a jaded viewer reviews the world of horror, splatter, gore, cult, grindhouse, trash, b-movie, erotica, indie, asian and exploitation films
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
The Hajirai Machine Girl (Trailer)
It seems as an extra in the Tokyo Shock DVD of The Machine Girl (which you can read my review here) we get an uber lower budget sequel to Noburu Iguchi's now cult classic, viral trailer splatterfest
Who would have thought you could make a sequel to that insanity?
Hajirai (or Shyness) Machine Girl seems more outrageous than its original parent. Arterial decaps, machine gun ass and Yakuza with nails in his head.
Makes me think of the STV Ichi the Killer ripoffs that followed after Takashi Miike's landmark flick.
Before Uwe Boll made the words German + Director + Movie = an untouchable, horrible combination, there were a few awesome German directors that revolutionized the gore/splatter films of the 80s and 90s.
The trio of Jorg Buttgereit, Andreas Schnaas and Olaf Ittenbach were the masters of German horror.
Buttgereit is now irrelevant, Schnaas is still around having teamed with Troma for Nikos the Impaler but it's Olaf Ittenbach who has made the straight to DVD gorefest his playground. Call it gore-emax.
Since Ittenbach's gore masterpiece Premutos, he's regurgitated some awesome gore-a-paloozas but always with bad acting, a stupid plot and horrible editing and sound mixing. Mind you he's been the special effects guy for most of Boll's films so if he's been getting advice from Uwe, it's been SARS like. So infectious that it makes most of Ittenbach's films almost unwatchable.
I said almost.
Because you can't discount the gore factor. I've said it before, just like nudity, gore alone can't save a movie, no matter how good the splatter is.
Gratuitous nudity, splatter and gore and plot/acting/ending all have to be in sync for a good horror movie. 1 out of 3 ain't gonna cut it.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
What started with a routine divorce between Natalie Stein and her husband Tim, will soon take a turn into the unexpected and evolve into scenes of torture, bloodshed and slaughter.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
If you said to me what if Olaf Ittenbach made a torture porn movie I would have been fuckin excited. The torture and gore would be over the top and unbelievably bloody and realistic.
The only problem with Ittenbach doing torture porn is there is no plot in torture porn. The fact Ittenbach writes horrible scripts makes it more aggravating. He also casts people who can't act. I mean really can't act. I think he puts in his FX crew as actors. I'm serious.
C'mon Olaf, there's gotta be Nazi gold money to hire some real actors.
Natalie (played by Olaf's wife, Martina) is our main goody two shoes. Her German accent is so thick, one can barely understand the Germ-glish that she's trying to dialogue out. Why narrate a movie when we can barely understand it. It sounded like a McD's drive thru.
Ittenbach's plot is all over the place. It tries to be all Rashomon with some Pulp Fiction thrown in regarding some missing cocaine and a million dollars. But really, this is torture porn so let's just descrube the gore/splatter torture scenes.
1.) Pimp Hitman vs Natalie
Highlights include:
-Repeated punches to the face -Finger slicing -Toe slicing -Glass shrapnel dicing
Flashback highlights include:
-Chainsaw child-a-cide (extra awesomeness!)
2.) Daniel vs Natalie
Highlights include:
-Daniel goes full frontal and dismembers a body -Head decaps -Arms and Legs decaps -Torso decaps -Ankle decaps -Head decaps (via torture) -Ocular trauma -Hammer arm trauma -Needle in the eye trauma -Multiple OJ like stabbings
Flashback highlights include:
-Gunshot blast to the head (extra awesomeness!) -Knife in the mouth -Knife stabbings (x100) -Meat cleaver to the neck -Throat slicing -Meat pounder to the face -Intenstines gushing
That flashback is one of the best scenes in the movie, so check it out below.
You good? Is that enough? No need for a gore-ipedia for this review. Towards the end, the backround music got really loud and actually fucked up the dialogue that you could barely hear whats the actors were saying.
Seriously Olaf, WHAT THE FUCK??? The twist ending was outright predictable as we get a full reveal of whose pulling the strings but the fucked up sound editing made it so you couldn't even listen to whats being said.
The shitty plot, the horrible acting were bad enough. But fucked up sound editing? That's where I draw the fuckin line.
You can't argue with the gore. But you can argue with everything else. For your career Olaf, stop listening to Uwe Boll. And stop writing your own shit. And get some actors. Is that too much to ask?
You would have thought that I would have seen the first American splatter movie ever made.
But if you thought that, you would have been wrong.
