Here’s a rundown of the movies shown:

Bad Meat (2011), dir: Lulu Jarmen

Plot: The story of sadistic counsellors at a boot camp for bratty disenfranchised teens, who succumb to a strange illness after eating spoilt meat. The guards initially become ferociously sick, but then turn into fiends with a hunger for human flesh. The teens must put their differences aside and work together to survive.

This movie was almost great. It was utterly gross, and really funny, although it was hard to tell how much of it was intentional. I gather there were a lot of problems with the production, including changing directors and running out of money midway though, and unfortunately it really shows. While most of the movie is great disgusting fun, the last 5 minutes really fall apart and the movie ends so abruptly without any payoff. It was such a shame, because I thought there was a lot of promise here.

Faces in the Crowd (2011), dir: Julien Magnat

Plot: Milla Jovovich plays Anna, a woman who survives an attack by a serial killer, but her head injuries render her unable to recognise faces. She has to find a way to recognise the killer before it is too late.

This was a very odd choice, because it wasn’t really a horror movie at all. It was a good idea, but not very well executed or particularly believable. It had been compared to the far more superior Julia’s Eyes, and while I see the comparison, this movie just doesn’t hold up.

Human Centipede II: Full Sequence (2011), dir: Tom Six

Plot: A mentally disturbed security guard, obsessed with the first movie, sets about creating his own human centipede. This was of course the BBFC-approved cut of the film, missing around 2mins 30sec from the original (tune in to eXplodey Files #62 for our thoughts on that).

I pretty much echo Mat’s thoughts on the movie (http://www.deadlantern.com/2011/10/19/review-the-human-centipede-2-full-sequence/). Visually I quite liked it, although this is amplified by the movie being in black and white. The effects were pretty good and it was also really disgusting, which (I guess) was what was missing from the first movie. That’s about all I can really say about it positively.

Personally I don’t think it takes much talent to gross people out, and there is nothing else to this movie at all. Much like the first film, this is just a concept movie that really goes nowhere. Any preamble to the titular human centipede is a waste of time, because there is no other point to the film. While I am not repelled of offended by the (admittedly impressively gross) content, it’s meaningless if you don’t care about what is happening.

But what I really didn’t like were the constant references to the first film. The main character is obsessed with First Sequence, watches the movie repeatedly, and masturbates to his scrapbook of images and news clippings about it. To me it creates a false universe where the first movie was a big deal, and it really wasn’t. This is how Tom Six wishes the audience had reacted to his film. It amounts to the director unjustifiably sucking his own cock.

The Watermen (2011), dir: Matt Lockhart

Plot: A group of young people are kidnapped by evil fishermen.

I must confess, I fell asleep during this one. It was pushing 4am and the movie wasn’t interesting enough to keep me awake. Shame, because I was occasionally awoken by the sounds of the audience howling with laughter, so perhaps it was good for a laugh.

Cold Sweat (2010), dir: Adrián García Bogliano

Plot: A man hunting for his missing ex-girlfriend finds that she has been kidnapped and tortured by men using chemicals including acid and nitro-glycerine.

This movie from Argentina used a cool idea to disguise a pretty generic premise. There isn’t much original about people being kidnapped, tortured, and experimented on. The difference in this movie is really only the methods used. The girl in question is found covered in nitro-glycerine, and a single drop hitting the floor could cause her to explode. Pretty cool, but aside from that the movie is pretty bland. I think this is one of those movies that is going to fool people into thinking it’s better than it is because it’s in another language and has a drum n base soundtrack. I quite enjoyed it on its own merit, but I recognise that it was nothing really that special. Also I wondered why this movie was shown last, at gone 5am, when a lot of people were too tired to concentrate on subtitles.

Between the first two movies were some screenings of short films, ranging from the intensely creepy (Ark, filmed in one unbroken take) to the downright weird (Die Intrigue und die Archenmuscheln, featuring a singing stop motion penis and dancing vaginas). Some of these will be shown at the upcoming Encounters Film Festival, so please check that out if you are local.

The whole experience was greater than the sum of its parts – while the movies may not have been anything special on their own, viewed with a big horror-loving crowd was a lot of fun. It was a very strange feeling to be walking home at 7am after sitting through five (well, four-and-a-half) very different horror movies. Many thanks to my wing woman Gemma for surviving the whole 10 hours with me! And huge thanks to Watershed and FrightFest for an awesome event!

Rare Exports is a flick from Finland, once again being promoted and marketed as a horror film, but that really isn’t at all. I was first interested in this because I was under the impression that it was a killer Santa Claus flick. The trailer looked cool and there has been some sweet fantasy/horror stuff coming out of Scandinavia lately (or should I say Fenno-Scandinavia?) like  Troll Hunter. So I fired this up looking forward to some sweet evil Santa awesomeness. Did I get it?

The story is about a group of foreigners who are excavating a mountain. While digging they discover they’ve found the world’s largest grave site. As they dig further, it becomes increasingly clear that they’ve found the remains of Santa Claus. Meanwhile, a couple of kids who live in a small village at the base of the mountain have snuck in and overheard what the excavators are doing. The youngest kid does some research and reveals that the original Santa Claus was actually pretty freakin’ evil, tearing the bodies of naughty children to pieces so that “not even the bones remained”. His father and friends head up to wrangle some reindeer when they discover that hundreds of them lay dead and eaten in the snow. Angered, they head up to confront the excavators, not knowing that their children were the ones that cut open the fence. They find the dig site mysteriously abandoned and later the next morning, find a bearded old man near death in the spiked pit the father has set up for wolves in his yard. The young boy soon discovers that all of his friends are missing and the group realizes that they have just captured Santa Claus, who seemingly has made a miraculous recovery. They then attempt to blackmail the excavators into paying a ransom for Santa only to realize the bearded old man might not be who they think after all….

Rare Exports is beautiful to look at. The cinematography is stunning and the snow capped Finnish mountainside make for a great location. The film has a soft, moving camera that moves fluidly from shot to shot. The production values themselves are really nice and easy on the eyes. Because this is a foreign film, one problem for me was trying to read the white lettered subtitles on the white snow ground early on in the film. Later, when the film turns to night, it’s easier, but the first act of the film can make it a little difficult to keep up if you have a smaller television.

I think my viewing of this film was definitely altered by my expectations going in. I thought it was something it turned out not to be. The film is very slow paced with not a whole lot going on. This is not a killer Santa Claus movie at all, but rather an almost child friendly tale about a group of people trying to figure out what to do with this bearded old man they find in their pit. The guy himself looks ominous, but isn’t really threatening because they’ve got him chained up constantly. There is definitely a fantasy element because you know something weird is going on, you just don’t know what it is exactly. The old man never appears to be in pain or affected by his injuries and people have been disappearing (and there’s the issue of the hundreds of dead reindeer) and every radiator in the village was stolen the night before. It’s not until the last act of the film that you find out exactly what’s going on and the movie then definitely veers into fantasy territory. The next paragraph will spoil some of that just so I can explain a bit more so skip it if you don’t want to know.

