My quick rating – 3.7/10. Dariuss bills itself as an “unspeakable, sickening and perverse cinematographic voyage of blood, bodily fluids and madness,” and, for once, the marketing isn’t exaggerating. Shot like a fever dream on a handheld camera in the quiet countryside of Essex, it follows a middle-class family shattered by the loss of their young daughter. There’s no dialogue. No clear exposition. Just grief fermenting in silence until it curdles into something unrecognizable. You’d think that setup alone would be enough to pull at the heartstrings, but Guerrilla Metropolitana isn’t interested in sentimentality—he’s aiming for something rawer, stranger, and far less forgiving.
The film operates like someone broke into their neighbor’s house, filmed them silently dissolving into madness, and then forgot to add a score… so they looped the sound of a leaky faucet instead. I’m not exaggerating — if there was a nomination for “Most Overused Kitchen Sink Drip as Emotional Bridge,” Dariuss would sweep the category. It’s equal parts immersive and infuriating. You either let it wash over you, or you reach for the remote.
To its credit, the voyeuristic style is effective. We’re not watching a ghost story so much as intruding on one. Early scenes linger uncomfortably long on mundane actions — eating, sitting, staring — until the air feels heavier than any haunted house soundtrack could manage. The titular Dariuss begins as little more than a shadow in the corner, a figure glimpsed rather than revealed. At that point, I was on board. The ambiguity was working. Was this grief given form? A supernatural parasite? Or just one family collectively losing their minds?
Unfortunately, that quiet dread soon pivots into full surrealist meltdown. Hair scalps, high heels, bodily fluids, erotic asides that I’m still trying to categorize — it’s like someone fed David Lynch, Lars von Trier, and the Red Shoe Diaries into a blender and hit frappe. The refusal to explain itself becomes less courageous and more of a dare. There’s a fine line between poetic ambiguity and narrative abandonment, and Dariuss takes a flying leap over it in stilettos.
Still, I respect the swing. In a cinematic landscape obsessed with over-explaining every mystery, there’s something admirable about a film that simply stares back and refuses to clarify. It’s absolutely a love-or-hate situation, and I’m landing firmly in “mild appreciation with a raised eyebrow.” Guerrilla Metropolitana clearly has vision — even if that vision occasionally involves zooming way too close to bodily fluids. I was recently sent their latest film, The Benefactress, and if nothing else, Dariuss has ensured I’m curious… if slightly braced for impact. (Will be my next review)
