Review: Pandemonium (2023) dir. Quarxx

“Pandemonium” must be one of the most badass words in the English language. Its mixed Greek-Latin etymology literally means “the place of all demons” and John Milton coined the word to serve as the capital of hell in his Paradise Lost. The appeal of the word for me comes from its almost rhythmic phonetic structure that can make the most illiterate of speakers sound professionally eloquent. I’m also just partial to the word that made up some of the coolest high school sports chants at my preppy alma mater (along with the more awkward “let’s get belligerent.”) At least, I thought they were cool back then. So, I understand why the French director Quarxx would choose the word as the title of his new film. But that’s about all that I understand from his new, quasi-ontological horror guilt-vehicle.

The first 20 minutes are excellent. And the final ten minutes work well enough. It’s the middle hour or so that just squashes all of the other good ideas. Pandemonium begins at the site of a still smokey automotive accident. Nathan (Hugo Dillon, who played Père Jean in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon) and Daniel (Arben Bajraktaraj, the Kosovo-born French actor) are both dead, and take a moment to parse that out. Their two names recall the biblical characters that are likely their namesakes but to no effect other than adding empty oxygen to the desired supernatural atmosphere. As they come to terms with Death, Quarxx reveals more about them that begins the film’s investigation into iniquity, guilt, responsibility, and human nature. One of them may be a pedophile — he was distracted by a young girl, possibly intentionally driving toward her on his motorcycle —  and the other committed uxoricide.

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