Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Ron Krauss
Starring: Jack Kilmer, Paris Jackson, Eric Roberts, Lambert Houston, Renata Notni, Richie Radichi, Rufus Dorsey
Horror SFX make-up legend Tom Savini famously attributes his ability to create shockingly realistic gore effects to his experience in the Vietnam War. There, Savini saw every type of wound imaginable and become all too familiar with the inner workings of the brittle human body. Caleb (Jack Kilmer), the young FX artist at the heart of director Ron Krauss's Wounds, has no such experience to draw on. Caleb's talents are rather mediocre, and were it not for his uncle Jefferson (Eric Roberts) owning a struggling b-movie studio, he probably wouldn't be working in the film industry.
Caleb's inability to do a good job frustrates both his co-workers and himself, and he finds himself questioning whether he's really cut out for the job. He receives some encouragement from Ginny (Paris Jackson), an affable new make-up artist who befriends the poor sap. But Caleb mistakes Ginny's friendliness for something more romantic.
Early on, Caleb can be seen sporting a t-shirt emblazoned with the poster for Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood. It's a clue as to where the narrative is headed. In that classic horror-comedy, Dick Miller plays a wannabe artist who finds himself the toast of the art world when he accidentally kills a cat and covers the corpse in clay. This leads him to begin offing humans, turning them into similar grotesque "sculptures." Similarly, Caleb's career is given the boost he's been seeking when he witnesses a brutal murder late at night. Rather than alerting the authorities, Caleb decides to use the victim's corpse as a way of practicing his art, slicing the dead man's throat open to see exactly how such a wound really appears. Applying his newfound grisly knowledge to his work, Caleb suddenly gets the respect that has previously alluded him.
Krauss's film is filled with allusions and references to other movies, many of which play on Caleb's CRT TV. The relationship between Caleb and Ginny recalls that of Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro in Maniac. It has the same dynamic of the troubled psycho who just might find salvation in the one woman who seems to see something positive in him, but we know he will blow it in macabre fashion.
Wounds' low budget is given some extra production value by the 35mm photography of DoP Agustin Claramunt. There is something about the graininess that makes everything seem a little seedier, and it recalls the sort of horror movies Krauss alludes to here. A movie about the special effects industry finds itself under extra pressure to deliver impressive FX itself, and the FX crew on Wounds prove up to the task with some effectively grisly splatter.
Kilmer is palpably creepy in the lead role, but also garners some sympathy, at least up until the point when Ginny finds herself in danger of becoming his next human canvas. It's intriguing that a young actor who is still widely associated with his more famous father should be cast as a character who suffers from imposter syndrome, and you imagine Kilmer might have channelled some of his own professional anxieties into his angsty performance.
