Rowland's October Horrorfest

[Rowland]

I think I'd like to try watching the proper DVD release because my copy was ripped from an old VHS tape, which was probably why it looked so dark.

Yeah, I can imagine a VHS copy of this film, especially a really worn one, being borderline-unwatchable. Most of the movie is cloaked in darkness, albeit with just enough light to be coherent, which I suppose has more artistic integrity than over-lighting it into the appearance of a flat made-for-television aesthetic.

[Scar]

Your review of Freddy vs Jason makes baby Jason cry.

[D_Davis]

Your review of Freddy vs Jason makes baby Jason cry.

Yep.

It's an amazing flick.

Totally Yu, and totally rad.

[megladon8]

I'm very eager to read what this 2010 film was that you saw!!

[Chac Mool]

/House of 1000 Corpses/ (Rob Zombie, 2003) ***

[...]

If never particularly tense, let alone scary, nor coherent in any apparent intent to impart meaning or thoughtful emotion, House of 1000 Corpses is best understood as an Id-derived projection from Rob Zombie the irreverent heavy-metal persona. Thus, if his film is just as frequently irritating as it is compelling, it remains an obviously personal exercise in haunted house theatrics, ghoulish showmanship, skeevy vulgarities, and garish rednecksploitation, infused with obvious reverence for its lineage and revealing flashes of the full-blown filmmaker to emerge with his immediate follow-up. Sid Haig is the obvious MVP, sharing a hilarious scene with... is that Rainn Wilson?

Well said. I agree word for word.

What do you think about "The Devil's Rejects" -- it's as good a serial-killer-glorification film as I've seen.

[Rowland]

Frozen (Adam Green, 2010) ***











Wow, I didn't see this one coming. I knew in advance that soitgoes hated it, that it was by the guy behind Hatchet (which I've previously ignored but will have to watch now), and that its premise (three college-aged kids stranded on a ski lift) reeked of the sort of high-concept/low-budget stunt that was far more likely to be botched than work to any significant degree. But boy does it really work, as Green manages to extract almost unbearable tension and surprisingly graceful pathos out of his material, transcending its inherently gimmicky nature to reveal itself as one of this year's most pleasant surprises.

The first act is its weakest, as the main trio of characters are just a bit too abrasively callow to earn much immediate sympathy or even active interest, but they are still more credibly written and performed than these character types tend to be. Furthermore, this is proven to be an effective ploy on Green's part when the remaining two acts so effectively tear this barrier down, exposing the cruel indifference of nature, the capriciousness of life, and the existential awareness that proceeds the acceptance of mortality, all elements that could (and probably very well should) register as cliches but here speak to a common shared humanity that is uncommonly poignant.

The direction is technically polished and all-around proficient, with tightly controlled mise en scene and a pervasive aura of anxiety sustained throughout, only erring with some unmotivated crane shots he falls back on during stretches of heavy dialogue, an excess of overly sentimental scoring, and some moments that linger on images of body horror and arguable debasement longer than may have been necessary, but one never gets the impression that Green is out to trivialize or leer. Furthermore, not only does he develop his scenario in a manner consistent with reality and rooted in believable behavior, he filmed it on the side of an actual mountain (no obvious greenscreen work here) that does wonders for the atmosphere without sacrificing a distinctly cinematic sensibility.

So yeah, I've written about as much as I can without giving away more than I'd like to for those who haven't seen it. As if this isn't obvious, consider it highly recommended.

[Bosco B Thug]

Frozen (Adam Green, 2010) ***

Aw, for a minute I was convinced you went and saw My Soul to Take.

I've seen this one get a good amount of snark, and I accepted it, but now I'll hopefully go in with my biases set back to neutral.

[megladon8]

Oh wow, I guess I'll have to see this one.

I'll try to track it down while I'm in NYC.

[soitgoes...]

Frozen (Adam Green, 2010) ***

Wow, I didn't see this one coming. I knew in advance that soitgoes hated it, that it was by the guy behind Hatchet (which I've previously ignored but will have to watch now), and that its premise (three college-aged kids stranded on a ski lift) reeked of the sort of high-concept/low-budget stunt that was far more likely to be botched than work to any significant degree. But boy does it really work, as Green manages to extract almost unbearable tension and surprisingly graceful pathos out of his material, transcending its inherently gimmicky nature to reveal itself as one of this year's most pleasant surprises.

