When crafting films in confined spaces, especially when your work bills itself as being “Lovecraftian horror,” the greatest asset you can have is a willingness to get wacky. By fully tapping into the vast possibilities of cinematic creativity intermixed with some fun trickery, you can make the small feel expansive and the limited feel unlimited. For all its flaws, director Rebekah McKendry's Glorious manages to achieve that and then some.Written by McKendry's husband, David Ian McKendry, along with Joshua Hull and Todd Rigney, Glorious is at its best when it doesn’t take itself too seriously. When it fully embraces the potential of its weird world is where, even within the small space of a single bathroom, you can’t help cracking a smile. Though there are moments where Glorious struggles to keep up the pacing and finds itself getting a little aimless, relying a lot on riffing that can get a bit tiresome, it still makes for a dastardly descent into hell that has all the makings of a midnight movie. The last act in particular is where things get really wild, flaunting any sense of decorum as it cuts into the very guts of its premise. This is where it finds something special in how explosive and silly it all becomes.It all begins when we meet the lonesome Wes (Ryan Kwanten) who, after having a disturbing vision that wakes him from he was dangerously dozing while driving, continues along the road on his own. We don’t know exactly where is going or why, just that he keeps drifting off at the wheel. When he pulls over at a rest stop, there is no one else there besides a woman (Tordy Clark) who initially seems quite ominous though kindly helps him with the broken vending machine that has one candy bar left. She seems to be aware that he is basically homeless and gives him advice about living on the road. Wes still seems quite agitated, carrying with him a mysterious red box in the passenger seat, a stuffed teddy bear on the dash, and all his bags in the back. He has a small breakdown when he gets back in the car, leaning on the horn as the camera zooms out into space. It is an early indication of the film's greater aspirations and a humorous reminder of how small the problems of one man can be. Back on Earth, Wes proceeds to leave increasingly unhinged voicemails for a woman named Brenda (Sylvia Grace Crim) before his phone dies. He then begins drinking from a bottle that he brought with him and burning the obscured photos from the red box before falling into a drunken slumber.glorious-ryan-kwatenRELATED: Fantasia International Film Festival Announces Second Wave of FilmsWhen he awakens with a brutal hangover, Wes finds his pants were burned up in the night and that he is about to be sick. He takes refuge in a bathroom that has seen better days, vomiting out all of his guts as rising orchestral music plays. Once his stomach has been purged, he hears a voice talking to him from the adjacent stall. Perplexed, Wes looks over to see a drawing of a monster of some kind that has a gloryhole at its center. He then begins to strike up a conversation with his fellow bathroom occupant who is voiced with a delightful sense of snark that can turn quite sinister by none other than J.K. Simmons. Wes, disoriented and disgusted by the contents of the bathroom, soon tries to detach himself from conversing any further. However, he will soon find that he is going to be detained here for quite a while. The door he came in has been sealed, leaving him trapped with his newfound bathroom buddy. While the voice emitting from the stall sounds human, it is shrouded in darkness and Wes can’t get a good look at it. I won’t reveal who, or what, this being is as the film does take its time in fully laying all its cards on the table. Once it does, it may not be a royal flush, though this bathroom bonanza has more than enough good plumbing to make for a solid straight flush all the same. Even when it gets clogged up here and there, it eventually clears a path.But enough with jokes that dance around the concept of poop as, even though that is a large aspect of the film to start, the best parts are the more anarchic and absurd moments. Running just under a brisk eighty minutes, it refreshingly knows when to call it a day in order to not overstay its welcome too much. Simmons in particular is having a blast without relying on hamming it up, playing his character as a strange force of both horror and humor to Kwanten’s straight man. The back-and-forth they have is what much of the film hinges on. With a lesser actor providing the voice that drives everything that happens, it could have easily fallen into feeling like a gimmick without any other greater focus. Indeed, there are parts where it risks falling into that. Thankfully, Simmons brings both the necessary amount of gravitas and gregariousness to draw us back in. While it could have far too easily been a one-note interpretation, he ensures the more serious moments set up the punchlines perfectly. There is one scene where he tries to give a monologue about what is happening, but he keeps getting undercut. This is made funny precisely because of how rigorously Simmons chews up the dialogue. It turns what could be just exposition into something both more joyous and juvenile.It is an experience that is liberally sprinkled with pink light before it becomes flooded with it, morphing into a film that leans into its excesses with abandon in a bloody conclusion. The repeated use of swelling music is used sparingly enough to not overdo it or become a crutch for the comedy. Instead, it just ratchets up everything at key moments to ensure some of its best bits….let's just say kill. Some well-timed edits maximize the impact of the jokes and help leave necessary horror elements up to the imagination. Even when we don’t see everything, our minds fill in the gaps to make the gore and gags that befall Wes land. Is this all a divine punishment? A dreadful dream? A bit of both? The film isn’t built around mysteries, though there are some reveals that feel rather unnecessary towards the end. This is built on flashback scenes that lack the same bite as the main situation Wes finds himself in and ends up dragging down its momentum. If anything, it cheapens the experience. Just having a guy end up trapped in a rest stop is a solid enough premise for what this film is setting out to do. These missteps aside, it achieves all it needs to when it counts. This one is for the sickos among us, myself included, who are looking for a movie about the maniacal madness of the macabre.Rating: B+You can see Glorious at the Fantasia Film Festival and on Shudder starting August 15.[EMBED_YT]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxKu5bzcVUg

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