It turns out that the old man is not Santa at all, but rather one of Santa’s elves. In fact, an entire army of elves is trying to thaw out the real Santa Clause, which appears to be a huge horned monster of some sort. Unfortunately, you never get to see it because they blow it up after leading the elves away, which breaks the curse of the elves, thus ending the threat. They then make the elves work for them and ship them out all around the world to be Santa’s for the worlds children. It’s a truly weird and bizarre last act punctuated with the little kid holding on to a bag of children attached to a helicopter. They lead them into an electrified reindeer pen in order to capture them. I was disappointed by the entire final act which felt completely underwhelming considering the situation they were in. The little kid taking charge was good, as was his relationship with his father, but it gets way too kid friendly for my taste.

There is a whole lot of naked old man junk running around in this movie. If it weren’t for the full frontal, I’d say this movie would be alright for kids to watch. I seem to remember only one death in the entire thing and it isn’t graphic at all. Again, I expected one kind of movie and got something completely different. I thought it was really well made and beautiful to look at, but I’m not gonna lie, I just didn’t care for it. The ending was way too sappy and Hollywood and just nothing seems to happen for most of the film. Every time you think something neat is gonna happen it just sort of fizzles. I won’t go so far as to not recommend this. I think people will really like it as long as you don’t expect some sort of Santa Slasher. As I said earlier, it’s not really a horror film at all. It’s kind of a children’s fantasy film with old man sausage. I dunno, just didn’t dig it.

The Human Centipede was a 30 minute premise stretched to feature length status. It had a great villainous turn by Dieter Laser and a genuinely gross concept. The film itself wasn’t all that graphic (or good) but it horrified housewives all over the country by getting a release on Redbox and being available on the shelves of places like Target. For a film billed as “out there”, it was pretty amazing to see it so easily available to the unaware masses. The film was much ado about nothing, but that didn’t stop director Tom Six for putting a sequel into production and guaranteeing that it would show what the first film didn’t show and be the most “disturbing” film ever made. It helped that the prudes in England decided the film was so extreme as to not give it a classification (Six has thus cut the movie by 3 minutes himself to get the release). Explodey Jo had mentioned that she heard that HC2 was cut here in America. I checked the wiki page and it says the international cut is 87 minutes (U.K. is 84) and my version was indeed 87 minutes, so I am assuming I saw the uncut version. So, did my head asplode?

No. Long story short, this movie sucks. It’s not even particularly disturbing or gory compared to other movies. Let me explain….

The story centers around a fat, mentally handicapped garage attendant named Martin who goes around and clubs people over the head with a crowbar who enters his parking garage. Martin never speaks the entire film but he’s obsessed with The Human Centipede film, watching it continuously, keeping a pet centipede, and having a big scrapbook of news articles and reviews. He has decided to create his own human centipede, this time with twelve people instead of three. And that’s what happens. This one Rob Zombie’s Martin’s backstory. We find out that his dad molested him and his mom is a crazy nutjob who can’t parent properly and blames him for sending the father to prison. His doctor also wants to molest him. So this is another “This guy had bad shit happen to him so now he’s crazy” movies. Eventually, Martin gets his victims, even going so far as to abduct actress Ashlynn Yennie (the middle of the centipede in the first movie) after making it look like she is showing up to be cast in a Quentin Tarantino movie. He gathers them all up, puts them together and then makes them walk around. SOUND FAMILIAR?

The main aesthetic difference between this and the first movie is that it’s in black and white. The cinematography is good and the footage is sharp and crisp. The only reason people would watch this movie is for the alleged “disturbing” gore. I suspect strongly that Tom Six realized quite early on in the editing process that he didn’t have a very good movie and thus, rightly from his perspective, had to play up the big finale in order to get eyeballs. Literally, the first 60+ minutes of this movie is nothing more than Martin hitting people on the head with crowbars, often off camera. For a movie that alleges to be the most disturbing thing ever, it’s pretty freakin’ tame. The gore only starts when Martin starts putting his centipede together. It’s exactly like the first movie. The victims are duct taped head to ass. You never actually see someone’s face being shoved into a butthole and stapled, or anything. The closest you get is some chicks face already being attached and Martin staples around it. If that’s what you were expecting to see (and if you were, what’s that say about you?), then you will be disappointed. There is one sequence where Martin hammers out a guys teeth, but it’s certainly no Corbin Bernson with a drill in The Dentist. There’s some close ups of Martin cutting the tendons in the knees. It’s only gory, though, in the same sense that cutting an achilles is “gory”. It’s more a visceral thing about tendon cutting than it is this movie being something “disturbing”. There’s also a scene where a woman gives birth in a car and then crushes its head when she pushes down on the gas pedal. The shot is so quick and not focused on that it doesn’t really have any impact.

The “money” sequence in this film is definitely the shit eating scene. Just like the first film, Martin wants to make everyone shit into each other’s mouths and to do that he injects them with laxatives. Part of the reason why the violence just doesn’t have any impact in this movie is precisely because of the black and white. When the guy is getting his teeth hammered out, it’s just black blood all over. It’s just  not as powerful as seeing actual, red blood spewing all over the place. It serves to mute the violence rather than amplify it. Same for the shit sequence. You just see some black “shit” coming out and then Six makes the incredibly stupid decision to make the shit the only thing in color and then do CG shit sprays onto the lens of the camera. That’s right. There is CG brown shit in this movie hitting the “lens” of the camera. I actually laughed out loud because it’s so ridiculous. It’s made worse by the fact that Martin is jumping around making farting noises while it happens. It’s not disturbing, it’s funny. In other instances, Six just doesn’t go very far. In one sequence, Martin comes up behind the last girl in the centipede. It kinda looks like he might be having sex with her, but it’s never actually shown in a definitive way. More like he’s just holding her from behind. There are many instances like this in the film, where Six never actually “goes there” when you’re expecting something disturbing. There is a scene where Martin masturbates with sand paper. It’s literally just a shot of Martin tearing sand paper in half, then a closeup of his face as he orgasms. Hardly the disturbing stuff of nightmares. More like the timidity of a hack director. This is a valid criticism because Six has actively promoted this by saying you’ll “see everything”. But you’ll get the strong sense that the guy pulled his punches.

