TERROR FIRMA: Edible Insanity

TERROR FIRMA (Blu-ray)

2023 / 84 min

FROM DARK ARTS ENTERTAINMENT

Review by Josey, the Sudden Cat🙀

Strange film, this one…mostly in a good way. 

The feature length debut of director/co-writer Jake Macpherson, Terror Firma is a micro-budget horror film set in a dilapidated old house in Los Angeles. For reasons never explained, the entire city is in lockdown and people are forbidden from leaving their homes under penalty of arrest. 

Lola (Faye Tamasa) is a down-on-her-luck artist who manages to avoid authorities and arrive at the house, which is owned by her adoptive brother, Louis (Burt Thakur). Also living there is his weird roommate, Cage (Robert Brettenaugh), who immediately becomes unnervingly fixated on Lola. When a helicopter lowers food and supplies to them, Lola discovers an unlabeled seed package. 

She plants one in the yard, and the very next day, there’s a hole that produces brownish goo, which not only smells enticing, the three discover the taste is irresistible. Whatever it is, this stuff appears to induce madness while also opening black portals to…well, it’s never fully explained, though Louis ends up buried in his own yard, while Lola traverses inexplicable tunnels to try and save him. Meanwhile, Cage grows increasingly unhinged, his obsession with both the substance and Lola reaching perverse levels…

…and I gotta say, Cage is an extremely creepy and repulsive character, depicted by Brettenaugh in a performance that can accurately be described as brave. Considering the film’s budget, I can’t imagine his salary was anything to write home about, yet he goes all-in to an uncomfortable degree, making Cage the scariest part of the film.

Damn gophers.

Elsewhere, Terror Firma is often surreal and intentionally ambiguous. The origin of the goo & blood-red flowers (which begin to pop up everywhere) is never elaborated upon, nor are numerous other hallucinatory sequences. But since Macpherson is obviously more concerned with achieving a dark tone and growing sense of dread (which he accomplishes quite well), narrative clarity ain’t all that important. However, I’m still not sure how the citywide lockdown aspect is relevant to the story.

Terror Firma is also somewhat noteworthy for being the first release from Dark Arts Entertainment, a new label created by filmmakers Brian Yuzna and John Penney, no strangers to the horror genre. Overall, they’re off to a good start, because this is a moody, creepy and claustrophobic little film.

EXTRA KIBBLES

EXTENDED DIRECTOR’S CUT - This version runs 95 minutes, though the additional scenes don’t really impact the film too much.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By director Jake MacPherson

BEHIND-THE-SCENES GALLERY

TRAILER