The first act is its weakest, as the main trio of characters are just a bit too abrasively callow to earn much immediate sympathy or even active interest, but they are still more credibly written and performed than these character types tend to be. Furthermore, this is proven to be an effective ploy on Green's part when the remaining two acts so effectively tear this barrier down, exposing the cruel indifference of nature, the capriciousness of life, and the existential awareness that proceeds the acceptance of mortality, all elements that could (and probably very well should) register as cliches but here speak to a common shared humanity that is uncommonly poignant.

The direction is technically polished and all-around proficient, with tightly controlled mise en scene and a pervasive aura of anxiety sustained throughout, only erring with a few unmotivated crane shots during a moderately shapeless series of dialogue scenes later in the film, an excess of overly sentimental scoring, and some moments that linger on images of body horror and arguable debasement longer than may have been necessary, but one never gets the impression that Green is out to trivialize or leer. Furthermore, not only does he develop his scenario in a manner consistent with reality and rooted in believable behavior, he filmed it on the side of an actual mountain (no obvious greenscreen work here) that does wonders for the atmosphere without sacrificing a distinctly cinematic sensibility.

So yeah, I've written about as much as I can without giving away more than I'd like to for those who haven't seen it. As if this isn't obvious, consider it highly recommended.

Stupid characters spouting stupid dialogue [

Show Spoiler

(Yay! Let's tell stories of our best friend and boyfriend being fat as a kid, laugh about it, a short while after he was eaten by wolves 30 feet below you.)

] Dumb. The girlfriend is someone I want to punch in the face every time she opens her mouth.

Awful setup. I really had a hard time getting by how the three ended up stranded on the mountain. Like you said, the first act was weak, but with me it cast a cloud over the rest of the film.

The location shooting and the idea behind the film might be great, but with so much awful there, it just ruined the film. Granted I tend to rate low on horror so this will likely be a hit with some. That being said, everyone should do themselves a favor and check out the much superior The Loved Ones for good, new horror.

[jenniferofthejungle]

:lol:

I'll read your Frozen review on the weekend.

[Rowland]

Stupid characters spouting stupid dialogue [

Show Spoiler

(Yay! Let's tell stories of our best friend and boyfriend being fat as a kid, laugh about it, a short while after he was eaten by wolves 30 feet below you.)

] Dumb

That was obviously an affectionate reminiscence, and not at all about the character's weight. Not sure how you were offended there.

Awful setup. I really had a hard time getting by how the three ended up stranded on the mountain.

It didn't test my suspension of disbelief to any significant degree. Then again, as a horror fanatic, I've let far, far more dubious setups slide. This was a model of credibility by comparison.

[Rowland]

Vampires in Havana (Juan Padrón, 1985) ***











Anarchic exuberance is the order of the day in this Cuban animated amalgam of Prohibition-era American gangster pictures and Euro-Horror, lampooning both genres with a raucously bawdy sensibility befitting its charmingly crude style. If it somehow manages to feel overlong even at a scant 69 minutes, that isn't for a lack of invention or liveliness, discharging gags with a reckless, unhinged abandon that channels the film's revolutionary spirit, being set amidst the burgeoning germs of communism in 1930's Cuba. Just glance at those last two images I posted above for a taste of the sophisticated incendiary spunk this thing exudes, complemented quite harmoniously by its joyful embrace of low-brow humor across its entire spectrum, from slapstick violence to explicit prurience and shameless caricature. Cheers as well for the trumpet-heavy afro-cuban jazz score that tonally unifies the sometimes-overwhelming chaos. I'm surprised this isn't more well-known, as a cult item or otherwise, because it's just the sort of bonkers curio seekers of the singularly offbeat should presumably be all over.

[Dukefrukem]

Wow, I didn't see this one coming. I knew in advance that soitgoes hated it, that it was by the guy behind Hatchet (which I've previously ignored but will have to watch now), and that its premise (three college-aged kids stranded on a ski lift) reeked of the sort of high-concept/low-budget stunt that was far more likely to be botched than work to any significant degree. But boy does it really work, as Green manages to extract almost unbearable tension and surprisingly graceful pathos out of his material, transcending its inherently gimmicky nature to reveal itself as one of this year's most pleasant surprises.

