One of the things I love about Panic Fest is that you’ll see cinema you might not catch at another festival intermixed with bigger budget surprises. Sometimes you’ll come across a few gems in the rough, like the surprisingly fun Uncle Peckerhead. And sometimes you’ll find films that don’t quite hit the mark but, for some audiences, might still entertain.

The Chamber of Terror is writer/director Michael Pereira’s debut film that’s based on a character he created for a number of short films. Timothy Paul McCarthy’s N.C. (or Mr. Nash Fucking Caruthers to his enemies) feels like a protagonist stuck in the late 70s or early 80s. He rocks sunglasses, looks like a Party City Snake Plissken and spits lines that would make They Live’s Nada cringe. The Chamber of Terror opens with Nash sealing a mob boss’s song Tyler Ackerman (Seth O’Shea) in a coffin. Tyler is on Nash’s literal shit list (along with, humorously, Wolf Cop) but, unfortunately for everyone involved, after he’s nailed up in the coffin, a pair of hands burst through and grab him…cutting to a month later when Nash is confronted and kidnapped by the mob boss’s henchpeople.

The henchpeople bring him to a torture room (the titular Chamber of Terror) in order to find out Tyler’s location. In Tyler’s absence, his sister Ava (Jessica Vano) has taken over his duties, much to the chagrin of her father, and Nash poses quite a problem. Even more concerning is that this is also the location that Nash has stored Tyler and his best friend’s coffin…and something has found them.

The Chamber of Terror wears its inspirations on its sleeve, from the grunting, wise-cracking 80s-era protagonist with revenge on his mind to the John Carpenter-esqe synth score. But it never fully commits to any of its inspirations. At one point, it seems like it’ll morph into a fun siege movie or a delirious creature feature or a gory bloodbath of a film. And while it dances around some of those elements, they never fully coalesce. It’s a horror comedy of contradictions, placing a gruff, deadpan hero (who unfortunately ruins the fun by saying the “r word”) who feels as if he’s acting in a completely different film from his co stars who have a slapstick, almost camp energy.

The juxtaposition of these characters feeds a lot of the humor and The Chamber of Terror is at its best when it’s focused on the truly odd couple pairing of Ava and Nash. Their oddball chemistry and acting styles mash together to create some of the more satisfying moments, but the camerawork feels too static to truly embrace some of the gonzo plot points and zany action the script calls for. It takes some of the energy away, unfortunately. I wish the pacing and cinematography matched the bouts of gore and the chemistry of the two leads.