I have been searching for the proper words to describe the experience of watching WICKED WORLD and I still truly do not have the proper words. An absolutely brain melting insane piece of weirdo SOV filmmaking. This is my first experience with the work Barry J. Gillis, who had written and starred in the Canadian madness that is THINGS, here he makes his directorial debut, and what a………”thing” to debut with. I honestly don’t want to delve too much into plot specifics, because this really is the kind of film one should go into as blind as they possibly can, because the experience of watching it is more important than the movie itself. I am not to tell you all the truth, well versed in SOV films, but what I will say is that this was such a singularly weird viewing experience that I can safely say I have never seen anything like WICKED WORLD. Is it good? Who is to say, but you won’t see anything else like this.

The maniacs at AGFA(in collaboration with Bleeding Skull) bring WICKED WORLD in a pretty stacked package. There are two different cuts of the film presented, the original cut, which is sourced from the ¾ inch tape master, which is pretty much an “as it is” transfer, you get what you get with something like that, there is a beamed in from another dimension charm to the quality that I was transfixed by. There is also a director’s cut from 2019, with a few differences here and there, but somehow has to my eyes worse picture quality, like it got hit with a truck load of DNR, honestly just stick with the original cut as far as watching goes. Sound wise its basically the same as the video, getting what you get, obviously not anywhere near reference quality but it gets the job done.

AGFA also give a nice little platter of bonus features, an hour long documentary on the making of the movie, a music video by the band Marshall Law who had provided the songs used in the movie, and a good chat with Gillis about the film and his career as a whole.