July 8, 2011

Review - Sons of Chaos



Sons of Chaos (2010)

Review by Jude Felton

It’s always nice to get the opportunity to review a movie that, chances are, won’t be found in video stores or for sale online or wherever and try to get the word out. This is almost definitely the case when it is a short movie that may well fly under most peoples radars. Of course this is only the case if the movie in question is good.



Sons of Chaos, the movie in question here, is one such film. At the time of writing this it is currently doing the festival circuit in Europe, with its US premiere due, I believe, in August.
Set in the year 2154 Sons of Chaos follows a young warrior named Oca who is training to become a Son of Chaos. His trial involves three tasks which culminate in him having to kill a creature known as a Howler. With a running time of 15 minutes this is a short and to the point movie which felt as though it is intended to be a precursor to a feature length film, which I believe is the case. Don’t quote me on that though.



Being as that it is only 15 minutes long there are plenty of questions that are left unanswered which is slightly frustrating. That being said Sons of Chaos is a technically and visually impressive piece of work. The action is kept taut and to the point without any wasted screen time, and it did leave me wanting more. Shot in France by first time director Mathieu Turi, who also stars as Oca, I was surprised to find that the minimal dialogue was actually in English with French subtitles. This actually works well as when the characters do speak, which isn’t often, they use voice-box style equipment connected to gas masks as I guess there is something in the air that is deadly to both warriors and Howlers.



Overall Sons of Chaos works well as a teaser of what is potentially to come and showcases that Turi definitely has an eye for the cinematic. The fact that there are unanswered questions is a little frustrating, for example who are the Howlers and why do they need to be killed and so forth.

If you get the chance though I would say that this is well worth checking out and to keep an eye open for whatever Turi has planned for the future.

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