides out from under the stall door.
Wes has had enough. He screams for the entity’s father to come and end the universe. The amoeba-like creator of the universe arrives outside, and the voice says he can protect them only for a brief time.
Wes eventually cuts himself open and goes for the liver. He has a flashback, and we see what Wes has been up to before the film began, and he’s not quite who we thought he was. He feeds the chunk of liver to the glory hole, which glows and vanishes.
Wes wakes up, and the restroom is mostly clean. He holds his side and crawls to the restroom door. The voice says, “The threat has passed.” Wes declares that he’s a hero. No, he’s informed that he’ll be forgotten. They both will. It’s what they deserve. Wes crawls outside and collapses with no one knowing what happened.
Commentary
It’s cosmic horror, but it’s not “The Color Out of Space,” that’s for sure, although the being does use a lot of purple light.
It’s not a very well-traveled road to have a rest area that is so deserted. Though it’s implied that the god is influencing the immediate area, not just the men’s room.
J. K. Simmons plays the unseen voice, and he’s perfect for this; he’s the most soft spoken, polite cosmic entity ever. Ryan Kwanten, who I absolutely hated in “True Blood,” is really good here. The special effects and gore are well done and just enough to make the story good.
I have to admit it; this is the best talking glory-hole movie I’ve ever seen.