An attendant at the morgue becomes involved with a young woman who is trying to find her missing sister. The plot for Phoenix has two sub plots which eventually fuse into one. The first story revolves around a young man who works at a mortuary. He is a sexually confused young man whose upbringing has left him disconnected from the opposite sex. He has a piece of wood with a nail at the top which he attaches women’s hair too. He takes this weird fetish up a notch when he makes love to the piece of wood and imagines that the wood is the women whose hair he has attached to it. The second story revolves around a young woman whose sister is missing. This woman comes from an abusive home were her after sexually abused her and her sister. These two sexually and socially defective individuals meet through a chance encounter. Together they search for the woman’s missing sister. Visually Phoenix is beautifully photographed in black & white. Trying to image this film in color is impossible since the subject matter lends itself perfectly to black & white. Also the cinematography is flawless with inventive compositions and moody lighting. The two most memorable scenes are the young man who works at the morgue’s first encounter with a real woman and a dinner table scene where the young woman’s abusive father simulates masturbation with a burrito. All around all performances are very effective especially the film’s three leads Aisha Prigann, Sasha DeMarino and Mark Schultz. Ultimately Phoenix is a surreal drama that unflinching explores the darker sides of humanity.