The only film I've ever seen by Lewis was 2000 Maniacs which I absolutely loved. With 2k Maniacs, Blood Feast and Color Me Blood Red, this is what most have dubbed The Blood Trilogy.
And to be privy to seeing it is to see grindhouse flicks at its apex. It may be filled with horrible acting, blood red blood and full of cheesiness, but it spawned an American horror revolution...and its not too bad.
Hey even Juno loves Herschell Gordon Lewis movies.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
An Egyptian caterer kills various women in suburban Miami to use their body parts to bring to life a dormant Egyptian goddess, while an inept police detective try to track him down.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Try to pretend it's 1963, you're in Times Square at some grindhouse theatre. You've been watching to many Leave it to Beaver episodes and you see the poster above. You pay your $2 to see Blood Feast. Running at a minimum 70 minutes, you see scantily clad women get slaughtered in the most gruesome ways.
Think about it. This was something totally new. So totally fucked up, you're now totally disturbed. And this should not be taken lightly.
Let's bring it to modern times. How about the first time you saw Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th. Remember that feeling?
That's what it was like to see Fuad Ramses (our notorious serial killer caterer) kill countless victims.
There are so many firsts in this movie. Let's list them.
1.) A women gets her eye cut out 2.) A women gets her legs cut off 3.) A women is scalped to death and her brain is removed 4.) A women's tongue is ripped out 5.) A women gets whipped to death 6.) A women gets her heart ripped out 7.) We see a killer "cook" human flesh 8.) Somebody dies via garbage truck compactor
Wikipedia also likes to add:
9.) Blood Feast is also one of the first films to show people dying with their eyes open.
Our first machete armed, Egyptian obsessed serial killer is Fuad Ramses.
He's got:
1.) "Crazy, weird eyes" 2.) A very noticable limp 3.) Speaks in incoherent blood thirsty sentences 4.) Prefers knives and machetes as weapons 5.) Is a caterer of exotic foods
Our cops are so inept it's a miracle the lead detective figures out who is the killer in the nick of time.
All in all, Blood Feast as the first American splatter introduces the formula that all other future splatter movies will follow.
1.) Deranged killer who stalks his prey (usually women) 2.) Elaborate, over the top gore and splatter scenes 3.) Cops/detectives hot on his trail 4.) Gratuitous nudity 5.) An ending that just doesn't live up the the hype
Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)
See above. Kinda listed it all there.
Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)
For a 60's flick, you've got some glimpses of nudity Bubbly boobies Scantily clad gratuitous bikini boobies
WTF moment That tongue ripping scene. Classic!
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
Every gorehound and would be splatter-holic needs to see the Citizen Kane of splatter movies. It should be mandatory viewing for any horror fan (as well as many other HGL films). It's an education to see that Lewis and David Friedman (who produced it) were pioneers that evolved what horror movies could be.
2000 Maniacs, Gruesome Twosome (review coming soon!), The Gore Gore Girls, The Wizard of Gore and Color Me Bloody Red are being remade because the originals are classics.
Seriously, even Juno loves Herschell Gordon Lewis. So it' gotta be hip and cool right?
Wow, just a truly awesome-tastic horror gem. Possibly one of the best horror movies of the year.
So what did you need to pull of this feat?
You needed legendary Versus/Alive/Azumi director Ryuhei Kitamura. You needed a short story from horror writer Clive Barker (this little gem was a short from his Books of Blood series), a nifty screenplay by Jeff Buhler and some love from the horror community.
No thanks to Lion's Gate who decided to midnight movie and dollar themed this flick into theatrical oblivion.
But they did put up the loot.
TMMT is going to be a super duper horror cult classic, where it will play at midnight shows because people will WANT to see it. It hits all the right notes, leaving everybody scarred, bruised, sliced and diced and ultimately fuckin dead.
Rock on.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
A photographer hunts down a serial killer. Based on Clive Barker's short story "Midnight Meat Train"
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Leon (Bradley Cooper) is a struggling photographer who wants to caption the essence of a vague metro city. Encouraged by his girlfriend Maya (Leslie Bibb who's quite a hotty) ,his friend Jurgis (Robert Bart) and a gallery artist played by Brooke Shields he ventures out to the city subway system to get gritty photos of life untouched.
We venture with Leon as he unravels the puzzle of a mysterious butcher (Vinnie Jones), who he follows and eventually witnesses the madman as he kills passengers on the train.
Why is he doing this?
Could it be he was bullied when he was young? A mysterious tape he watched? Does he want to show his victims that life is meaningful by creating elaborate traps? Or is it some other bullshit motive?
