a jaded viewer reviews the world of horror, splatter, gore, cult, grindhouse, trash, b-movie, erotica, indie, asian and exploitation films
Friday, February 12, 2010
The Shortround: Suicide Girl and Fewdio Shorts
The one thing that I've been not familiar with is the world of web horror and horror shorts. I've been trying to correct this with my ongoing The Shortround series where I put up shorts or web series that I think are pretty cool.
So after stumbling on a short by Drew Daywalt called Suicide Girl via Horrorland, I must say I was impressed. Once you see something you like, you start Fox Mulder-ing the investigation to see what else you can find. Thus, my extensive viewing of FEWDIO.com shorts on their YouTube Channel.
Color me floored. This is some good shit.
I am ecstatic that I found these videos and these are some of the best high quality, top notch horror shorts I've ever seen. All the shorts are masterfully produced, feature solid acting, eerie soundtrack and music, expert camera work and deliver the BOO! scares you won't forget.
First, go watch what caught my eye and you can be my Dana Scully and believe the hype I've been throwing at you.
Check out the Drew Daywalt's short called "Suicide Girl"
the jaded viewer says: For a 4 minute short, it packs a creepy punch right out of the park. Internet horror is usually hit or miss but this little short blends social tech with Ringu style madness. One of the best shorts I've seen.
Here are a few more shorts I think are standouts from the mass filmography of Fewdio Entertainment. Some of them are long slow burns that BOO! you, others are a minute or so of Twilight Zone twisty twizzler horror goodness.
From Within was my 3rd choice of excited movies I wanted to see out of the After Dark Horrorfest movies that came out last year.
Small American town, suicides, teen John Connor. Had to be at least decent right?
Wrong.
It's just a Ring knock off through and through.
This is basically what happens when America tries to make a basically Japanese shock horror film. The Japanese filmmakers will go all out to obliterate your senses with scary quick scares, nightmare visuals and hard R scenarios.
In a western reboot, it's just done too PG-13 to give a crap about.
The best thing From Within had going for it was the poster above and for me the panning credit sequence at the end of the movie.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
The residents of a small American town begin to die one-by-one apparently by suicide..
Awesome Review-O-Matic
There is a movie called Suicide Circle that came out of Japan in 2002. The opening scene has 54 high schools jumping to their deaths in front of a subway train. That's how you start a movie about a plague of suicides. By just giving the audience a WTF moment straight out.
And don't give me any M. Knight shit. The Happening wasn't happening at all.
So when your rash of suicide movie starts out and you have two goth kids hanging out contemplating just aint gonna cut it.
Been there, done that. So when the goth kid blows his brains out, we start on our journey of a mysterious evil force making people kill themselves.
It's a rash of sui-palooza. Next, the goth dude's girl stabs herself with scissors. Then an antiques dealer hangs himself followed by his niece slicing her wrists on broken glass. Later we meet our final girl, Lindsay and her boy friend Dylan. Dylan is the son of the local Jerry Falwell and they love the religion.
Later, Lindsay's BFF car explodes (Final Destination style) and her step mom gets the urge to drink some Drano.
All this happens because each of these victims sees their doppleganger chasing them with blue eyes, vein-y faces and eyes that cry blood.
This is as scary as sitting in a traffic jam.
We meet the other local townies, all Republican, God fearing, evangelist listening gun totin rednecks. As the suicides become rampant, they start to blame the crazy family that lives deep in the backwoods. Because every small American town has got that family.
This brings us to John Connor...ahem I mean Aidan (Thomas Dekker from Sarah Connor Chronicles). He's the goth kid's brother and his mom was mysteriously killed years ago by the townsfolk in a burning thingmajig.
Basically it's your mom got killed by townies so I have to evoke revenge movie by cursing the town. You'd think you could hire Freddy Kreuger for this gig. Alas, our final girl is next on the curse hit list and it's a race against time to stop the damn videotape...err I mean cursed spell book from killing her.
The thrilling conclusion is clunky and without any thrills. It was thrilless.
It ends with your now cliched mysterious evil gets the last laugh, which to me I usually like but when you don't really care about any of the characters, I was so indifferent.
And that's the thing. These genre of movies, "rash of suicide" movies have to result in a big payoff. If they don't, the build up just falls flat.