I’m gonna go ahead and spoil that last moment of this film but it’s really not that big of a deal. So skip to the last paragraph if you really don’t want to know. The very end is a shot of Martin, back at his job, watching The Human Centipede as if nothing you just watched happened at all. It’s supposed to be left ambiguous but considering one of the victims got away and the fact that Martin murdered his doctor in the garage itself, it seems pretty improbable that he got out of the situation (Update: Feels pretty obvious that it’s all in his head). I imagine that Tom Six said this: “This movie actually means nothing at all. Since nothing really happens I’m gonna put this ending on and make it seem like a commentary on the fact that you just wasted your life watching something that wasn’t real to begin with.” It’s all really dull and stupid. It’s a last, desperate attempt to make this movie something more than it actually is, which is just a glorified wannabe extreme horror film.

The dude who plays Martin, Laurence Harvey, is compelling to watch not because he has any depth or acts particularly well, but because he’s just gross and weird looking. Because Six decides to explain that Martin was molested and comes from a broken home, it undercuts the entire notion that “horror movies create psychos” subtext that would have made the movie infinitely more interesting. I wonder how different this movie would have been if Six had decided to simply make Martin a “normal” kid from a happy home with no real problems rather than an overweight dude who looks like a child molester? Instead, it’s just a uninteresting crazy guy stapling people together and doing everything the first film did only not as graphic as Tom Six would have you believe.

The movie sucks. If you must watch it, wait until it shows up on Netflix and rent it there. It’s not worth spending money on.

Oh, and as for the BBFC: You guys must be on Tom Six’s payroll. I wonder what percentage of the gross those guys are getting? Banning all the way to the bank.

I remember hearing about Kevin Smith’s Red State when we first started the Splattercast nearly 6 years ago. It sounded weird, that Kevin Smith would do horror, but it’s always interesting to see a director get out of their comfort zone and do something very different from what they are known for. Smith is one of those super polarizing figures. Because he’s such a bombastic personality and is always “in the discussion” because of his wide visibility in terms of his site and podcast, it’s very easy to get sucked up in loving or hating the personality. In typical Smith fashion, he took the attention away from Red State the film with a much maligned and criticized, and staged, fake auction in which he bought the rights to distribute his film himself. Part of his “message” was to say “screw you” to the distributors and subvert the traditional Hollywood distribution model. Nevermind the fact that indie filmmakers have been doing that for 60 years or that the evil Hollywood distribution machine has given thousands of indie horror films an avenue to be seen for those who just don’t have the time or resources to do it on their own like millionaire Kevin Smith. I bring this up in the review only because it feels like it’s part of the whole Red State thing. Not only has Smith spent the last 6 years telling everyone and everyone that his movie is a horror film (even marketing it to horror websites), but also that the film is supposed to be held up as some sort of martyr of self-distribution. The reality is: If your name is Kevin Smith, your movie is going to be widely available. I feel like the whole drama surrounding Red State is incredibly hypocritical and disingenuous. And it’s all this extra artificial drama, all created by Kevin Smith, that clouds and surrounds the film like a force field. If a viewer hates it, then it’s because they hate Kevin Smith, not because they hate the film. In a way, it’s a pre-emptive excuse and defense mechanism for Smith fans towards anyone who would criticize the film, legitimately. It’s actually a great ploy, if you’re Smith. And yeah, I believe it’s all by design. But anyway, Kevin Smith apparently didn’t have a hard time getting his movie streaming on the 25 million+ subscriber Netflix service and so when I was notified it was available, I took a look….

Red State is the story of three incredibly obnoxious teens who say “bitch, pussy, fuck, shit” every other word. They find an ad on a Craig’s List type service for a woman who claims she’ll have sex with all three of them at the same time. One of them has apparently been communicating with the woman for a couple weeks and, excited, they decide to go have a good time. After hitting a car containing the local sheriff (getting blown by a dude), they arrive at the woman’s trailer. She feeds them spiked booze and they quickly pass out. One of them wakes up in a cage and discovers he’s at a church service. The pastor, Abin Cooper, is giving a sermon on the evils of homosexuals (the premise is clearly inspired by Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church) and how they need to be wiped off the face of the earth. They have a gay man tied to the cross and then wrap his face in plastic before shooting him. As the congregation plans to do the same thing to the three teens, a local deputy shows up, investigating the earlier car accident the teens were involved in. After one of the teens escapes and fires some shots within the church,  the ruse is up. The deputy calls it in, is murdered, and soon after John Goodman and the ATF arrive on the scene to get their Waco on. The film then becomes John Goodman struggling with his orders to kill everyone in the compound and a girl trying to get her children out before the big bad government murders them.

First, the good. This movie has some fantastic performances. Michael Parks is great as the pastor and exudes a calm insanity that is pretty unsettling. Kerry Bishe is fantastic as the compound member trying to get the children out before the feds gun them all down. And John Goodman, although a bit hammy and awkward at times, mostly succeeds as the grizzled, yet contemplative ATF agent. Stephen Root shows up as the secretly gay local sheriff but is out of the film too soon. The film succeeds in spades in not looking at all like a Kevin Smith movie, so depending on your love or hatred of Smith, you’ll either find that refreshing or distracting. Personally, I found it refreshing. He doesn’t do anything really interesting, shot wise, but it’s not his generic one-note bullshit that he usually does. This isn’t a goofball comedy and thus, requires a different type of aesthetic. He correctly recognized that. To say he “grew” as a director would be overstating it since this is pretty basic stuff here, but it is noteworthy that the film does look good. The film also succeeds in a few “I wasn’t expecting that” moments.  Part of the problem with this film is that none of the characters have any real depth. It’s about “extremism”, after all, so the characters are playing exaggerated one-dimensional archetypes. Even Cheyanne, the girl trying to get the kids out of the compound, for all her worry and concern, she doesn’t change anything about herself. There is no self-reflection on whether what she’s been told to believe is actually what has put her kids in danger in the first place. It’s simple survive mode. John Goodman’s character appears to have some depth at first glance, but by the end of the film, he’s taken a promotion and has moved on with his life with no real repercussions. Because Smith can’t do much with these characters, he tries to make up for that with shock moments. They’ll die suddenly and without warning. It works because, honestly, there’s really nothing else you could do to give any of these characters an emotional impact for the audience. The movie has such a fast pace (well, aside from the long Parks monologue which drags) that you are given no time to really “know” these characters. Again, it’s all about extremism, so what you see is what you get.