Nah. It's fuckin fun. Well he does have a real motive but that's not revealed til the "gotcha" ending. And I'm more than happy that the motive was told to me at the end. It would just have gotten in the way of the awesome scenes of carnage by our crazy butcher killer.
And we get plenty of them. Gorehounds refuckin joice. So many great scenes of slaughter it was horror-gasms one right after another. Decaps here, beheadings over there. Meat hook traumas, ocular traumas, you'd think you were watching fast food nation.
All mega major horror cylinders were hit. So synchronized to perfection. And we have to thank Kitamura and Barker for being on their game on this one.
Let's start with Kitamura. What you loved about Versus, Alive and Azumi are all blended into a liquid shake of horror gooeyness. Offbeat angles, frenzy camera work and hyper kinetic movement are all in play. Scenes are set up like Edward Munch like paintings. A cinematographer's wet dream.
A POV shot of a kill is done so well, I was cheering like I hit a game winning shot.
In the climatic final action sequence, the camera moves from in the subway car, to out of it, then back in all the while still capturing the gory fight.
The film paces nicely, chiming in with dialogue to push the plot but then making the audience engulfed in the suspense. Yes, people get chased, people hide from our dastardly killer. It's all cat and mouse, but most of the scenes Kitamura shows us are the cat totally fucking up the mice.
Poor mice.
Clive Barker's story is cleverly classic Barker. Like a good book, it's all about the buildup until the end where we are given an explanation and an ending that turns everything upside down. I realized what the ending would be 30 minutes in, but it's still pretty mini decent.
But the scene stealer has got to be the menace that is Vinnie Jones. He plays the killer butcher (he's credited as Mahogany) to a tee. A Gump like, suit wearing, leather bag carrying killer who remains SILENT throughout the flick.
His main weapon of choice: a meat pounder and hook.
And boy does he do a lot of fuckin damage with it.
TMMT just reinvigorated my horror adrenaline and cravings. It's by far one of the best horror movies of the year. And the sad part is not a lot of people are going to be able to see this little masterpiece until Lion's Gate releases it on DVD.
But if you get a chance to go to a midnight showing or dollar theatre matinee, support this little gem. It's worth more than a dollar, that's for sure.
Influences
Clive Barkers novels and short stories 80s classic horror Grindhouse horror tinged movies
Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)
Meat hammer trauma 3D Ocular trauma Meat hook to the balls Decapitations Barnacle gooyness Human butchery Stab wound to the neck Knife through the mouth Gunshot through the eye Arm decaps Leg decaps Gallons of blood Slicing and dicing GORE GORE GORE!!!!
Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)
A side boob from Leslie Bibb Some dead victim boobies
WTF moment
That POV kill scene (it was soooooooooo good) The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
I'm blushing. It's so refreshing to see a movie that crosses the line, draws a new line then crosses that one too. I hope Kitamura goes the Takashi Miike route and dabbles making a couple of english language movies.
It's been so long since we had a Clive Barker fueled horror film, I think we now have to support Book of Blood as well.
OK, I'm going to go ahead and fuckin say it. The Midnight Meat Train is one of the Top 5 horror movies of 2008.
Now support this little turd so we can get more of the same.
So after watching the infamous Tom Savini headshot scene for the 20 millionth time, I stumbled upon the Spinell archives.
As most underground horror fans know that Joe Spinell the writer and star of Maniac died before he could finish Maniac 2. But the trailer for Maniac 2: Mr. Robbie has been floating around for a while. Yay YouTube. We now all can see what could have been.
For you noobs who haven't seen Maniac, the trailer is below. For the few who haven't seen Mr. Robbie, go ahead and see sadistic 80s violence in all its glory.
Maniac Trailer
Maniac 2: Mr. Robbie Trailer
Well make that the 20 millionth and 1 time...the infamous headshot scene.
It's sad that the YouTube millenials made the Machine Girl's trailer go viral. Why? Because it just seems that a movie like this was condensed into 2-3 minutes. It should be viewed as 90 minutes of fun, splatter and gore that catches you surprised and shocked and LOLing. Because you watched the trailer, those parts are now not as much fun.
Damn millenials.
Tokyo Shock funded this little endeavor of Noburu Iguchi, and the Japanese creativity spews chunks of sly humor, CGI lunacy and more arterial spraying than all of Kill Bill combined.
It's as fun as advertised depsite the leak of prime slices in the trailer. The cheesiness comes out in full effect, the violence is manga-ish and the dialogue (subtitled as is) is ready for Mike Nelson and Tom Servo to go nuts on.
