Joshua Rivera writes, directs, and stars in his latest project, Deformelody: An American Nightmare. The film tells of a disturbed young man who decides his life would have more meaning if he were a serial killer. With this decision made, he begins his reign of terror on the city of Los Angeles, but will this endeavour give him the results he desperately craves?
Clocking in at around 150 minutes, Deformelody is not a short undertaking for the viewer. Not only is the run time on the lengthy side, Rivera thrusts a barrage of imagery at the watcher, often with the use of split screen, making it a visual sensory overload. This constant influx of new locations, characters and images is overwhelming, so too is the near overbearing use of narration. Following in the footsteps of several serial killer texts that have come before, our nameless killer renditions his inner monologue for the entire film. Scenes of dialogue are kept light in favour of using internal musings to progress the narrative. With so much information being spewed forth, there are moments where it just becomes overbearing noise.
Deformelody opens with text announcing that the film was made by a crew of two, Joshua Rivera and Genevieve Velez. Whilst the duo are to be commended due to the sheer amount of footage required to fill such a cut heavy, long runtime, that there were only the pair of them also raises problems. With Rivera writing, directing, and starring amongst several other roles, and with Velez heavily involved in producing and shooting, there is a distinct lack of outside perspective. This is a common issue amongst low-budget productions. Due to budget restrictions crews have to be kept small, and so an echo chamber can form. The duo were clearly committed to their vision for the film, but it would have benefited from a little restraint, or at least a reprieve from the constant ramblings of the lead character.
The musings of the killer are incessant and cover a range of buzz topics including AI, politics, and cancel culture. This voice has so many topics to discuss that there ends up being little substance to any of it and so becomes a wall of white noise, talking for talking’s sake. The way in which Deformelody places its protagonist at the all consuming centre of the universe, mirrors that in The People’s Joker, but whereas Vera Drew’s film had a story at the heart of it, Deformelody falls short. Eventually, during the final hour or so, a more interesting element works its way in, but sadly its appearance is too late, and well after the audience have become too tired of the rhetoric for it to fully work as intended.
There is no denying that a lot of hard work has gone into the creation of Deformelody: An American Nightmare, but unfortunately its structure is overwhelming, the result being that it comes off as a little pretentious.
Deformelody: An American Nightmare
Summary
Despite all the hard work that has gone into its creation, Deformelody is unfortunately a tedious 155 minutes that mostly feels like an assault on the senses.
Deformelody: An American Nightmare was reviewed at Raindance 2025.