This is not a horror film. Aside from the initial premise of “kids go for a good time, get drugged, wake up about to die”. That is all jettisoned pretty quickly once the kids get to the church. They all escape in various ways and the film becomes a suspense action flick masquerading as a message movie. I don’t know if Smith simply marketed this as a horror film to get a built in audience or what, but if that was the case, then that’s just another douchebag move in a long line of douchebag moves. That adds to this cloud around the film itself that I was mentioning earlier. It’s like, why did Smith feel the need to purposely put all this extra baggage onto this film? And this baggage all seems like total douchebaggery. This film could probably succeed on its own without the stupid stunts and flat out lies that Smith has put on it. But, he did what he did, so it’s valid to criticize him for it. Because it’s not a horror film, it’s unfair to critique it like one. So does it succeed as a commentary on extremism using action-suspense tropes? Yes and no. On one hand, crazy people like this do exist. At one point, Goodman mentions Westboro and says something like “They are just annoying, not gun nuts like these guys”. Smith is right. There are nuts like this out there. But honestly, almost all religious people are NOT like that at all. In fact, when there is an incident like Waco, it’s incredibly rare. So what is he commenting on? That Christians can be nuts too? So what? Is he saying that extremism is “bad”? Well, duh, most people already agree with that. In the film, the government is portrayed as equally callous and uncaring, ordering the ATF to go in and kill everyone under the auspices that it’s a terrorist cell operating in the United States and the Patriot Act gives them authority. The film’s center is supposed to be Goodman, the guy who disobeys the kill order. But the film ends so abruptly and almost lazily that in the end we know the “good guys won” and the “bad guys lost”. Whatever Smith is ultimately trying to say is undercut because it’s so vapid and hollow. It honestly feels like a guy who makes dick and fart jokes trying to be “deep” about something he really doesn’t understand. And it just doesn’t work.

The film is ultimately disjointed and aimless. You don’t care about any of the three kids who were kidnapped because Smith goes out of his way to make all of them seem like the most obnoxious, annoying assholes ever. He would have been better served to make at least two of them likeable. Instead, it’s Burgling gone wrong and I could care less. The sequence when Parks orders his congregation to murder the gay guy tied to the cross is genuinely horrific, but that’s the only thing in the film that has any real oomph to it. It’s a lot of people shooting machine guns and talking about nothing. Coming at this from the perspective of a horror fan, reviewing it on a horror movie website, I’m gonna have to say I can’t recommend this. It’s literally not a horror film. If you are just casually interested, you might check it out if for nothing else than the performances. It is competently shot and it does have machine guns, I guess. Ultimately, Smith tells you nothing about extremism that you can’t get from the Dictionary.com definition. People talk about pretentious films. I generally disagree with those kinds of labels but Red State definitely feels very preachy and pretentious to me. Whether it’s the exterior shit with Smith talking down to people about distribution, creating bizarre stunts and flat out lying about what kind of film it is, to the film itself that just fails to say anything of substance…it’s just a film competent in its execution and incompetent in its maturity. Smith finally got half right, I guess.

P.S. Even the title of this movie, Red State, is dumb. OH MY GOD GUYS, THIS IS OBVIOUSLY SOME MESSAGE ABOUT CONSERVATIVES AND CONSERVATIVE STATES. I’m gonna make a movie called Blue State and it’s gonna be about hippie communes. Because obviously, that’s a valid stereotype.

Evil Things is a found footage flick by first time feature length director Dominic Perez. There seem to be two minds on found footage movies. Fans either love them for their immediacy, roller coaster scares, and realism, or they hate them for nauseating shaky camerawork, low-non existent budgets, and abrupt and often times jarring endings. Personally, I love found footage flicks and am very impressed with how the subgenre is evolving in terms of marrying the “realism” that is their calling card with standard conventions of filmmaking. So my bias, as it were, is that I like these movies, watch as many as I can,  and I feel I have a good handle on what this subgenre is all about. If you hate these movies, you might as well stop reading. But that’s your loss.

Evil Things is about a group of college kids heading to a nice big secluded house in the New York countryside. They are heading up there to celebrate their friend Miriam’s 21st birthday. Her aunt has given them the place for the weekend and they are excited to, I guess, party all weekend. I’m not sure why they want to go to this house in the middle of nowhere, but hey, it’s your archetypal slasher setup. Since this is a found footage film, you get almost everything from the perspective of a dude named Leo who has brought his camera along and has decided to “film everything”. As they head to the remote house, they get into a minor confrontation with a van whose driver seems to have a definite case of road rage. The van then drives off but shortly thereafter the group continues to run into it. At gas stations, at diners, on the road, etc. It appears that the van is stalking them and after some genuinely creepy moments, they ditch it and head to the house.  After a brief worrisome moment where the electricity at the house appears to be off, Miriam’s aunt arrives and turns it on before heading out. The group then kicks back, relaxes, and enjoys Miriam’s 21st birthday. It doesn’t take long before our characters realize that something is wrong (creepy phone calls, knocks on the door, etc.) Turns out, whoever is in that van hasn’t quite settled that road rage after all…

Whereas most, though certainly not all, found footage films seem to focus on supernatural events (monsters, ghosts, possessions, etc.), Evil Things takes its cue from slashers with a healthy dose of Road Horror (Duel, Joy Ride, etc.) thrown into the mix. The film does a good job of immediately setting up tension, the lack thereof which is a common criticism of found footage films (“They take too long to get going/they are boring”). Perez does this by putting the mysterious van front and center early on. The van follows them everywhere, even watching them as they eat in a diner. The characters are, legitimately, creeped out by this and as an audience the film works on bringing you into an unsettling scenario right off the bat. Before I forget or get off track, I’ll mention that Evil Things probably has one of the most realistic casts I’ve ever seen in a found footage movie. All of the characters feel and act like real people and say things that real people would say. Honestly, this might be the closest example of a found footage flick replicating, or “catching”, realism in terms of characters themselves. They don’t have deep character arcs or anything, just that they feel like your honest to goodness friends. You like these characters, unlike the ones in Grave Encounters, for example. The fact that the cast comes across as so natural is a huge positive for this film because I’m not sure it could have worked with lesser performances. A special shoutout goes to Laurel Casillo who no doubt will be nominated for a Splatcademy Award early next year. She was fantastic.

When the characters get to the house, there is quite a lull in the film. This is the built in problem that any found footage filmmaker has to confront: how do you make a movie interesting for an entire feature length run time. Audiences are trained to get through a classicly shot film, even if it is boring. What they aren’t used to yet is trudging through a low budget handheld shaky cam film. The very fact that a found footage film is only showing a brief moment in the lives of its characters makes it incredibly difficult to give characters depth. A filmmaker needs to show brief glimpses of character actions to convey this. In one scene in this film, for example, Cassy puts on a wig and pretends to act like another character’s mother, mocking the fact that he’ll be in a house with girls that weekend and to make sure he brings condoms. It’s a funny and intimate moment that ultimately just conveys to the audience “This is a good person. You should like this person.” That’s what found footage movies have to do because we can’t follow Cassy and everything that makes her human, flaws and all, over the span of a year, for example. Evil Things does an excellent job of doing this for all of the characters.

