Let's take a stab at discussing Martyrs, shall we?

There's a very thin line between being pretentious or intelligent. Beat your ideas over my head long enough and I'll slot you into the former adjective's lane and tune off. Try to pass off something that's really little more than sadistic manslaughter on screen as some form of high-art and I'll promptly laugh before shaking my head in disgust.

Which is why Pascal Laugier's Martyrs (2008, from France, but just released on unrated DVD here in America this week) is such a fascinating film, still bouncing around in my head a mere 16 hours since watching it for the second time last night, this time amongst daring friends. The film's second half is a true sucker punch, a midway tonal shift similar in the thinnest sense to that of Eli Roth's Hostel, when Roth's sick mind turned a funnier, raunchier Euro Trip clone into dare-to-watch torture. The switch-up in Martyrs is much beefier, and, frankly, vastly superior. A detour from a breakneck hybrid of elements of both supercharged Japanese-cinema horror elements and blood-drenched home invasion flicks into a somewhat-existential, slower-paced experiment in transfiguration.



Many who have seen Martyrs hate the latter section, feeling that the film jumps the shark once the tempo hits the brakes for more-patient anarchy. That opinion is horseshit to me, but understandable horseshit. Polarizing films aren't meant to please the world. Laugier, as proven in his pre-movie DVD introduction, never intended to make a crowdpleaser; the man had some truly compelling ideas about life, death, and humanity and went for broke with them. Does it all gel? Not exactly, but the overall product is so daring and unlike anything you've ever seen before that I can't see anybody declaring Martyrs anything less than a success. Even if you can't endure and shut it off before its devastating coda.

"Plot" is pretty meaningless in Martyrs, but for those wondering what the hell this film that I'm mentally invested in is about, here goes: 15 years ago, a little girl named Lucie escaped from a seedy, nightmarish building in which she was being held prisoner and tortured. Once she was discovered afte the escape, Lucie was placed in a home for troubled children, where she made only one friend, Anna. Flash-forward to the present, Lucie (played as an adult by the stunning and intense Mylene Jampanoi) bumrushes the family she believes to be responsible for what happened in her childhood and dispatches of them. Anna comes to help her cover up the scene, and from this point on the two girls unexpectedly ride a downward spiral into Hell.



Again, though, the plot here is merely a driving force for Laugier to tackle some deeper ideas, brutally cyncial thoughts that I won't delve into too deeply here (Martyrs is a film I want that I really want people to watch so we can discuss). The theme is right there in the film's title, however---martyrdom. Not the type of martyr you read about in books of religion, the people who killed themselves or were voluntarily murdered for a greater good. Laugier is concerned with a martyr as a "witness," as believed in Greek history. A person who, after enduring unfathomable degrees of pain and suffering, sees something that nobody else can.///// That's as far as I want to go, for now. I've got the feeling that after I watch this flick for a third time I'll want to write down my post-game thoughts here, spoilers and all. A sort of mental exercise, a one-man debate.

Where myself and some others who've seen Martyrs differ is that I never felt that Laugier's script was talking down to me, slapping my better judgment with pretentious bullshit. The IMDB.com message boards are loaded with commenters violently angry at this film, either labeling it "pure garbage" or that p-word again. Opinions are like the assholes who sign online just to comment negatively on something to start a message board pissing contest, of course, so I can't totally knock those folks. Completely disagree with them, though, is something I can do at will. Martyrs deserves respect and admiration off of sheer ballsiness alone, not to mention topical originality and visual panache.


Pascal Laugier

Some have argued that the characters in Martyrs are quite underdeveloped. Facet-less pawns in Laugier's game of sick chess. If any scene in the film counters this point with conviction it's Anna's attack on the unsuspecting family's quiet house. The insanely-massive shotgun blasts aren't shown in slow-motion; they're presented in real time, dropping the audience right headsmack into the scene with little set-up. That's exactly the degree of immediacy that Laugier, in my opinion, is trying to convey with the film as a whole. Putting us uncomfortably in the moment, so that we're susceptible to whatever he throws our way. A few flashbacks into Lucie's pre-teen captivity stint are intertwined, but even those are quick and unflinching. Also important, since these flashbacks explain everything about Lucie's present-day state that we need to know. And isn't that what character development is supposed to do?