What the millenials don't understand is that Japanese filmmakers have been making these flicks for a while now. Stacy, Wild Zero and Junk are zombie flicks with vicious arterial carnage but campy. Miike's Ichi the Killer is the male equivelant of a flick like this. His Dead or Alive is classic in this genre as well. But don't tell this to Generation Y. To them this is the best thing since sliced Pzones. Boring Plot-O-Matic
Ami (Minase Yashiro) is a basketball loving school girl. When her brother Yu gets killed by the local Ninja Yakuza "Hattori Hanzo" yumi (aka family), she gets revenged. Obviously from the trailer, her hand gets cut off and is replaced with an uber machine girl. Fuck it. She wants revenge and carnage ensues.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Minase Yashiro is fuckin hot. And in her Sailor Moon uniform and a chainsaw arm thats ripping apart a poor Yakuza, you've just put sex and violence together which is every boy's wet dream. And that's just the opening scene.
I love when social problems evident in Japanese culture (in this case bullying) are made into a manga and then go live action. That's been happening alot. Basically Machine Girl is a revenge flick, pure and simple. But its a horror-omedy and it's that opposite approach from say a Kill Bill that makes it glorious fun. Ami's search to kill all who wronged her brother (especially Sho Kimura, the mobster's son) takes us to scene after scene of pure arterial spraying set on insane. From an unfortunate family's dinner demise to her own torture at the hands of the evil Yakuza boss, its non stop splatter at its best.
Some of the best parts of the movie are not Ami in action but the Yakuza "Hattori Hanzo" clan (a wink to Sonny Chiba) and their utter disregard for life. A poor chef has to eat some special sushi, a maid is discarded and henchman become disposable. In one scene, a poor girl's death is not the end of her torture.
It's the Hanzo ninja yakuza clan that makes this movie work. The dad is ruthless, the son cowardly but sly but the wife is outright brutal. They are sooooooooo evil, your hoping Ami goes medieval on them.
After Ami's escape, she meets Yu's friend's parents who are mourning as well. They are the ones who can rebuild her. They have the technology. The husband is a tech genius who invents the machine gun and the wife is a survivalist gone awry. A gratuitous montage scene later, they're ready to do battle
And that's when the most ridiculous battle scene takes place between our heroes and the Junior High Shuriken Gang, one of the most splatterific scenes in the movie. As the trailer suggests, there is a flying guillotine and the ending is so over the top, you can't help but cheer.
Machine Girl accomplishes what it sets out to do. Be funny, be gore-tacular and totally be something that makes you laugh and wince at the same time.
I've seen movies like this before, but Machine Girl is packaged perfectly, you're going to have an awesome time YouTubing your favorite clips afterwards.
Influences
Anything from Takashi Miike, Stacey, Junk, etc. Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)
Machine girl bullet arterial spraying
Machine girl bullet carnage
Tempura oil scarring
Throat slicing
Massive beheadings
Knife mouth trauma
Finger slicing (with added finger sushi yum yum!)
Shuriken slicing
Nails in the head
Chainsaw splatter
Executioner's Blade carnage
Drill Bra brutality
Yada Yada Yada
WTF moment
The Bra. Nuff said.
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
You're going to like this film.
Trust me.
It's got a hot schoolgirl amputee, a kickass evil Yakuza boss and more blood and guts than a slaughterhouse.
Yes the trailer does seem to give away a couple of good scenes. Watching the trailer is equivelant to having only eaten the appetizer and dessert. Now go enjoy the main course.
Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu aka Tokyo Gore Police is the newest film to come via Tokyo Shock. Part Robocop part post apocalyptic mutant X-Men, it's as insane and gory as Machine Girl. It stars Eihi Shiina who is infamous from her role in Takashi Miike's Audition.
Did all the Fulci disciple horror directors move to France?
It seems like it as the French delivered another splatter-ific, gore-hound's dream, nightmare-phobia world in Frontiere(s).
Just like Inside, this movie is filled with buckets of intense gore and bloodshed. And because of that, I'll forgive the mish mash of American horror genres they put into this mess.
Let me start off by saying, the world thinks America is filled with gun toting, inbred rednecks (with some pockets of KKK and Neo-Nazi-ish pieces of shit in there too).
Well I'm not going to say the US is a cookie cutter wonderland but Europe seems to be fucked up as well. That father from Austria comes to mind. And the French riots in 2005 shouldn't be overlooked as some major problems in France.
So it's good to know there are some inbred, cannibal neo-nazi families on the borderland of France.