But again, there is a dramatic drop off in tension from the opening creepiness of the van following them to when they get to the house. The film tries to do an extended sequence where the group gets lost in the woods and it works in the world of the film, but as a viewer, it’s hard to escape the “Oh c’mon, lets just get to it already” syndrome that is an inherent barrier that all of these found footage films must hurdle to be successful. In the moment, it feels dull, but once they get back to the house and it is clear that the van and whoever occupies it is back there is a real sense of “Oh man, shit is about to hit the fan”. The film really ramps up the immediacy of terror when, SPOILER ALERT, they get a video from the killer that shows he has been in their house taping them while they sleep, END SPOILER. It works because as a viewer, that would just be horrible to comprehend, especially since the film has spent so much time making you like these characters.

The last 2o minutes or so of the film is this unidentified killer picking them off. I know one criticism of the film from a lot of people is that, because it was so low budget, there really is “nothing to see” as it were. There are no gory death sequences or impressive fx as these characters try to fight this killer. It’s all left up to your imagination and the most you’ll get is a lot of frantic running around and the occasional door slam. For a lot of people, I imagine that’s not gonna be enough of a pay off to make Evil Things worth it. To me, though, it is very well done for what it tries to accomplish. One criticism I have would be that I wished there was more creepiness and more things happening. One thread that I wish Perez would have gone with involves the Aunt. She sort of disappears from the film, but I think there could have been another shocking reveal where maybe the killer had done something to her and revealed it to the characters somehow. There are some good moments here, just not enough of them to really set this apart in the sea of found footage films that are being released.

Whether you end up enjoying Evil Things will depend a lot on how forgiving you are of found footage films. The film has fantastic acting and the chemistry between the cast members is incredibly realistic and natural. It does have some genuine goosebump moments, though the fear comes from the context of the situation rather than an exaggerated horror response like Katie being dragged out of a bed in Paranormal Activity, to use an example. In the moments with the van, the tension is definitely there and the films pulls off an adequate Silence of the Lambs night vision sequence. That kind of stuff is tried and true convention that is hard to make not work. But for all the positives the film does exude a definite sense of “Man, I wish more were happening here”. I would have preferred either more atmosphere, or a shorter run time. Still though, Evil Things is definitely good, with more positives than negatives. I think its audience might be limited to simply fans of found footage movies, the film doesn’t have the punch or wow factor of something like Grave Encounters, but it’s a solid recommendation from me and an excellent example that you don’t need flashy fx and supernatural subject matter to make found footage work.

p.s. The film does try for a more meta aspect in that it becomes a “who is really filming who” concept. Though I liked that idea, it didn’t feel like it was as successfully executed as maybe Perez would have liked. The idea isn’t new, but I appreciated that he tried to do something “more” in that respect.

Grave Encounters is the latest entry into the found footage subgenre and is directed by The Vicious Brothers (Really? Sorry, I shake my head when I see this kind of stuff). The plot is pretty simple: a group of paranormal investigators who have a television show called, wait for it, Grave Encounters, are filming episode 6 of their show at an abandoned insane asylum. Once locked inside, they find out that the spirits of the building are very much real and all too happy to torment them as the cameras roll. I watched this on the recommendation of one of our listeners. For optimum scareability, I fired it up around midnight, shut off all the lights and turned the volume up high. What I got was a fun, if flawed ride, that manages to pull off a few highly effective sequences amid the general high level of annoyance factor of the characters who populate the film.

The idea is a good one for found footage. There are a million of these ridiculous ghost hunting shows on television. Each one of them seemingly populated by some douche bag with too much hair gel taking himself way too seriously. The hook of these shows is that a group of people lock themselves into a creepy location (asylum, haunted house, dorm, etc.), set up various night vision cameras, and then wander around yelling out things like “If you are here, show yourself!”. They then overreact by freaking out anytime some wind blows through an open window, immediately assuming ghostly activity only to inevitably come to no solid conclusions at the end of each episode: “Could be haunted, we’re not sure!” Grave Encounters does a good job mocking these sorts of shows. The douchebag host in this has a perfectly douchbaggy name in Lance. He is loud, overly melodramatic, and comes across as a total tool, even going so far as to pay a local groundskeeper to make up a story about seeing a ghost simply to enhance his television show. Tagging along are his team of annoying ghost hunters. Sasha is there to be the generic “I’m the girl who will freakout at everything” character, Houston is the fake psychic that accompanies them to “read” the sadness and evil in all the rooms, and T.C. is a cameraman who is at home shouting and yelling curse words. There’s a couple other peeps along for the ride, but those are the main people we follow.

The double edged sword with Grave Encounters is that it does a great job of mocking these ghost hunter shows and showing you how dumb, cocky, and fake these people are but because it does that, you generally hate these characters. As the ghosts start having their way with the various members of the film crew you are definitely on the side of the ghosts. The film has a definite case of Blair Witch Syndrome in that, when shit starts hitting the fan, all the characters seem to do is cuss and yell. Now, I’d certainly drop some f-bombs if I was in this scenario, but it felt really forced and extreme, almost like the filmmakers were trying to be edgy more than realistic. But I’m sure many viewers won’t have as much of a problem with that as I did. I just find that kind of thing to be lazy scriptwriting. I mentioned earlier that the characters are annoying and unlikeable and because of that, the film has to focus on the ghosts doing the tormenting. It takes quite a while for the spookiness to manifest itself as the first third of the movie are these dumb characters setting up their television show (doing interviews, setting up cameras, being dumb, etc.) Once they get locked in and it becomes clear that this isn’t going to be their typical show, the film brings a good sense of atmosphere, tension, and decent creep out scenes. The insane asylum that they are filming at is a terrific location for this sort of thing. It reminded me of that old MTV show Fear, which made people wander around in the dark and let them scare themselves just by using their own imaginations.

What I liked about this film was that, at a certain point, all of the characters know they are screwed. They try to escape the insane asylum but all the exit doors just lead to more corridors. They try to get to the roof via a staircase that ends in a brick wall. All of their food spoils. It’s literally just them running around this asylum trying to find a way out and as they do they encounter ghosts of the crazed mental patients from years past. But once again, that’s a double edged sword. Although it was refreshing to watch a film that literally states that all of its characters are doomed and to revel in their downfall, it becomes clear that the film has no stakes at all. With no chance of escape and no likeable characters, you realize you are watching a glorified demo reel. Like, it’s cool to watch doors opening on their own, wheelchairs moving, things flying around, but the scariness of all those scenes are undercut by the filmmakers wanting you to want to see that kind of thing. It feels like fan service more than a naturally organic thing that happens within the space of the film. This movie would have been way more effective if more time had been spent showing a human side of the characters. There was not enough separation from their on-screen douchebag personas and their off-screen slightly less douchebag personas. A side complaint is that the film does a poor job of handling the passage of time and three days of camera battery power is stretching even my ability to suspend disbelief.

