You’re welcome to another gospel movie review. So, Abattoir was shown on YouTube for the first time on July 5 and it was an awesome experience.
I liked the new prelude to the channel where Jay and Josh talked. It was funny and for me, it gave a feeling of something new, and new it was. The opening credits were blood-themed and accompanied by “The Rising of a New Dawn” soundtrack; that’s my title for it by the way. I observed that Ruth Adepoju has been credited with the editing of recent Mount Zion films and I must say she’s doing very well. Something that excites me a lot is that Jay-Mikee is the DOP for Abattoir, which is not a portfolio he often occupies, except maybe for his Jay&Josh skits.
I felt for the Bassey character from the beginning; that was a sincere performance, although I didn’t really understand the portrayal of his fluency in English language. Even though it already seems like the major mystery has been resolved, that is, the question of who killed Mrs Durosanya, I feel there are mysteries subsequent episodes will reveal and resolve. I also think that if the Chief is really the killer, it means that the core of this story is still something we’ll discover down the line. I mean, we have a good 15 years of the past to catch up with. The scripting, shooting and editing of Episode 1 may want us to believe Chief Durosanya is the culprit but I’m not going to go with that just yet; I’ll hold my horses and see what might yet happen.
Speaking of which, you know, I’d pondered just how long one episode would be; I contemplated if it’s 20 – 25 minutes, 6 episodes would be about 2.5 hours. I thought to myself that I’d rather just have the whole movie at once; however, I found out that Episode 1 is 46 minutes. That’s very impressive. So, there’s still a whole lot to come from this series and the episode format is just appropriate for it. Most of the scenes from the trailer are from this first episode. If we go back to the behind the scenes clip uploaded last year, we’d observe that we still have the scene between Omowunmi Olatunde and Darasimi Mike-Bamiloye, though it mightn’t be central to the plot.
I’ve always been an admirer of dialogue written by Damilola Mike-Bamiloye and that skill was also on show here. I liked the exchange between Inspector Gbade and the teenage Martins. And then later on, Chief Durosanya was like “Martins, have I given you your answer?” and Martins was like “No dad, you’ve given me more questions.” I loved that. His dialogues are usually very intelligent and engaging.
I love the camera shots used in Abattoir and I think the shot with Chief Durosanya in the centre of the frame (after Inspector Gbade had left the house) has the potential for being iconic. It’s a simple dolly shot but the way it’s used with a wide shot which places Chief Durosanya in the centre of the shot while still showing the large room with a high ceiling, accompanied with the background music gave a cool, maybe even surreal feeling.
A major discovery for me in this first episode is that it turns out that Goodness Adegbola and Damilola Mike-Bamiloye are the same character, Martins, one a teenager, the other in his late 20’s or early 30’s. You know, it took me a little while before I realized this. So, this movie oscillates between Martins’ present and past. At first, I feared that one was going to take the shine off the other but I found out that as much as I enjoyed watching the present of the story, the past is just as, if not more interesting. So, I think the pacing makes us retain interest in both periods.
It was very nice for me to see D-Baba play a major role in this movie. We know him for his excellent scriptwriting and camera handling but he’s also a fantastic actor. Remember The Ignition, Killing Death, Late Work, Gbemi…very good performances, and he’s doing it here again. It was also nice seeing Kayode Owojori’s take on the bad guy; it was convincing. Religious Victor played by Samuel Owojori was a funny character and it didn’t even look like he was trying to be; did you listen to his perception of what a life crisis is?
Now, that reminds me of that scene in the classroom and the things Layomi Adebayo’s character discussed with Martins. They made me see that some children are going through a lot at home that they might not be able to speak freely about. They keep all that within themselves and of course, that affects their academics. I think this just tells teachers to try being understanding of students and try to see how they can help them. Every child is an individual and they all need help in one way or another.
So, that’s that about the first episode of Abattoir. Episode 2 will be released on Sunday, July 12, 2020. Have a swell time watching it.
Till the next post, stay blessed!
Link to the movie
Link to the video version of this post
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