Coven of the Black Cube — Coven of the Black Cube (Blu Ray)

Coven of the Black Cube is a 2024 film that blends threads of witchcraft curses, queer romance, metalhead drama, and horror. It’s a SOV affair, very much paying tribute to the 1990’s- with moments of glitching to psychedelic static, a genre-shifting soundtrack which moves between eerie ambience, different varieties of heavy metal, indie rock/ pop, and uneasy pagan folk. Here, Blood Sick Promotions is a region-free Blu-ray of the film, taking in a commentary track and behind-the-scenes footage.

Coven of the Black Cube is directed/ co-written by Pennsylvania-based Brewce Longo. He has a total of five credits, taking in four features and one short. His other feature-length works include punked, vampiric horror Blood Sick Psychosis (2022), musical, festive horror A Corpse for Christmas (2023), and comedy/drama/horror crossbreed Vick & Tarstar's Scarecrow Factory (2025).

The film’s credits feature a montage of unpleasant/impolite to their partners metal-heads getting their comeuppance as they spew up blood, collapse and die. With a fair bit of creative tape glitching going on

As we get into the film, we meet our two lead characters- Milo (Josh Schafer) a slobbish/ uncouth moustached metal head, who runs a blend of a VHS shop, pizza parlour, and head shop- he’s in a band with his girlfriend, but not making the effort with her or the band he should. And Bespeckled goth punk Vi (Morrigan Thompson-Milam), who is trying her best to keep her relationship together with the heavily tattooed Gumby(Kasper Meltedhair) - initially, we get their story lines played out separately, but in time, they start to interact.

The film runs for one hour and thirty-seven minutes, largely remaining engaging/ shifting in its tone/locations. We move from a magic potion-come record shop where witchy queer temptress Clover( Zoe Angeli) works. Onto the beer can littered, half-empty pizza boxes and VHS-strewn apartments. Though misty & moody walks through riverside nighttime, and daytime graveyards- where either self-harm or witchcraft is carried out. Into sweaty and cramped back rooms, where a black metal band plays featuring a chainmail and corpse paint drummer.

It’s very much a loosely genre-blended picture, as it shifts from queer romance to bickering drama, onto witchy curses thriller, and moments of torture-bound horror, where most notable we have a lengthy/ painful cock-stuffing session.

I went into Coven of the Black Cube expecting more of horror focused affair, and I guess initially, after finishing, I felt a little let down- as the horror stuff is only like twenty to maybe thirty per cent of what's on offer. But after sitting with it for a while, I must say I very much enjoyed the loose genre-shifting tone of the whole thing, as you really don’t know what to expect from scene to scene.

The film has a largely believable and well-acted cast, with only one or two of the cast coming across as dead-eyed/ reading their lines flat. As mentioned earlier musical side of things is also very shifting- moving between eerie and uneasy, to upbeat and rocking, though to metallic- be it doomy, raging blackened, etc.

So if you dig the SOV aesthetic, enjoy metal/ alternative lifestyle-focused drama ‘n’ romance, with witchcraft and horror elements, Coven of the Black Cube will most certainly be for you.

On the extras side, we get a commentary track from director/ co-writer Brewce Longo, actress/ co-writer Zoe Angeli, actor/ co-writer Josh Schafer, and DP Michael DiFrancesco. This, as you’d imagine, is quite a chatty/ laid back affair- though you do get some nice insights to locations, inferences, script detail, etc. They start by discussing the witch procession pre-credits, and talk about how initially the film was going to be be a lesbian serial killer picture. They point out people in the credit scenes, many of whom are filmmaking buddies. They mention actors/ actress as they appear, point out their favourite pizza joint in Philadelphia Circles and Squares- which was also used as the location of Milo’s shop. They talk about how they love putting in discussions about weird filmmakers in their scripts. They discuss the bar/ venue where the Black metal band Unholy Altar perform, and apparently they regularly do shows in a mix of spikes and lingerie. Later on, they point out details in the background of scenes, including scenes from a gore-porn film. They touch on some of the articles that inspired the murder elements in the picture.

Otherwise, we get behind-the-scenes footage( 19.26), outtakes ( 18.58), a selection of six trailers for other Blood Sick Promotions films.

It certainly is great to see modern filmmakers using the SOV aesthetics, as it’s such a great way of creating a selection of different tones/moods. If you like the idea of a loose/ at times woozy blend of drama, romance, and horror- with an effective mixed genre soundtrack, then Coven of the Black Cube is a must-watch. I’ll most certainly be keeping an eye out in future for releases from Brewce Longo and Blood Sick Promotions.