The first act is its weakest, as the main trio of characters are just a bit too abrasively callow to earn much immediate sympathy or even active interest, but they are still more credibly written and performed than these character types tend to be. Furthermore, this is proven to be an effective ploy on Green's part when the remaining two acts so effectively tear this barrier down, exposing the cruel indifference of nature, the capriciousness of life, and the existential awareness that proceeds the acceptance of mortality, all elements that could (and probably very well should) register as cliches but here speak to a common shared humanity that is uncommonly poignant.

The direction is technically polished and all-around proficient, with tightly controlled mise en scene and a pervasive aura of anxiety sustained throughout, only erring with a few unmotivated crane shots during a moderately shapeless series of dialogue scenes later in the film, an excess of overly sentimental scoring, and some moments that linger on images of body horror and arguable debasement longer than may have been necessary, but one never gets the impression that Green is out to trivialize or leer. Furthermore, not only does he develop his scenario in a manner consistent with reality and rooted in believable behavior, he filmed it on the side of an actual mountain (no obvious greenscreen work here) that does wonders for the atmosphere without sacrificing a distinctly cinematic sensibility.

So yeah, I've written about as much as I can without giving away more than I'd like to for those who haven't seen it. As if this isn't obvious, consider it highly recommended.

Yes!!! I'm so seeing this asap.... Is it available for instant stream on Netflix?

[Grouchy]

I'm surprised this isn't more well-known, as a cult item or otherwise, because it's just the sort of bonkers curio seekers of the singularly offbeat should presumably be all over.

True that, although obviously it's more well known in Spanish-speaking countries. My ex-girlfriend who is from Panama introduced me to it.

[Rowland]

An overload of work and school have taken their toll on my ability to keep this thread updated almost every day as per my initial desire, but I'll have a new entry up in the next day or two, and should hopefully regain my momentum from there. I have an eclectic lineup planned for the remainder of the month, should make for an interesting ride.

[Rowland]

Rampo Noir (Akio Jissoji/Atsushi Kaneko/Hisayasu Sato/Suguru Takeuchi, 2005) **











A Japanese anthology film comprised of four shorts adapted from the literature of Japan's answer to Edgar Allen Poe, Taro Hirai, or as he dubbed himself, Edogawa Rampo (see what he did there?). I desperately wanted to like this more than I did, seeing as how, besides its four directors employing all sorts of expressive visual/editing/sound-design-related stylistic flourishes, it actually features enough tastelessly imaginative grotesqueries, freakishly fetishized eroticism, and all-around outré material, both in concept and execution, to justify the interest of any Extreme Asian Cult devotee. Unfortunately however, not one of the four stories really works, whether due to lugubrious pacing, laughable pretension, muddled storytelling, tone deafness, lack of thematic/psychological insight, or what have you. Plus, there isn't a single scare to be had in the bunch.

The first, titled Mars Canal, is only a few minutes long, featuring a naked man wandering a blasted, featureless landscape before happening across a crater lake wherein his mirror image stirs a repressed memory in which he brutally murders an also-naked woman. It's admittedly a bit inane, but it's strikingly shot and completely silent until the very end, a sort of prologue establishing the tone and thematic currency the remaining shorts will explore.

The next is Mirror Hell, a borderline incomprehensible story about female victims' faces being melted off by a mysterious shadow mirror. This one has a goofy plot that is actually pretty irresistible once it's fully revealed, but the majority of this is a poorly plotted chore, exacerbated by its self-consciously affected tone, striving for the icily operatic and failing miserably. Couple this with its absurd set design, as almost every location is literally layered from wall to wall with mirrors of varying shapes and sizes pointing every which way that sometimes allows for striking compositions, but more often results in a distracting "Where's Waldo" game wherein I searched for reflections of the camera and crew to occupy my middling interest. The solution to the mystery however is delightful nonsense, as is the villain's attempt to witness God inside a sphere he built with a mirror interior. Bonus points for creativity, wannabe-Narcissus.

The third tale is The Caterpillar, featuring a possible war veteran whose wounds have reduced him to a torso with a bald, scarred head that suggests a particularly macabre variation on a certain Monty Python bit. His perverted, power-mad wife abuses him S&M-style and rides the shit out of his limbless husk (quite an image), he attempts to fight back as best a torso could hope to manage, cheesy butterfly imagery abounds, and in the end some voyeuristic dude who considers the human caterpillar art and aspires to world-renowned-collector status steps in for a completely nonsensical climax. It feels like the first chapter of a series, with all the plot elements it introduces only to leave frustratingly, perplexingly irresolute.

