{"id":54313,"date":"2026-08-01T17:10:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T21:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=54313"},"modified":"2026-08-01T17:10:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T21:10:19","slug":"bowels-of-hell-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/01\/bowels-of-hell-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Bowels of Hell [2026] [Fantasia 2026]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A woman\u2019s unresolved trauma leads to personal issues and murderous plumbing in Gurcius Gewdner & Gustavo Vinagre\u2019s uneven horror-comedy-drama Bowels of Hell. Presented as part of the Fantasia Film Festival.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Trigger Warning: child death and endangerment. And poop. So much poop.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bowels of Hell is a Brazilian scat-based drama-horror-comedy coming out of the Fantasia Film Festival<\/a>. Directed by Gurcius Gewdner & Gustavo Vinagre, it\u2019s a bit of a mess literally and figuratively, but it\u2019s an interesting film of how trauma can build up within until it explodes. While that can be emotionally building to a breaking point, for Malu it\u2019s physical as well, with building up a literal need to defecate. A need so big to let go this way and of personal issues that it somehow affects her whole apartment building. Yeah, it\u2019s a weird one that is hard to describe, but I\u2019ll give it a go! I\u2019m not going to TRY to put scat puns within; I already have plenty, but it\u2019s going to happen, and yes, I\u2019ll be talking plenty of that body function. (note from me later: you failed.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Nearly a dozen years ago, a party ends with disaster as Malu, mother of twins, loses one on a toilet-based incident (thus, the trauma related to using the bathroom). Carrying the grief, she runs an event planning business, putting her to deal with a Momzilla and her gender reveal, along with butting heads with her other child, non-binary Genesis, but she\u2019s not accepting of Genesis\u2019s self. Well, that internal trouble becomes a sort of constipation, and externally, when a memento of the deceased child and the grief attached to it ends up down the toilet. That makes the plumbing come to life in the building, starting to mess with other tenants.\u00a0 Martha Nowill is fantastic as Malu, carrying a heavy load of the trauma and building worry about her life. She does so much, and puts it on her face and physical performance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s a S\u00e3o Paulo apartment building with a fun, eclectic set of characters to help Malu\u2019s trauma come to life. Each has their things going on, and are a nice bunch of supporting characters to build off one another and the goopy troubles. There\u2019s the flighty and sympathetic woman who helps drug-addled people, but brings them into the building. There\u2019s a cranky older lady. The handyman dealing with it all. And, particularly hateable, the influencer pregnant woman who wants the perfect baby shower\/gender reveal and is a total pain to deal with, along with her nearly forgotten husband and other child. Each of these folks helps fill out an interesting world, and it\u2019s a good time to jump around and spend time with each.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The film gets messy in circling the bowl of what to want to do and when. As is too often the case, at nearly two hours, there\u2019s not enough story to pull through that run time. Scenes and ideas are flushed multiple times, as if it didn\u2019t go down the first time. Thoughts of \u201cwe got it, let\u2019s move on.\u201d Too often the dialogue for personal and social commentary is so direct it\u2019s awkward (maybe a subtitle issue as the film is in Portuguese). Occasionally, as it builds up to the inevitable gross-out conclusion, the pair of directors gives us a gore scene or a nasty bit of effects to whet our whistles. They look great, with gag-inducing special effects. Of which there are plenty in the little bits where the film starts moving (then pauses again). Prepare for so many rooms and people to be covered from head to toe in gore, guts, and what is often in guts. A Shining e<\/a>levator of shit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There\u2019s a lot to like here, and I see what Gewdner and Vinagre are up to with layering family drama, personal issues, and all the shit people deal with with onesself and others, and how that becomes literally poo. It\u2019s an intriguing juxtaposition in mixing an over-the-top gore and scat comedy with a trauma drama. It just doesn\u2019t mix as well or be fleshed out to make it work too strongly outside of the gag-gore. But definitely good enough. If you can stomach the contents of other people\u2019s stomachs (and lower digestive tract), Bowels of Hell will give you something to swim around in. Bowels of Hell plays as part of the Fantasia Film Festival<\/a> 2026, running July 16th through August 2nd in Montreal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A woman\u2019s unresolved trauma leads to personal issues and murderous plumbing in Gurcius Gewdner & Gustavo Vinagre\u2019s uneven horror-comedy-drama Bowels of Hell. Presented as part of the Fantasia Film Festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2497,1284,12],"tags":[219,302,477],"class_list":["post-54313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasia-fest","category-festivalsevents","category-movie-reviews","tag-comedy","tag-drama","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54317,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54313\/revisions\/54317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}