Each of the characters was so boring, it was impossible to pull for any of these people to survive. Lindsay our final girl, was so goodie two shoes, innocent and tolerant you just wanted to throw up. Our resident warlock Aiden was Mr. Mysterious I thought stage smoke was going to accompany him everywhere. Our our main big angsty bad, Bible belt freak Dylan was so McCain-ish, I wanted to go all Obama on him (I have no idea what that means)
All in all, the movie is a straight to DVD PG-13 snooze. It begs the question how these movies even end up as part of the supposed elite 8 of the After Dark fest.
Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)
Gunshot to head Scissors neck trauma Hanging Slicing wrists on broken glass Drano drinking 4th degree burns
Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)
Nada...does cleavage count?
WTF moment The closing credit montage (probably the best scene in the movie)
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
It's a PG-13 rash of suicides movie. I didn't think that was even possible but From Within is it. Even The Happening got an R and that sucked. Nothing really special here. Go watch a remake or something.
The fact that I couldn't even get images of the suicides in the movie says it all.
Insano Steve wanted to chime in on the Buttgereit week festivities so we conclude Jorg Buttgereit week with his review of Der Todesking. Der Todesking Der Todesking (1990)
Der Todesking (the Death King) is Jorg's more ambitious artsy suicide movie.
Does Jorg pull it off? Is he skilled enough?
Um, no. You gotta admire the effort though. Movie is broken up into 7 days/episodes (which you know he got the idea from another movie from a better director). In between the days, there's imagery of a corpse slowly decomposing. You can just picture Jorg yelling at his videographer (uh, himself), "More death! More art! Perfect!". Let's see what a typical week in Germany's like:
Monday
A man comes home, phones his boss to resign from his job, writes mysterious letters, cleans his apartment and swallows poison in his bathtub. His death is simultaneous with the death of his fish, the only being that was close to him.
Yeah, this is like a typical Monday for me too. Except I don't have any fish. And I usually take my poison while watching TV. Germany is a miserable country.
Tuesday
A man rents a film in a video store, a movie in which Nazi soldiers are torturing a prisoner in a concentration camp, castrating him and painting a swastika on his breast. When the young man's girlfriend comes home, she yells at him until he kills her with a gun. This whole episode is being shown on a TV screen in a room where somebody has been hanged.
Alright, some Nazi death footage! Are all Germans Nazis in 2007? Who knows. But, I watch movies to reinforce my stereotypes (and maybe make some new ones), thank you. Jorg's vision for Tuesday: "Man watching video of man watching video. Everybody dies".
Wednesday
A man and a girl meet in a park in the pouring rain. The man tells the girl about his disastrous sex life with his wife which led to him killing her. The girl pulls out a gun to kill him, but the man takes it from her and blows his brains out. Yeah, Wednesdays do tend to suck. Top death of the week. Bullet in the brain. Jorg can still bring it strong when he wants to.
Thursday
A motorway bridge somewhere in Germany, superimposed by the names, ages and occupations of the people who have jumped from it.
Jorg got kinda lazy here. No action. Just names of people who jumped off some bridge in Germany. Is there a message here? Jorg? You there? Are you sure you're good enough to make stuff like this? Show some poor bastards jumping off the bridge next time.
Friday
A woman, alone in her apartment, is observing a young, seemingly happy couple in the neighbourhood. She spies on them and finds a chain letter in front of her door, urging her to kill herself. Obviously everybody in the house got the letter. She ignores it, eats chocolates and falls asleep, dreaming of surprising her parents when they make love. The camera shows the young couple, dead on their bed.
This was probably the weakest day (at least Thursday was short). Kinda like one of those Japanese WTF horror movies. You keep waiting for something to happen. I remember thinking "Yo, Jorg, it's been 10 minutes, nobody's dead yet, let's go". Then the couple's dead w/o a death scene. Girl eats chocolate. What the fuck???.
Saturday
A young woman, equipped with a camera and a gun, kills several people in the audience of a rock concert and records it on film, until someone kills her.
Saturday night out in Germany. This was on the trailer for the movie, and what made this a must-rental. Some girl completely shoots up a Euro-trash rock club. Jorg puts the camera in POV of the girl. No reason is given for the killing spree. Random German extras getting shot dead. Some of Jorg's best work. Even funnier than it sounds.
Sunday
A man, alone on his bed, is crying and banging his head over and over violently against the wall until he dies.