Grave Encounters has all the elements to it that should have made it Great with a capital G. A cool premise, a wonderful location, and some highly effective sequences. There is one scene involving a bathtub full of blood that really, really works. It’s still an enjoyable movie and for what it’s worth, simply the audio of people screaming and running around was enough to give my girlfriend nightmares (she refused to watch it as soon as they start setting up static cameras). I just wish more time was spent making me care about any of these people. In Paranormal Activity, I wasn’t rooting for the demon to kill Katie. That’s what made the scare sequences so effective. You want her to be okay and therefore the horror is more visceral and real when she’s put in danger. In Grave Encounters, I was like “Can you just kill this asshole, already? I’m sick and tired of him yelling and screaming”. I’m sure this review comes off as overly negative, but I don’t mean for it to be that way. This movie isn’t bad, it’s a fun ride. I was just disappointed that it had so much more potential that was squandered by some silly filmmaking decisions. Still, it’s certainly worth a look if you like found footage films.

Ah, zombies. I’m back to talking about them again! Hurray! I think I’m on a never ending quest to “get it”. I know that eventually I’ll figure out the appeal because somewhere, someday there is going to be a zombie movie that does more than be mediocre, competent filmmaking of the same stories that were told 30 years ago! Okay, I’m being sarcastic. Mostly.

Quarantine was the American remake of the Spanish film Rec about a group of people trapped inside an apartment building trying to survive as one by one they turn into rabid, rage fueled zombies. Ostensibly, they are the same movie save for the final reveal. In Rec it turns out that the virus is supernatural in origin; demon possession. In Quarantine, it’s a doomsday cult that wants to spread a virus to destroy humanity. It is unquestionable that Rec has the better reveal but since Quarantine didn’t go that route the filmmakers of the sequel must work with what they were given. So here we get doomsday cult stuff inspired more by stuff like 24 and The Event than anything remotely unique. By the way, is Rec a zombie movie if the zombies are actually demons? It’s a fine line to draw but then again, zombie fans fight amongst themselves about whether “infected” are zombies or not. Maybe we can put The Exorcist in the zombie category from now on? “But they say the word ‘virus’ in Rec so they’re zombies!!!!!” I’m only half-joking, but I digress…

Quarantine was about a group of people trapped inside an apartment building as, one by one, they succumbed to slobbering, screeching zombies. Quarantine 2: Terminal is about a group of people trapped inside an airport terminal as, one by one, they succumb to slobbering, screeching zombies. At its essential bare core plot, Terminal is the same movie. I certainly don’t have any problem with a group of people trapped in one place, and I certainly don’t have a problem with all the characters devolving into anger, bitchiness, and double cross. In fact, I like that kind of movie. To their credit, the filmmakers of Terminal do their best to try and mix things up. First, this is the first film released in the Rec series that is not a found footage POV film. It’s traditionally shot if by “traditionally” you mean “Every shot is handheld because that’s what all movies and TV shows seem to be in the 21st century.” The handheld isn’t overly distracting, it’s just noticeable distracting. And it adds to the cheap, low budget nature of the film. Second, the first 20 minutes of the movie take place on a plane and those happen to be the best 20 minutes of the movie. They introduce various characters and when a huge fat dude zombies out, it actually manages to create some harrowing, claustrophobic tension. But then they land and we get the rinse and repeat of the government putting them in quarantine, locking all their doors, shooting people who try to leave, etc. It becomes another “Lets find a way out” movie.

If you’re wondering how this relates to the original film (uh…the remake, I mean), basically one of the people on the plane is not who they appear to be and is part of the Doomsday Cult. The reveal of who it is couldn’t be more obvious. They have this grand plan to murder everyone while deciding who lives and dies because they have the cure that was developed in the original apartment laboratory from the first film. In fact, the sequel takes place at the same time as the first film. People see the news reports of the apartment building on the plane itself and it turns out one of the characters is from the apartment. It’s a logical continuation I suppose, but you can’t help but be totally uninterested in the terroristic “let’s spread a plague” story device. Yawn.

“But zombie movies are about the characters!!!!” That’s the default, tried and true defense by any zombie fan. It’s never about the zombies themselves, because hey, they all sort of look the same in every movie. They all sort of do the exact same thing. So it’s about the characters negotiating the situation. That’s a very different mindset and I don’t quite understand it. For example, just comparing it to someone who is a slasher fan, for example. A slasher fan focuses on the monster/villain and the act of the death itself  is placed in high regard (an amazing kill with a unique instrument, etc.) Characters in slashers are almost secondary in importance to the atmosphere and entertainment value of the slasher. A zombie fan argues the opposite. “We like the zombies, sure, but it’s really about the trapped human characters.” The monsters are secondary, not primary. Therefore, the flaws in the hundreds of zombie films are amplified much moreso than in something like a slasher because if the importance is on the characters, then every time you see another character stereotype in a zombie film, it becomes that much more mind numbing. And with a slasher, the villain/monster can always be saved with his or her backstory and/or the way it kills people. Zombies? Mindless, limited, and they eat you. That’s about it. I blame Tom Savini for showing me everything a zombie could do 30 years ago.

So in Quarantine 2, for example, we’ve got the weak flight attendant who has to find her inner strength to lead the group. We have a whiny little kid. We have the headstrong douchebag with a gun. We have the obligatory chick who happens to be a nurse and can patch people up. You have the attractive male lead hiding a secret. You’ve got the old woman who is in over her head. You’ve got the hippie couple who like to have sex in public places. And you know, inevitably, what every arc to all these characters is going to be. They are generic, stale, and lazy. There was one character who I liked. It was an old man who was mute and nearly paralyzed from Parkinson’s. There was potential to do some cool stuff with this guy. So what do the filmmakers do? Immediately zombify him.

