Saint Bernard (Severin Films Blu-Ray Review)

Is Saint Bernard Trash or Treasure?

Blu Ray Distributed By: Severin / May 14, 2019

His award-winning FX career spans both grindhouse (BRAIN DAMAGE, FRANKENHOOKER, the LEPRECHAUN series) and art-house (Matthew Barney’s CREMASTER CYCLE). Now writer/producer/director Gabe Bartalos brings his own years-in-the-making vision to the screen, as an unhinged orchestra conductor named Bernard (Jason Dugre of Bartalos’ SKINNED DEEP) graphically descends into a surreal odyssey of chaos, psychosis and “f*cked-up sh*t that looks cool as hell” (Bloody-Disgusting.com). Warwick Davis (WILLOW) and notorious Andy Kaufman cohort Bob Zmuda (MAN ON THE MOON) co-star – with a performance by punk legends The Damned – in this “must-see for the truly adventurous” (UnseenFilms.net), transferred from the original negative and unleashed beyond the underground festival circuit for the first time ever.

Tyler’s Take (0.5 / 5)

If you are looking for a movie to pass the time during the Coronavirus quarantine, this is not the movie for you. Time stands still here, with each second lurching forward in an attempt to reach a fictional cinematic cliff from which to throw itself into the Sea of Incoherence. About 21 seconds into this film, I decided to try something a little different than my usual reviews. I found myself reacting quite strongly to the events unfolding in the film, and thought, “how on Earth am I going to capture the absurdity of THIS?” And then it hit me: live commentary. So, I opened my laptop, started a new Microsoft Word document, and decided to just type exactly what I was feeling, when I was feeling it. It was actually quite cathartic, given our current global struggles with Coronavirus. And much like this quarantine, I felt trapped by something I did not understand. The only solace I had was knowing that it was *only* 94 minutes long.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you my real-time reactions to Saint Bernard:

It opens literally with a dead pig? Animal? About to jump out of an airplane. I can tell this is going to be one of those movies that was a college thesis project.

The music is pretty cool though, looks like an original score. Creepy. Opening credits brought to you by Microsoft PowerPoint.

Opening scene is a man in white carrying a bag of something. Laundry, most likely. Judging by his outfit.

A Vivaldi song is playing, so that’s a no on the original score.

So it’s now a flashback of this bag-carrying guy to him being a kid that looks nothing like him. He’s conducting music he hears in his head. There’s also sheet music in the opening sequence. Clearly, there’s a motif developing here.

There’s a new guy in the gasmask cutting a hole in some wall. As he walks by, the camera pans to his shoes and goes into slow motion as he passes. One of the shoes somehow looks like a dog for a second. That was pretty cool.

Five minutes in: no Saint Bernard sighting yet.

Kid is now in a music store, conducting. Wearing that same white tux. Okay. Suddenly he’s in a house, walks outside and has an audience of kids listening to him conduct the air. And no one is calling the authorities? This new adult shows up and keeps saying “hands” and is convulsing all over.

Apparently, he’s remembering his childhood and can’t quite keep it all together. The main character’s name is Bernard. Ha. I see what they did there.

We have now been transported to a street where Bernard finds a bunch of drugs laying on the ground. I…I don’t think I have enough breadcrumbs to get home. At this point, I can’t believe James Klein asked me to review this movie.

The man is in a homemade space suit in his shower putting a fork in the socket. Also there is literally a LIGHT SOCKET IN THE SHOWER STALL.

16 minutes in: No dog, no sense, no idea what’s going on.

His head just exploded. Jesus Christ, there’s a cartoon eyeball monster coming out of his head. Now he’s normal again. Nope, he’s a worm now. I am not making this up. I can’t even type fast enough to keep up with the nonsensical nature of this movie. Did someone pay for any of this? Someone put money up to produce this. People have too much money on their hands. There are starving, poor people all over and we get a cartoon/veggietales hybrid monster movie with NO DOGS so far.

Coolest part so far: the makeup. There’s a great St. Bernard head carcass that steals the show. Best acting so far.

So after carrying this dog head around in public, he randomly reaches out just out of the shot of the camera and grabs a bag from thin air. I can almost picture the other cameraman handing it to him off-screen. And of course the next logical thing to do is to take it to a church. Where he meets Father Jerry Garcia (played by Andy Kaufman’s writer Bob Zmuda).

I’m dying to see the extras to see what unexpected series of catastrophes happened while making this film that resulted in the pile of dog dung that we are witnessing. (SPOILER ALERT: There are none. This was the planned film all along.)

After mass, Bernard turns into money, gets attacked by people who stole his money suit, and then comes across President Lincoln, President Jackson, and Benjamin Franklin having a game of football-turned-murder. That sentence is all you need to know about the kind of script this is.

Thirty two minutes in: still a dream sequence, still no logic or theme or anything to tie any scene to another. I have no idea what’s going on, and I feel myself getting dumber by the second.