The concluding segment, Crawling Bugs, is the most coherent, comic, and satisfying of the lot, ending with a real kicker of a payoff that finishes the film on a high note. Its narrative of a chauffeur who obsesses over a swanky celebrity he shuttles about almost as much as his pathological paranoia over the scum all humans carry with them forcefully justifies its surreal stylization and kitschy trappings through the delusions of its disturbed protagonist, yet it still feels stretched thin and oddly flat even in this short form.

[Rowland]

Raw Meat (Gary Sherman, 1972) ***½











Nearly a decade before his canonized Dead and Buried, Gary Sherman had already made in his debut film this chilling, meticulously crafted exercise in minimalist, class-conscious horror that deserves a wider reputation. It demands immediate attention with an evocative four-minute opening credits of impressionistic, color-saturated rack-focus smears set to an appropriately seedy jazz-fusion theme that capture a diplomat's clandestine exploits amidst Britain's red-light district with aplomb.

From here on, one of Sherman's most immediately striking gambits is his trust in diegetic sounds to sustain his moody atmosphere, the most virtuosic example being a stunning, seven-minute panning-cum-tracking shot (segued into with a clever match-cut) chronicling a succession of the grimy, half-glimpsed horrors adorning a cannibal clan's underground lair to the soundtrack of squeaking rats, dripping water, anguished moans, and heartbeats for rhythm. Very few musical cues are relied on in this film, with long stretches devoted to almost suffocating silences, and many dialogue scenes that may have grown tedious were they not filled in by Donald Pleasance's ingratiating performance as a hilariously caustic working-class investigator of missing persons that is a masterclass in comedic timing.

Speaking of missing persons, the thrust of the loosely structured narrative pertains to subway abductions perpetrated by the lone surviving descendant from a group of century-old mining cave-in survivors who resorted to cannibalism and inbreeding after being abandoned by the state due to a lack of funding for rescue. While portrayed as a savage, disease-ridden brute, his is also the film's most sympathetic character, a tragic figure rendered more pathetic than terrifying who is revealed by the time of its The Third Man-inspired climax to also be its most tender, least corrupt figure.

Special mention as well for Sherman's nod to his cinematic lineage with a delightful cameo by Hammer Studios' Christopher Lee as a deliciously smug mouthpiece for the upper class hoping to conceal the exact nature of the disappearances for the sake of their image. Despite pacing issues and something of a non-ending, this is a mini-masterpiece.

[MacGuffin]

I've heard good things about Raw Meat. Those screenshots look grime-y.

[megladon8]

Jen's been trying to get me to see that one, insisting that it's good but what really steals the show is the performance of Donald Pleasance's career.

She also said that she wanted an entire movie of Pleasance and Christopher Lee

[Rowland]

I've heard good things about Raw Meat. Those screenshots look grime-y.

Oh yeah, it's deeply infused with that raw '70s texture from which so many horror films of the era benefited. I'd love to see a remastered print while retaining all the intrinsic grain and grime.

[Rowland]

Jen's been trying to get me to see that one, insisting that it's good but what really steals the show is the performance of Donald Pleasance's career.

She also said that she wanted an entire movie of Pleasance and Christopher Lee

He's amazing in it, and yeah, the scene shared by Pleasance and Lee is one of the film's highlights.

[megladon8]

He's amazing in it, and yeah, the scene shared by Pleasance and Lee is one of the film's highlights.

Well I'll be sure to see it as soon as possible.

Because of the name I often associate it with the DVD edition of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which looks like a pound of ground beef. So I'm always a little confused when I see its fairly generic DVD cover on Amazon.

[Bosco B Thug]

Dead and Buried's good, and, you know, Poltergeist III isn't bad. It's actually impressive at times. Not surprised this one turns out good.

[MadMan]

Rowland I'll have to put that one on my queue. I love 70s horror movies.

PS: Its on Netflix Instant Viewing. Sweet.

[MacGuffin]

Yeah, I'll definitely add it to my tentative horror moviegoing schedule. Actually, I think I'm going to venture into psychotronic cinema here for the next few months or so.