So if the characters suck and the zombies are what they are in every movie, then what’s left? Staleness. The mark of a tired, worn out genre. Slashers went through this phase in the 90′s. At some point the genre just needs to take a break and come back refreshed. Recently, I caught The Horde, another much ballyhooed zombie flick. I thought to myself as I watched it “Zombie fans are stretching.” I think you get to the point when there is such a lack of creativity being shown (and I’m talking about zombie films right now, maybe there is better stuff going on in other mediums) that you just gotta call it like it is. I mean, the torture subgenre. It’s done. It’s over. I’ve heard many zombie fans laugh on the tombstone of the Eli Roth’s of the world. But honestly, zombies are kind of done right now. The market is over-saturated with garbage. Now, I’m not saying people can’t enjoy zombies. Zombies are fine.  And I’m not saying there can’t ever be another good zombie movie. I would argue a bigger point that zombies have been “done” since 1985, but this specific argument is simply about the recent cultural obsession with zombies that I completely blame the Dawn of the Dead remake on.

Terminal is an example of this. A movie that does nothing, says nothing, and recycles everything. No amount of acting ability (and the film does have some good performances) can cover up the one dimensional characters. It’s no longer tension to show zombies crawling around air ducts. It’s no longer interesting to see the military putting up plastic on the windows. It’s no longer interesting to see a person hiding a bite from the rest of the group. There are certainly people out there that do dig that, though. Repetition is a fundamental trait of the zombie movie and there are many who disagree with me. But I think people mistake a well made movie for a good movie. The Horde is a very slick, well made flick. Hell, the original Quarantine is a “good” film by technical standards. Much different than some low budget garbage like Children of the Living Dead. But is there really anything different between The Horde and Gangs of the Dead other than better production values? It’s all essentially the exact same thing with only minor, cosmetic variations. I guess I’m arguing that Quarantine 2: Terminal is worse off because it does nothing at all new? Fuck, I don’t even know what I’m talking about by this point.

Maybe in the end the point is that criticism of a recognizably stale, un-evolving genre is tough. My advice? Find some new ways to make zombies scary/unique/interesting. Make the monster primary rather than trying to make the characters so.

The End.

D-

Jon Hewitt’s X is an Australian thriller starring Spartacus alum Viva Bianca as Holly, a high priced prostitute who caters to the rich. She’s been in the game for most of her life but now she’s finally decided to retire. But just like a thief going for one last score, Holly has one last appointment she has to make. Looking for a threeway partner she comes across Shay, a young girl on her first night of what is sure to be a lifetime of prostitution. Shay has already experienced the grossness of old men wanting hand jobs and has had the shit beat out of her by a pimp. Things aren’t looking good when Holly runs into her on the street and offers her $300 to have sex with her for the night. Shay reluctantly agrees and the two make their appointment. After completing their hamburgling session, a mysterious stranger shows up and murders their client after seeing the insides of a briefcase. The stranger discovers that Holly and Shay have been in the apartment and sets out to find them and kill them.

X tries to be a meditation on the shitty life of prostitution while wrapping itself up in thriller tropes. It never fully succeeds at either. Shay genuinely exudes sympathy and watching her try to negotiate what she’s supposed to do on her first night of hookin’ is unsettling.  Holly, on the other hand, is always courted by rich dudes who want to give her a great life. They give her expensive necklaces, she wears incredible dresses, and she’s just flat out hot. You get the distinct impression that prostitution is pretty awesome if you’ve got the looks. Maybe that’s the contrast the director was going for. The only time Holly belies that she has experienced the same stuff Shay is experiencing is when she starts kicking everyone’s ass. It kinda works but kinda doesn’t. The balancing act doesn’t quite gel like it should. Though there is a stand out scene involving Shay helping two drug addicts who then demand money from her and threaten to turn her over to a group of dudes who will gangbang her. The film has some of these really excellent moments but there just aren’t enough of them to really make an impact on the viewer.

The film is not overly violent (though there is a pretty harsh head smash) and actually doesn’t have much sex. All of the sex itself is shot in such a way that you never really see anything which is actually refreshing as the film doesn’t just devolve into exploitation. It actually attempts to be something more, it just doesn’t quite get there. I’m not sure many people are going to like X. I didn’t really care for it. The acting is serviceable but it’s very slow (it takes a good 40 minutes before the main plot starts) and, ultimately, I just didn’t care enough about these hookers to make me feel anything. Another film that is very different tonally, but similar in structure and themes is Red, White, & Blue. That was a film that did similar sleazy material with its characters much, much better. These aren’t exactly the same film but there is enough similar overlap that X just looks amateur by comparison. Maybe I would have liked this movie more if I had seen it first?

Still there are some genuinely effective moments and scenes in X. It isn’t a complete waste of time, it’s just mostly a waste of time. It might be worth a look if you like this kind of darker themed movie but by the end you’ll probably do what I did. Have no real reaction and immediately flip to the weather channel to see if it’s going to storm.

C-

Vanishing on 7th Street is the new flick by Brad Anderson and is currently available on Netflix Instant. The premise is a mysterious darkness begins covering the earth. As it covers, it blinks most people out of existence, rapture style.  The few that survive end up at a local bar whose power is being run by a single generator. Turns out, there are shadow monsters in the darkness that can only be held at bay by light. So our merry band of uninspiring characters, led by Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton, and John Leguizamo,  try to stick together and keep alive while their batteries mysteriously die one by one.

The first half our of this movie is pretty rad. Anderson is great at making nothingness creepy. He did it in Session 9 and he does it once again here.  This movie is just oozing with atmosphere and mood. The cinematography is great to look at and the early hook of everybody disappearing keeps you genuinely interested (even if it did feel a little too Shyamalan for my taste). The glaring problem with this movie is that none of the characters are interesting or likeable. Anakin is sad about the wife he split up with, Newton is sad about her missing baby, and Leguizamo is sad about his wasted love life. There’s also a kid who is sad about his missing mom. The film amounts to little more than a bunch of sad characters deciding to try and get a truck running so they can drive to Chicago. It’s all so haphazard and aimless. And one super bothersome aspect to me is the “rules” for the shadow monsters. Like, they are scared of light, but people die around light in the movie constantly. It just feels like they use it when necessary and sort of whitewash it in other places. Disappointing because the film had a ton of potential but it just doesn’t go anywhere and has bland, dumb characters. Still, I didn’t hate this movie as much as most people seem to be hating it. If you like Brad Anderson, which I do, you might be able to get by on the atmosphere and spookiness alone. It doesn’t do much right, but the few things it does do it does it well.

I talked about this movie on the latest Splattercast. John Carpenter returns to feature lengths with a very uninspired, generic “ghost” movie. The story is about Amber Heard getting locked up in a mental institution where a killer ghost is stalking the halls, murdering the various girl inmates. As I said on the show, this movie is soul crushingly dull. Every jump scare is telegraphed, the plot has been told a million times, and none of the characters are remotely engaging. Heard does her best but once the big twist is revealed (which isn’t really a twist at all considering it’s so obvious) you’ll actually scratch your head trying to figure out “Wait, what exactly was the ‘ghost’ doing this entire time?” It doesn’t make a whole lotta sense.