Plot-O-Matic
A couple of French hipsters take off to the French frontiere aka border after their Reservoir Dogs heist in riot prone Paris. Yasmine, our pregnant femme and her tough guy boyfriend try to meet up with the other heisters and end up a hostel/inn that has that oh so fucked up family that's worse than your own during Thanksgiving
Influences
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Haute Tension, The Descent, Hostel, Saw
Rewind the Insanity
OK. It's not very original. Sometimes I think the up and coming French horror directors watch our American horror crap and do the remake thing in reverse.
Dear France,
We currently suck at horror. Don't copy us.
-the jaded viewer (USA)
That's not too say this flick isn't good. It's premise is CTRL-C from our best horror movies as you can see above. But the conventions are copied to a tee.
-Teenagers resting in a seemingly eerie "hostel"
-Oversexed males egos are stroked with some French eye candy "pleasure" with the hot looking sisters
-The patriarch is always some old, white haired, insane brutal killer looking for an heir
-There's the good son who obeys orders
-There's the bad son who does the dirty work
-The Leatherface guy
-The young daughter who's totally bonkers
Yup. Same horror conventions that we've all seen before. But those can be forgiven when all other horror cylinders are working well.
The visuals are clever and scary. The barn interiors and butcher-ish morgue only add to the decadent setting.
And now to the scenes of gore! gore! gore!
The movie is frenetically paced with the scenes of carnage. Each chase is filled with mouting tensions between each slaughter. The ending is done with editing insanity as Ripley-like Yasmine escapes from her captors. Without these scenes of terror and unrelenting gore, Frontiere(s) would be yet another After Dark Horrorfest flick thrown into the used DVD bin.
That's the best part of it. The prudish Hollywood system would never create a movie like this with its over the top gore and savage beating of the heroine.
Frontiere(s) is currently out in limited theatrical release and it comes out on DVD on 5/13. French horror has always been cutting edge and they go to the cliff on this one. Frontiere(s) splatter and extreme scenes of carnage makes it's American counterparts look Disney-ish in comparison.
I'm not going to say this made me all giddy like Inside did. But at leastthe gorehound in me was entertained from start to finish.
Directed by David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry
"Do you have the crazy?"
Fuck yeah I do. I'm crazy for The Signal, which is one the best movies of 2008.
Let me start off by saying the jaded viewer is jaded because I've seen a lot of horror and underground movies. So when I tell you I like a movie, it's fuckin rarity rare.
Your movie doesn't have to be an original idea (The Signal is more of a few ideas thrown into one) but when you can pull off a solid piece of storytelling, glue in some splatter and chaos and throw in a few scenes of LOL, it makes for an awesome, most totally good time.
And that's exactly what The Signal does.
I really hate how Hollywood churns out PG-13 turd burger after horror turd. So when 3 directors can team up and shell out a gem like this, it totally gives me a happy.
Told from 3 different perspectives and directed by each director in their own unique style, each has it's own personality and blends in nicely to form a coherent film.
The movie starts off with a WTF moment but then slowly transitions into a visceral apocalypse.
First we start off with David Bruckner's "Transmission I" and we are introduced to Mya (Anessa Ramsey) and Ben (Justin Welborn).
<--Tangent Alert!!!!-->
Throughout the whole movie I thought Mya was being played by Christine Elise and not Anessa Ramsey. They look very similar to me. I have no idea why.
I was shocked when it was a different actress. The signal must have infected me. Where's my hammer?
<--Tangent Alert!!!!-->
Mya is cheating on her husband with Ben and then that's when all hell breaks loose. The signal, a flurry of colored images and a shrieking sound start broadcasting on every TV, radio and cell phone (though no Internet huh?).
Then everybody goes fuckin nuts.
Mya returning to her apartment has her husband go all Barry Bonds on his friends. Escaping she see's her neighbors go insane and start Voorheesing with knives and garden shears.
It's a great opening 40 or so minutes, chilling, totally manic and the carnage is beyond comprehension. Your sad to see this segment go but the one to follow is like the X-Files series. One episode is monster of the week, the next is light hearted Lone Gunmen fluff.
Dan Bush's "Transmission II" goes all Evil Dead by being funny and goofy. It's odd to go into post apocalyptic humor mode, but it works here. Here we meet a Pleasantville 3 as the interactions between Lewis (AJ Bowen), Anna (Cheri Christian) and Clark (Scott Poythress) are hilarious. There are some horroromedy Three's Company like moments as each of them tries to figure out "who has the crazy" The climax comes in the form of a Mr. Furly like character Jim Parsons (Chad McKnight) who had me LOLing milk out my nose.
Finally "Transmission III", Jacob Gentry's conclusion goes into Cronenberg and Danny Boyle mood as the escape from Terminix is a redux of all zombie finales. Ben searches for Mya with the help of Clark. This trimester has the tone of the first 2 and intersplices both and concludes into an eerie downer of an ending (which I always like).
I really hate happy endings. Horror movies that end with a negative are always good in my book.
As I said before, The Signal isn't original (I first thought of Romero's The Crazies and Cronenberg's Videodrome). But originality can be forgiven if the characters and the carnage never get boring.
The satire of our reliance on technology and our never ending need to be "plugged in" is ever evident. As one character states: "...rational behavior has given way to primordial action..." Do we all turn into savages when we run out of hot water or we can't watch TV? (One time I had no cable and I thought I was going to go insane)
I do have to gripe about this film in that, like Cloverfield nothing is ever explained. We get a theory from one of the characters what the signal is but that could be just mindless ramblings from his insanity. Also, part 1 could have easily carried the movie into part 3 and bypass the sitcom-ish part 2. Finally, explaining why something is happening doesn't diminish the idea if done well. It's called motive and as a viewer, we need motive. Just suspending disbelief sometimes doesn't work.
The Signal is not entirely horror, but is sort of an artsy cinema engulfed in a horror apocalypse. Some of us lived in a time without the Internet (yeah I know I just dated myself). So I know when a film challenges this new Internet generation with a film of brainwashing insanity and brute rawness, it's totally new and a breath of fresh air.
I mean seriously, when you IMDB or Wikipedia a film right after you've seen it, you know you reaaaaaaally liked it right?
The Signal will go into the horror cult of fame and is one of the best horror movies of 2008.
And that's why The Sign-dfshgsdhgklsjfdbgsdfngluithgikhefwoaehrgjenbkjsbfklrjegb
Whoa my screen just went all fuzzy and psychedelic and now I hear a shrieking noise.
"À l'intérieur complètement âne de coups de pied!!!"
Translation:
"Inside totally kicks ass!!!"
-jadedviewer's jeffy pop after watching Inside
Now that's one great fuckin horror movie.
The hype surrounding Inside was all good. Arrow in the Head gave it 4 arrows. Fangoria gave it 4 skulls. And so, the jaded viewer joins in the hoopla and praise as I too will give it 4 spinkicks.
The French's track record for horror has been mixed. Alexandre Aja brought us Haute Tension which I had mixed feelings on. Gasper Noe's Irreversible was an exercise in insanity.
Inside, brought over to the States via Dimension Extreme should have been theatrical. But Hollywood's PG-13 vomit of horror will always exclude these masterpieces from ever coming overseas.
So why are we all gushing gore-tastically over Inside. It has the ingredients of one of the best horror/thriller movies of 2008.
Instructions are below.
PREP TIME 15 Min (grab some popcorn and hold on tight) COOK TIME 1 Hr 22 Min READY IN 30 Min (that's when the shit gets good)
INGREDIENTS
1 secluded house in a riot prone French suburb 1 hot, pregnant French soon to be mother who has lost her husband in a car accident 1 insane, demented, disturbed, twisted, fucked up woman bent on killing our maternity ward heroine 3 inept cops 1 criminal perp at the wrong place and at the wrong time 1 newspaper boss at the wrong place and at the wrong time 1 mother at the wrong place and at the wrong time 50 gallons of blood and guts
Heaping, oozing, gloroficus blood soaked splatter spoonfuls of the following:
1 sharp object through the head 1 gun shot through the back of the head 1 scissors through the head 1 burnt face beyond recognition 1 sharp object to the neck 1 emergency tracheotomy
and more!
DIRECTIONS
Put all ingredients together. Stir continuously until house is soaked and dripping with blood. Throw in slasher motive twist. Bake at 350 degrees until movie makes you say "Oh shit, that's fucked up." Movie is done when the ending gives you shivers.
Inside stars Beatrice Dalle our pregnant La femme who spends her last night home alone on Christmas Eve before she has to go to the hospital and give birth. A knock at her door has a mysterious Woman (Alysson Paradis) tell her to "Ouvre moi ta porte… que je t’ouvre le ventre." ("Open your door…. so I can open up your belly….")
And so it begins the torturous cat and mouse between the stalker and the stalkee.
Good times.