There’s a new wave band playing now, and they’re showing concert footage. Bernard isn’t there or anything, it’s just because.

Sets, sound editing, makeup effects, and sound effects. That’s all the redeeming qualities I could find here. And the music. Wait, I take that back. It’s pouring right now in the film, and it sounds like someone left the faucet on in the kitchen. So, we’re going to ride the makeup, music, and sets all the way to the shore.

There’s 45 minutes left. I have no idea how I’m only halfway through this nightmare.

It’s as if the filmmaker said, “film a bunch of random scenes, say what you want, wherever you want, and just make sure you carry this bag around. We’ll tie it all together in the editing room.” And then they forgot to rent out an editing room and tied a bow on this turd.

THERE’S AN OGRE. DRINKING WINE. Smoking a cigar. Wearing a neck brace? Suffocating now. HA! Bernard was standing on his oxygen line, stepped off and apologized. The ogre said, “Shut the fuck up!”

This movie is like going through a local church-run haunted house. Each room has nothing to do with the other, but it’s trying to be scary. It’s trying really hard. But no one seems to know what they’re doing, the lighting is terrible, and the most terrifying part is that you don’t know how many IQ points you’ve lost while in here. You begin thinking about all the other things you could have done with that ten-dollar admission fee. You could have seen a movie (no popcorn though). Maybe even a movie that is scarier than this, such as the awful Hellfest. You could have gotten that whopper meal with cheese from Burger King, and then dealt with the consequences later. It would have been worth it. But this. This movie makes you long for all the worst elements of every poor choice you’ve ever made, because at least you had a moment of excitement somewhere in that process. There was some kind of initial reason for making that poor choice. I cannot locate one here.

He’s gotten away from Shrek now, and has run into a hippie love child who is propositioning him on a rooftop. He almost takes her up on it, until Static Boy arrives. Oh who is Static Boy, you ask? Well it’s a nine-foot tall baked potato with a case of diarrhea you wouldn’t believe. And in case you didn’t catch that part, don’t worry. Bernard jumps into the cholera-infected pool of waste right before having sex with Janis Joplin’s granddaughter.

The brooms from Fantasia are loose in Paris now. Bernard is still giving the girl a piece of his heart, if you’re picking up what I’m laying down. Speaking of laying down, there’s more banging to be had in the backseat of a VW Beetle. Now we’re flashing back to the girl’s childhood. She also just stole the dog carcass. Bernard is not happy. Best line: Bernard says, “hang on miss.” She responds, “That’s Miss Roadkill to you.” She tries to run, but the magic brooms are sweeping her off her feet. She just got run over by a van, cutting off her legs. Lots of cool makeup here. The guy in the van calls her a “stupid bitch,” then climbs out of the van. He also has no legs. Lieutenant Dan then scoops her tears with a spoon and dumps salt on her bloody, skinless legs. (For those who don’t know, when a van runs over your legs, it tears the skin off but leaves the bones there. Cue “The More You Know” rainbow).

As you could probably guess, the next stop on this magical mystery tour is a torture room where everyone is half naked and worried about something parachuting in from the sky. OH MY GOD IT’S THE CHICKEN FROM THE OPENING SCENE. It has been floating down this whole time. I take that back—there are a bunch of them falling now. Everyone is cheering suddenly as they finally complete construction on the Middle-Ages-style catapult.

Warwick Davis (yes, THAT Warwick Davis from Willow) just hypnotized Bernard. Or un-hypnotized him? I don’t know, I gotta be honest I stopped paying attention like twenty minutes ago, and here I am all caught up.

Now we have the return of the music teacher from the second scene. So I have to mention this, because it’s ridiculous. Throughout this whole film, Bernard has been going through all these crazy moments, and said nothing. Now he sees his old teacher again and says, “It can’t be.” Seriously? THIS is the surprising moment for you? Not the chainsaw guy who cut you out of a series of multiplying 2x4s miraculously without killing you? Not the countless other things I can’t even remember because my brain cannot create a schema complicated enough to possibly organize all of this disjointed nonsense? Side-note: while typing this last series of sentences, the teacher basically grew a giant metal phallic rod from his loins and said, “you’ve always been my favorite.” And now there’s a morbidly obese, half-naked angel in the room. While the teacher and Bernard fight about something. Nope, the teacher is a monster now. A dragon. Sure. Why not. *takes shot.*

The film ends with the pedophiliac dragon-teacher drowning, I think.

So now you see what I was dealing with here. The extras aren’t very redeeming either, as it’s one segment of director Gabe Bartalos narrating the “Making of” Saint Bernard. It focuses entirely on the technical aspects, ignoring the plot and acting much like they did during the film and in the production meetings.

I’ll put you out of your misery now by simply stating if you’re looking for background noise while doing literally ANYTHING else, this might be the movie for you. But you might want to put it on mute. And blackout the screen.