The first time I watched it, Martyrs fucked with my head something proper. When I thought the story was heading in one direction, Laugier's script gave me the head-fake and headed for an uncontested touchdown. Confidently zigged when I expected it to conventionally zag. There's a plot turn signaled by Anna (played by exceptional actress Morjana Alaoui), who, by the way, is gorgeous in a total Dania-Ramirez-lookalike way) and a bathroom mirror that a million guesses never would've predicted. Later, as one character is repeatedly beaten down to a bruised, catatonic pulp, a line of any-other-filmmaker-would-stop-this-brutality-right-now is crossed and left in mushroom clouds of dust. By the time we're presented with a lightshow no doubt inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Martyrs pushes itself beyond simple "horror." I won't say that it becomes an example of brilliant art, but the film does qualify for deserved post-viewing intellectual deliberation. The final scene is one of the more awesomely inconclusive things I've seen in I-don't-know-how-long.

Whether anybody pulls their trigger and seeks Martyrs out or not, I really can't concern myself with, or stress. It just pains me when people's only exposure to what horror films can truly accomplish is limited to that holding-your-hand-in-anxiety reaction their significant other emits while seated in a dark theater watching The Haunting in Connecticut. Give foreign genre films the likes of Martyrs a fair shot and you'll see just how thought-provoking and fearless this type of filmmaking can get, if created with no corporate interference and by skilled hands.

Having finally seen Martyrs, I'm feeling like a deer in headlights.

My own personal cinematic Holy Grail has been seized, experienced, endured. No more obsessive anticipation, no more worries that my expectations would go unmet. A mere three hours after purchasing this bad-boy, I've just watched Martyrs, and, I must say for the record, I don't know what to write. An instant kneejerk reaction seems ludicrous for a film this unrelenting and sense-cutting. I'm sure that I'm now an honest fan of Martyrs, but do I genuinely "like" it? I'm quite eager to show it to friends to get their responses, but do I really want to make my pals see me in some sadistic light?



Too much to mull over, sleep on. Honestly, I'm not going to delve into Pascal Laugier's film until after a second viewing. Hell, maybe not even until post-third time. I can confidently say, though, that no film had me questioning my own keen desire to watch it all the way through quite like Martyrs, wondering if there's something truthfully disturbed about me. That feeling crept up after first seeing Inside, but Inside (also a hardcore product of France's new wave of horror madness) is a film that I knew from jumpstreet that I really do love, a flick that I'll defend forever and lavish with critically-celebratory praise. Martyrs is so beyond the good-taste barrier that I don't feel right saying the same for it. At least not after having only seen the film once.

In continuation of that point, I can say that, for disclosure's sake, I like Inside much more than Martyrs, but that's not a slight against Martyrs at all. Martyrs isn't a film that you "like"; it's one that you experience, ponder, and then subsequently lose hope iin humanity over. And that, my friends, is what a balls-to-the-wall horror film is supposed to do.

But, man, that scene with the nailed-in helmet being ripped off the sacrificial, sliced-and-diced corpse-lady's head is absolutely rough stuff. And the post-title-card home invasion sequence is a sucker-punch of immense power. As for that third, and final, act.....did I really just watch that? Some dude actually came up with such insanity, and somebody let him film it? I'm impressed. Startled, and a little sickened, but really impressed.

Something tells me that I'll be rewatching this one before week's end, and then I'll have a long-winded, overly-wordy brainstorm session right here, for anybody's reading pleasure. Stay tuned.

Piranha 3D cast begins rising to the surface

Even though I hated French-bred writer/director Alexandre Aja's last film, the catastrophically-flawed Mirrors, I'm not counting the guy out just yet. How could I? When you're first two films are 2003's brutal Haute Tension (or, High Tension) and 2006's superior The Hills Have Eyes remake, you've earned a degree of carte blanche in my book. I'll continue to ignore the fact that Aja produced that absymal "nail in the coffin housing Wes Bentley's career" P2 and focus on Aja's directorial catalog, by the way.


Alex Aja

The biggest truth that Mirrors proved was that Aja is much better when dealing with visceral gore and exploitation revisions; Mirrors had some of that gore (which was foolishly spoiled on every poster and in every commercial), but showed how sloppily Aja handles the supernatural. He tried going a more accessible route, and you can't knock the guy for that, but let's hope he leaves that in the past. At least for the time being.

His next project, however, is one that I'm psyched for.....Piranha 3D, a remake of Joe Dante's 1978 sleazefest that offered little more than killer piranhas gnawing on nubile young flesh. Exactly what a film called Piranha should be. This feels like exactly the right kind of film for Aja to redeem himself with----amp up the bloodshed and underwater dismemberment and blast the limbs in our faces thanks to this new 3D technology, and deliver a Jaws-on-acid for a whole new generation. May 2010 can't come soon enough.