Directors Bustillo and Maury sculpt a brilliant thriller wrapped in gore soaked horror euphoria. From the ominous flashes from La Femme's flickering camera flash to the red/white bathroom contrast in the aftermath of the extreme carnage, it's awesomely shot and staged. More superfluous are CGI scenes of La Femme's unborn baby looks of pain and anguish as her mother tries to survive. Totally mesmerizing and strategically placed. Definitely, something I've never ever seen before.
The FX are as Savini-ish with such attention to detail, no CG company could ever duplicate. The slitting throats, belly busting and other gore and splatter are so realistic, it was a work of art.
Gorehounds can rejoice as you will see the insides in Inside.
My only gripe was the 3rd act went in the realm of WTF, but by then you're already engulfed in the ocean that is this execution in fist pumping horror.
People will ask, is this just another torture porn? Hell fuckin no.
The characters are intriguing, the pace is slow then frenetic, there are very suspensful moments and the visuals are top notch.
The mass killings are done for a reason (if only known to our insane slasher madwoman) and it never steps out of its own reality.
This is one of the best horror films in the last decade. It has all the ingredients in a horror fan's wet dream.
One you taste this film, you'll come back for more.
Diary of the Dead Diary of the Dead (2008) Directed by George A. Romero
Cloverfield with Zombies.
Oh George. Where were you trying to go with this one?
Suffice it to say, I didn't enjoy DOTD. The overall film didn't give me a happy like Land of the Dead where George with his all star cast and special effect zombie gore was like a good meal.
Here are my gripes in no particular order.
1.) 1st person perspective/multiple camera shooting type movies
I'm beginning to hate this film device with a passion. Cloverfield did it and it made me sick. Here the film is edited together from shot footage and for a zombie movie, this just doesn't work. The threat of zombies is seeing them in large masses. That's scary shit. They may be slow but in huge numbers your going to shit in your pants. The movie doesn't need this FPS type device to make it work. George could have made it without this crap and it would have been way better
2.) These characters suck and the acting was horrible
NYU-film school hipsters are worse than NYU hipsters being chased by a monster.
These characters are very badly written.
Jason (the director guy): Yo, you really gotta film everything? Seriously? I mean put the fuckin camera down and help your friends before they get eaten
Debra (the survival girl): She is a spitting image of Eliza Dushku. So annoying with her "I need to save my family" crap. I really wanted her brains eaten.....slowly.
Tony (a dude): ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Tracy (hot Texan girl): She barely got naked.
Mary (victim girl): The "where's the religion" perspective
Maxwell (the snotty drunk teacher): ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. He can shoot arrows really well. Mummy guy, other director guy, etc.
I wanted all of these characters to die. All of them. I hated all of them. They were actually worse than the Cloverfield hipsters. That says a fuckin lot.
3.) Missing: Gore Gore Splatter Gore
A couple of good gore moments. Sickle through the face. Gunshots to the head are always good. Arrow through the head. Acid through the brain. And that was it?
George, we know you don't fail us with the gore and splatter. It's what we love your movies for. But where was it here? I hate this CGI zombie kill gore. It just doesn't look real. We need Savini (I can't believe I wrote that). We need good ole fashion blood pumps and pig intestines.
That was a monumental failure in this movie. Without gore and splatter and blood, it's not a zombie movie.
Where were the scenes of zombies just munching and lunching? I paid $11 to see that shit.
Finally............
4.) The satire doesn't need to be explained to me through a voiceover
Horror fans are smart. We appreciate satire in our horror.
We got it. We didn't need it explained to us.
Night was about the plight of blacks in America, Dawn was a crack at consumerism, Day was a reflection on the corruption of power and Land was about classism and how through the most dire of circumstances the status quo somehow remains the same.
Diary is of course about how technology and media separate ourselves from reality and the world we live in.
George, we didn't need Debra telling this us in monologue voiceover. We didn't need those scenes explaining to us that he's shooting the film but not taking part in it.
We get it. You kind of made me mad and assumed I wouldn't get it.
But that didn't save the movie.
Only George would do an homage to his own Night of the Living Dead in Diary.
Diary at the end of the day is perceived as a zombie movie with a gimmick. Romero is of course the creator and he can take his zombie-verse anywhere he wants to.
The inevitable sequel is always determined if its better than the original. In the case of Nekromantik, it kinda is.
Buttgereit (still in classic art house mode) wiggles in David Lynchian imagery, classical music and corpse fucking.
And he does it so damn well.
The movie begins with the ending of the 1st movie in all its climactic, volcano glory.
The story (or lack therof) introduces Monika, a Rob loving necro herself who digs up poor Rob (our sick and depraved hero from part 1) and lets it be known that all Germans are into this sort of stuff.