Just like my Sundays watching the New York Jets play.
Seven episodes, each taking place on a different day of the week, on the theme of suicide and violent death.
Yup. Suicide and death. That's it in a nutshell.
This is one of the better Jorg movies as it done so cleanly and though filled with violent imagery and sick and twisted scenes of suicide, it's slickly metaphoric about the graphic subject matter it's showing.
As mentioned, each day of the week shows a suicide and death and the precursor or aftermath of each. Let's go through each of them shall we?
A man comes home, phones his boss to resign from his job, writes mysterious letters, cleans his apartment and swallows poison in his bathtub. His death is simultaneous with the death of his fish, the only being that was close to him.
Clip from Monday episode:
Tuesday
A man rents a film in a video store, a movie in which Nazi soldiers are torturing a prisoner in a concentration camp, castrating him and painting a swastika on his breast. When the young man's girlfriend comes home, she yells at him until he kills her with a gun. This whole episode is being shown on a TV screen in a room where somebody has been hanged.
Wednesday
A man and a girl meet in a park in the pouring rain. The man tells the girl about his disastrous sex life with his wife which led to him killing her. The girl pulls out a gun to kill him, but the man takes it from her and blows his brains out.
Thursday
A motorway bridge somewhere in Germany, superimposed by the names, ages and occupations of the people who have jumped from it.
Friday
A woman, alone in her apartment, is observing a young, seemingly happy couple in the neighbourhood. She spies on them and finds a chain letter in front of her door, urging her to kill herself. Obviously everybody in the house got the letter. She ignores it, eats chocolates and falls asleep, dreaming of surprising her parents when they make love. The camera shows the young couple, dead on their bed.
Saturday
A young woman, equipped with a camera and a gun, kills several people in the audience of a rock concert (the front man is played by Die Ärzte-drummer Bela B.) and records it on film, until someone kills her.
Sunday
A man, alone on his bed, is crying and banging his head over and over violently against the wall until he dies.
The episodes are interspaced with sequences showing a corpse in the cumulative state of decay.
This time around Jorg shows us suicide in all its graphic yet docu-style glory.
Monday is the typical suicide, depressed man nothing to live for. His fish is his only friend.
Tuesday's is the anger suicide, with a twist I didn't see coming. (look for Jorg's other movies in the video store scene)
Wednesday's is the revenge suicide. (total sick slo-mo bullet in the brain)
Thursday is the mass suicide. (crazy theatre style executions)
Friday's is the unknown suicide.
Saturday is the public suicide and Sunday is the crazy suicide.
Got all that?
Buttgereit's facets on death are eerily striking. The scenes are graphic and unrelenting. Jorg shows us death in it's natural state. He does not tell us why these indivuduals have commited suicide or murder. Motives are not known. Der Todesking is about the natural act of commiting suicide. The taboo of suicide is never discused in film. At times its romanticized and made Hollywood-ish in subject mater. Buttgereit's days of the week approach to story telling as a rotting corpse decomposes is metaphoric of time's arrow of death.
Each suicide is an example of reasons unknown, of death in its most purest state and taking the bird eye's perspective.
Der Todesking is a hard movie to watch as compared to hmmm let's say Nekromantik? But it's impact is so mersmerizing that after watching it, you'll feel a little part of you has died.
I know I haven't posted on jadedviewer for a while, but I'm going to go post crazy and get some fuckin content up here.
So as I've promised, I'm here to let you know about the possible fucked up movies you haven't seen. If you're already an experienced horror underground junkie, you know about Combat Shock.
Directed by Buddy Giovinazzo, it tells the story of Frankie, an ex-Vietnam veteran. And IMDB plot summary says:
Frankie is a war vet whose life sucks. He has no money, a nagging wife, junkie friends, and a deformed baby. This is the story of one day in his pathetic post-war life.
In the gritty underground NY film scene, Combat Shock yells out, "Oh Shit!"
It's totally fucked up but the ending makes you want to vomit out incomprehensible language and lewd obscenities.
Just watch it for yourself you sicko jaded viewers. I mean for goodness sake it's got a fucked up deformed baby!!!
The one thing that I've been not familiar with is the world of web horror and horror shorts. I've been trying to correct this with my ongoing The Shortround series where I put up shorts or web series that I think are pretty cool.
Jorg Buttgereit
