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Codex Atanicus
Codex Atanicus is a three story anthology by Spanish director Carlos Atanes. Before watching the movie I never heard of the guy, but the introduction video on the DVD by one of his regular actresses Arantxa Peņa made me realize that I'm in for a hell of a ride. Experimental, bizarre, sick, strange - these are some of the words that describe the stories contained in Codex Atanicus. The anthology is opened by a 20 minute short from 1995 called Metaminds & Metabodies. I am really not into this kind of experimental videos, but I will try to summarize. It opens with a girl singing in the club. Everything looks ultra underground and the girl is connected with some wires to the walls. Strange people are watching her...
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Movie Review: Bit Parts

Story
When Melissa from Phoenix heads to Los Angeles for an audition and never returns, her older sister Brenda in travels to LA in order to track her down. What she doesn't know is that Melissa is one of the victims of a mad ex-plastic surgeon named Dr. Cranston, who is seeking replacement parts for his disfigured daughter.

Comments
Dave Reda's indie horror Bit Parts proved to be one pretty exciting ride and actually reminded me a little bit of a brilliant film called Re-Animator. It's not dealing with a scientist trying to re-animate the dead though, but a plastic surgeon trying to find the perfect parts for his disfigured daughter. What the two films also have in common is that the main characters are mad, and that means that they'll stop at nothing to get what they want. We're dealing with a psychotic fellow named Dr. Cranston here, who once used to be one of the top plastic surgeons in LA, but who happened to be in a car accident that left his daughter disfigured, and after that, his whole life went down the drain. But instead of moping around doing nothing, Cranston places phony audition notices in the papers seeking actresses with perfect features to restore his daughter Maggie's once beautiful looks.

Bit Parts plays out more like an exciting thriller that sometimes switches over to gore-mode and has some comedy every here and there as well. It actually had less comical scenes than I first had thought that it would have, but I felt that this served more as quality over quantity, meaning that the little humour that was there worked well, but that it never took away focus from the suspense that was in the film. When talking about actual suspense, it was miles away from "nail-biting", but still had enough tension in it to keep the viewers interest up. If you're looking for scary this might not be it, but if seeking some enjoyable light suspense, Bit Parts would certainly prove to be a good choise.

Bit Parts Bit Parts

What I really liked about Bit Parts was the fast pacing that it had all the way through it, but at the same time I have to complain about that some things felt a little bit rushed, although it's no biggie. Since it had such good pacing, I found myself having no problems sitting through the 72 minutes that it lasted for, and I'm happy to say that it pretty much delivered in the end. The special effects were decent for an indie feature and with more money, some of the gorier scenes that the film had to offer I'm sure could've looked great, (not saying it looked bad now, but those type of things are always a money issue).

While the film looks like your standard type of indie flick, the story that the film tells is interesting enough to make you focus on that, instead of how everything looks. Again, it's no real complaint, but rather something that could be fixed with some more cash, and I'm sure that if Reda were given some more money, he could pull off an above decent film. I find that there's no reason to complain too much about the acting either, while it might not be award-winning type of acting, it was good enough to make it work. While I really did like the villain in the film that was Dr. Cranston (played by Christopher Page), I didn't care too much for his daughter Maggie (Melissa Angel). While she wasn't really bad, she sure was one major headache, but I guess that depended on the annoying type of role/character she had to play and not just the performance alone. While Bit Parts might not be without some flaws, it still has a lot going for it and when talking indie standard, it's above average.

Final Comments
Although it might have a few minor issues to deal with, I found Bit Parts to be quite an entertaining ride and the storyline was interesting enough for one to keep an interest up throughout the whole film. The villain might've been a bit too likable and fartherly for one to feel any real horror or fear of him, but somehow, it was still all right. The film was not as cheesy as I first had thought it be either and with a big bag of green, I'm sure Mr. Reda could create some enjoyable films in the future.

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Bit Parts

ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2006
DIRECTOR: Dave Reda
WRITING CREDITS: Jon Rosenberg
GENRE: Horror, Comedy
CAST: Sarah Gordon, Molly Fix, Christopher Page
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 72 min

RATING: 6/10

Bit Parts Website/IMDB Click here
Bit Parts Trailer

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