Mind you, you'd think that riggo mortus would be an issue but logistics be damned!
Monika (played by Monika M. how original!) takes a bath with Rob (sorta like Bert and Ernie in those rub a dub tub scenes and only if Ernie was a rotting corpse and we all know Bert is evil)
She cuts off Rob's penis and stuffs it into the fridge (you make the joke).
Then Monika meets Mark (who voices pornos) and he discovers Monika's hobbies are little offbeat. But Monika is determined to make things work in her twisted world and in the shocking ending, we see her devious plan come to fruition.
The ending alone is by far the most clever yet perverted sickest shit I've ever seen. And as you may or may not want to know, let's spoil it for you nevertheless.
How do you solve your corpse fucking problem and your love of alivey flesh?
Well...
As Monika's ruse unfolds, she and Mark get down and dirty but alas poor Mark has no idea what's in store. Monika hacksaws his head most grusomely and replaces it with Rob.
What better way to get best of both worlds. Alas her dilemma is solved and for the audience, gore and sexhounds rejoice.
Nekromantik 2 goes on a whole new direction this time. Buttgereit doesn't go for shock value (well yeah he does but in its in his nature you know?). This time around, Jorg goes for what the title is all about. NEKRO + ROMANTIK. Get it?
Monika's love for both the stiff corpse that is Rob and the satisfaction of sexual desire is perfectly molded into one during the climatic final scene.
So let's just get this straight here. It's one fucked up movie. Buttgereit dresses part 2 in his sick blood spurting, seal dissecting package but at the end of the day, its still a movie about fucking a corpse.
The FX are still top notch (for its day) and Rob's sickly, greenish vomit inducing corpse is the star. Buttgereit giddyups into territory nobody else goes to and his sequel delivers the goods.
Nekromantik 2 is splatter-necro-core at its best. And for Buttgereit, the fact that he single handidly created a new sub sub genre, deserves around a round of decomposing applause.
What makes a good, fun slasher movie? Below is a list of what we here at jadedviewer deem as full of chunky gooiness when it comes to the ingredients of a solid slasher-palooza.
Does Hatchet achieve everything on this list?
1.) A mysterious, insanely strong, ridiculed as a child, deformed, inbred redneck slasher.
Check.
2.) Gratuitous, over the top, super fleshy nudity (and seeing the boobies of a former Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast member)?
Check.
3.) Stereotypical teenage caricatures with a few old people who die gruesome and horrific over the top deaths?
Check.
4.) No Plot.
Check.
5.) Kills by our slasher that make you go "Fuck yeah!"
Check.
6.) Gore, lots of it. Like serious decapitation, dismemberment, impalement, hatchet frenzy steroid rages and blood shooting out at various penetration wounds, limbs a flailing and mindless splatter and mayhem
Check.
7.) Geeky leader who takes charge of the hapless group as they try to escape who befriends a hot girl who knows about the "legend" (there's always a legend no one believes)
Check.
8.) Funny yet ill timed dialogue but also various quips and one liners that are funny only the first time around (yet somehow funny again when you buy the DVD and only when you're stoned)
Check.
9.) Gratuitous cameos by actors who have portrayed horror legends (Candyman, Freddy Kreuger and Jason Voorhees) that make you flash a metal sign and do the Beavis and Butthead pseudo head nodding.
Check.
10.) Wildly ambigious ending that can be used to warrant a sequel?
Check.
Hatchet is 80 minutes of the most fun I've had in a theatre. I had to scour NYC to find the one theatre it was playing at. Some of the jokes were kinda lame but the characters were throwbacks: geeky leader, token black guy (who plays the token black guy to perfection), bimbos with the idiotic director, Floridian elderly touristy couple, hot looking local and the asian (or not so asian) tour captain.
And the throwbacks made me all nostalgiky. Our man, Hatchet head is by far the most solid slasher to come along in ages. He's not a mysterious, conjured up evil or a pissed off fisherman, nor is he two teenage horror buffs.
He's a deformed, inbred redneck with a big hatchet scar. His had put a hatchet in his fuckin head. That's a awesome slasher.
Hatchet is great fun. It won't change your life, but when has seeing gore and titties at the same time made you think of changing the way you live. Right?
The story (or lack therof) introduces Monika, a Rob loving necro herself who digs up poor Rob (our sick and depraved hero from part 1) and lets it be known that all Germans are into this sort of stuff.
As Monika's ruse unfolds, she and Mark get down and dirty but alas poor Mark has no idea what's in store. Monika hacksaws his head most grusomely and replaces it with Rob.