The film does have a couple cool kills, though once again they have been done a kajillion times. One chick gets her throat slit in the shower. Another girl gets skewered through the eye with some sort of sharp doctor instrument. The ghost itself actually looks ok. Carpeter is still able to generate some tension with special kudos to the morgue and dumbwaiter sequences. Unfortunately, the content is so blah that it barely registers. Oh, and there is this really goofy shower scene with all the girls. The camera just sort of pans across their naked….backs. With some goofy music over the top. It’s just weird.  I will say that Carpenter totally fell in love with creepy hallway dolly shots. There’s about a million scene transitions of a camera moving down the same lightning flashed hallway. Again, not the worst film in Carpenter’s canon (eat a dick, Pro-Life) but just a total letdown in terms of expectations and execution. Just a cliche filled yawner barely worth remembering.

Mad Monster Party is another film currently available on Netflix Instant. It’s a feature length stop motion animated film from 1967 that has built a cult reputation over the years. Boris Karloff plays Dr. Frankenstein, leader of the monsters. After creating a secret formula that destroys matter, he decides to retire and name his nephew Felix as his heir. This doesn’t sit well with the voluptuous Francesca, Karloff’s secretary. She makes a deal with Dracula to knock off Felix so she’ll be named heir and share Frankenstein’s secrets with the other monsters. Felix shows up, completely out of his element, and the various monsters attempt to knock him off…all the while “It” is making its way to the island, ready to crash the party for every monster.

In all honesty, Mad Monster Party is merely ok. It has funny moments, for sure. And seeing all the famous monsters in stop motion is worth the viewing on its own. It should be noted that this is not a Universal production, so The Wolfman is simply The Werewolf, for example. And the designs are very different from the classic Universal looks. But it’s still a super fun time. It’s 100%  kid friendly with enough innuendo for adults to get some entertainment. The voice acting is really good with Karloff, Phyllis Diller, and Gale Garnett as Francesca being standouts. To be fair, a lot of the jokes aren’t funny. And a few of the musical numbers and scenes go longer than they need to. But it’s worth watching just to say you’ve seen it. And c’mon. It’s a stop motion animated movie with monsters. Enjoy it for what it is.

Red White & Blue (2010) d. Simon Rumley

Horror fans have been promoting Red White & Blue pretty heavily. It’s getting a lot of play and buzz on genre sites and is spreading pretty quickly via word of mouth. I’m becoming more and more interested in the question of “What is a horror film and what is classified as a horror film?” I have always been one of the stalwarts that argues “Horror is a Big Tent genre.” I’m always comfortable with putting films that might otherwise be considered a stretch by a stricter definition into the horror camp. But I’ve started to rethink this a bit. It began when I saw genre sites placing The Disappearance of Alice Creed unabashedly within the confines our favorite genre. That film is very clearly not a horror film and I’m wondering whether the definition of horror is changing, or if fans are just so desperate for quality movies that we’re adopting stuff that shouldn’t be considered horror at all, all willy nilly like. The hard truth is that Red White & Blue is not a horror film. Keep that question in mind when you watch it, which you should (It’s available currently on Netflix Instant).

Red White & Blue follows the lives of three separate characters who all meet in gruesome and unexpected ways. First is Erica, a woman who drifts through life emotionally detached from everyone. She has no family or friends and spends most of her time having sex with random strangers in order to find some sort of human connection with those around her, always refusing to get closer to them than the act itself. After she loses her job, she meets an older man named Nate who offers her a job at a hardware store. Nate has his own emotional problems. He strikes an interest in Erica and although she is resistant at first, the two become close. He claims to be ex-CIA and has been offered a new black ops job and is just trying to decide whether or not to take it. The last major character of the story is Franki. Him and his garage band have just obtained a European tour and he is struggling to decide whether or not to embark on it. His mother has been in and out of the hospital due to cancer and his girlfriend briefly left him for another man. We see him and his band mates having group sex with a drunk Erica near the beginning of the movie. Unfortunately for him, that one time event turns out to be not so one time as both he, Erica, and Nate’s paths will cross in violent ways. To reveal any more plot points would be to spoil the film which I definitely don’t want to do. This is a film worth seeing. There might be some minor spoilers in the next paragraph, so just skip to the end if you don’t want the possibility of figuring out important events.

Though there is certainly some brutal violence in the last act of this film, violence in and of itself does not constitute a horror film. In fact, the first 2/3 rds of this movie reminded me more of a variation on Larry Clark’s Kids then it did a horror film (though maybe that would be a debate itself, whether Kids is horror). In all actuality, it’s more of a gritty, realistic drama with some revenge elements. This movie works because of the performances. Noah Taylor (Nate), Amanda Fuller (Erica) and Marc Senter (Franki) put in spectacular work. You get completely engrossed in these peoples lives and there is a bizarre “have to watch the train wreck” aspect that comes across much better than the work of somebody like Harmony Korine. When some of the stuff about the characters is revealed, it’s genuinely tragic, and, oddly, sympathetic. I felt myself liking these characters and feeling for them even though the actions that led to their problems were wholly despicable to me in many ways. That’s hard for a film to do and to be able to pull it off successfully is even rarer. The violence that is shown in the last act is definitely brutal but the acts themselves are not filmed in such a way to allow the viewer to revel in “Oh that’s awesome” blood and gore. For example, the final kill is disturbing, but the act itself is shown almost exclusively in extreme closeup. So you never get the full exploitative “look” at what is happening. Rather, you hear the screams and see brief cuts of what is happening. There’s enough restraint shown to allow a very excruciating scene to develop before your eyes without actually showing you the whole shebang. And it works perfectly.

One problem with the film is its slowness to develop. For example, there are multiple scenes early on of Erica having sex with various men. It goes on a little too long. I already “got” that she is emotionally screwed up and is using sex as a weapon of sorts. Some of that running time could have been used to further explore the relationship between Erica and Nate which was far more interesting and would have made Nate’s revenge a bit more powerful. The film is strange in that , about half way through, it just drops the Erica/Nate storyline to focus on Franki. It feels abrupt and sudden and by the time Erica and Nate come back into the picture, you’ve sort of lost that connection you might have had with them. The film would have been better served in showing Franki’s storyline at the same time, rather than just switching gears so suddenly. In the end though, Red White & Blue is a good little grimy flick. The acting is fantastic all around and if you can get past the first 20 minutes, you’ll be genuinely intrigued as to where the story will go and how these three characters end up crossing paths with each other. It’s a dirty film in the vein of Larry Clark with some nasty violence in the last act and worth checking out if you like that kind of film, which I do.

7.5/10