Over the last week or so, casting for Piranha 3D has begun, and so far the lineup is completely random, and quite awesome. First, '80s goddess Elisabeth Shue (The Karate Kid, Adventures in Babysitting) signed on to play "the role of Sherrif Julie Forester, a take-charge authority figure in the community of Lake Victoria - where the action/ankle-biting takes place." Then, days later, Adam Scott, who was so great in Step Brothers and is currently anchoring the wonderful comedy series Party Down, joined the project as its male lead "Novak, a diver for the US Geological Service who helps discover the piranha outbreak." And earlier today, Ving Rhames was confirmed as the third lead, and a rumored Richard Dreyfuss "Jaws-referencing" cameo was also proven to be legit fact.

Elisabeth Shue

Adam Scott


An immensely cool, likeable cast. Alexandre Aja back in gore-heavy form. Killer piranhas nibbling at hot chicks in bikinis. Yeah, Piranha 3D is going to be total Summertime escapist glee.

Trailer for the 1978 original:


News learned over at: Shock Til You Drop

and Bloody Disgusting

Rashomon, or the beginning of my Kurosawa phase

Seriously, how bad was last year's Vantage Point? What a case of cinematic blue balls. Easily one of 2008's biggest letdowns on my end, a film that first surfaced with a live-wire, eye-opener of a trailer but then materialized with uneve acting, a muddled script, and an irritating creative decision to rewind the tape every time the perspective changed between characters. The first time the film went all fast-paced backward, I cringed but figured that Pete Travis, the director, wouldn't be misguided enough to do it again. But then it happened again, and again, and then once more, and then about three more times. Until the audience in my theater began laughing and/or sighing in disbelief at each "rewind." Didn't help that Matthew Fox turned in a painfully bad performance, Dennis Quaid just looked one-note pissed the entire time, and cutie Zoe Saldana was killed off in the first ten minutes.

Be gone, Vantage Point. Be gone.



Now having finally watched iconic Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's awesome Rashomon (1950), I've seen what Travis and company were admirably trying to do but failed on all fronts. Really, Rashomon makes me hate Vantage Point even more. It's not exactly fair, though, to compare the two films; it's like trying to draw a parallel between Robert Wise's The Haunting and The Haunting in Connecticut. Just plain ridiculous. Rashomon is one of the finest, most influential films ever made, so Vantage Point never stood a chance, anyway.

The same narrative trick is attempted in both----trying to solve a crime by showing the event through the eyes of multiple characters, only to reveal that "truth" is merely in the eye of the beholder. One of the many reasons that Rashomon so greatly pulls this storytelling okie-doke off is that the actual truth is never given. All we're left with is four vastly different accounts of a rape/murder in the woods. The final version could be regarded as the most reliable, only because it's from an objective witness with no ties to the bandit, the rape victim, and her now-dead husband. Or, does he? The witness turns out to have some unexpected stake in the case, which blurs the lines of reality even further, and leaves Rashomon's central verdict open-ended as the Fade Out comes.

It's pretty astonishing to think that Kurosawa executed such a groundbreaking, twisty tale nearly 60 years ago. Truly light years ahead of his time with this. Early on, I thought I was in for a murder mystery, but then the killer's identity is confessed by the deviant himself, which threw my frame-of-mind off the rails. So he's the killer then? So what else is left to figure out? What a fool I was to think that. As soon as the hysterical rape victim begins offering her recollection to the courthouse, I started asking her questions, but in my head. "Why are you so upset when the bandit just told us that you were fierce and heroic?" A wonderful little device used by Kurosawa here came into the light at this moment---I realized that we're never going to see the interrogator, only the defendants. As if they're speaking directly to the viewer. Answering our questions, confusing our thoughts with each changing speaker. Truth is totally subjective, and it changes through small yet thematically large details with each new defendant.



Rashomon is a film that I can't recommend enough. For those partial to martial arts and fight scenes, you get some pretty badass sword fighting. If you're a movie-watcher such as myself who loves a good wildly-structured headscratcher, it's tops. But ultimately, it's worth seeing just off of GP alone. You'd be hard-pressed to find a filmmaker who won't admit to being heavily influenced by not only Rashomon, but Akira Kurosawa himself.

I may go watch it again now. