Mumblegore became prominent in the genre at a pivotal time in my life. This niche subgenre of horror made its way into my life when a pre-film school Brendan received a copy of Ti West’s The Innkeepers. Little did I know, this would start an obsession with a singular subgenre that would last for years to come, influencing how I would look at film for the rest of my life. Something about the naturalistic dialogue, grounded plots, realistic characters, and simple storytelling done well just checked all the right boxes. While the past few years have not been absent of mumblegore films, especially when a good portion of your life is spent watching festival films, the subgenre has seemed to take a backseat to more popular subgenres. Within the first five minutes of Sweet Relief, I knew mumblegore was back on the menu.
A town in New England is rocked by grief, tragedy, and bloodshed. A viral internet challenge, Sweet Angel, has townspeople on edge. Children are going missing at the hands of a serial killer. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. One woman’s quest to find the truth will find the ties that bind these terrible crimes. Can the day be saved before it’s too late?
What I find most fascinating about mumblegore/core is pacing. If you look at Ti West’s The Innkeepers, you know exactly what I mean. Long, continuous takes of nothing have shaped the genre into what is now considered art-house horror. Sweet Relief is no exception to unique pacing. In this subgenre, pacing goes hand in hand with the acting. Forcing your audience to sit through five minutes of a one-shot scene with unscripted dialogue only works if the improvisation can be delivered competently and professionally. There is a gentle balance between realistic film conversations and the conversations we have in real life.
Sweet Relief’s biggest issue comes from that very aspect. Now, it should be stated, that I have no clue if writer/director Nick Verdi allowed his actors to riff. If everything said in this film was scripted, then yikes. The Tarantino amount of F-bombs feels unbelievably forced and comes off as dialogue filler while the actors come up with the next thing they think their character would say. If long takes of community theater-level acting (this isn’t a slight, I was in community theater and directed community theater shows, and I love everyone I met along the way) is a possible turn-off for you, then Sweet Relief will fall incredibly flat for you.
Where Sweet Relief excels is in the overall story, some great kills, reasonable means of getting from point A to point Z, and long continuous shots of characters observing other characters. In fact, Sweet Relief would have heartily benefited from less dialogue and more observation. Watching one character stumble across the child killer disposing of a body in the woods and then following them for multiple minutes was captivating and thrilling. Then, the conversation afterward almost undoes all of the anxiety that had been built up. One thing I’ve realized about mumblegore is how it thrives off of structured chaos; Sweet Relief feels like sloppily structured chaos.
That being said, something about Sweet Relief made me feel nostalgic for my youth. I haven’t actively sought out any specific mumblegore films in a good while, but watching Sweet Relief gave me the same feeling I had when I watched The Innkeepers for the first time. It’s experiencing something you’ve seen before, only it was done in a way that most filmmakers wouldn’t dare to try and do. It takes a lot of guts to make a film like Sweet Relief. Knowing you’re actively going against the grain of what’s ‘in’ is a bold move, and I can’t help but give immense praise to Verdi for taking such a risk.
Sweet Relief is by no means an original film, but Verdi’s created a product that made me feel a way I haven’t in quite some time. Even if it isn’t the most original, you can bet you haven’t seen a festival film like this in a good while. For the Sweet Angel, I do NOT nominate Nick Verdi, and I eagerly anticipate whatever he comes out with next.