Review: ‘Pandemonium’ ponders death and the afterlife

We’re all scared of death deep inside ourselves. We might not admit it, but we carry the capacity to fear the unknown. Even contemplating the afterlife is frightening; the next phase of existence remains shrouded in mystery, and we can only conjecture about what comes next. It’s limitless. Writer/director Quarxx posits that life after death exists in layers, and we, mere mortals, must undergo transitions to reach the other side. If we’re destined for hell, there are stages through which we must traverse to receive our just punishment.

Pandemonium maintains that humans exist as lost souls floating in the ether, tethered to our earthly forms insomuch we pay for past transgressions with the proper consequences. With an eye for mood and atmosphere, Quarxx delivers a poignant and terrifying tale about one man’s journey into the underworld and the excruciating process of death itself.

The story begins when Nathan (Hugo Dillon) wakes up to find himself lying facedown on a blacktop road. He’s a bit disheveled but otherwise unharmed. In his confusion, he meets another man named Daniel (Arben Bajraktaraj) and struggles to understand his current state. A stone’s throw away, his car has careened into the ditch and flipped onto its roof, fueling the uncertainty of the situation. It quickly becomes clear, though, that he’s deader than dead. He’s caught somewhere in the in-between, the space between the living and the dead.

Two doors then appear. One is white and crystalline, while the other is red-stained metal. One emits the sweetest music you’ve ever heard, while the other belches ghastly screams. It’s immediately evident that they resemble heaven and hell, serving as the turning point for both characters’ lives in a post-living world. When they’re forced to enter the hell door, Nathan undergoes a terrible trek through a grey-doused wasteland where he discovers bodies strewn in all directions. Once there, he must endure the tragic backstory of two other tortured souls – turning the film into an abbreviated anthology with chilling segments that deal with tragedy and grief.

We always believe we’ll have more time. For his part, Nathan toils over a past action that resulted in his wife’s death. He’s a good person, he insists, and did what he did out of mercy. But his pleas fall on deaf ears, the unseen powers unconcerned with his excuses. He must pay a heavy price: his soul forever mutilated for all of eternity.

Heavy on style and tone, Pandemonium takes cues from Dante’s Inferno with its own deliciously dark twist. Quarxx provokes the viewer to ponder their own dance with death and what it means to accept the afterlife. While none of us knows what comes next, the film proposes a possible scenario, in which we wander through windswept badlands to find purpose, meaning, and redemption.

Pandemonium hits Arrow Video and VOD outlets on May 27.

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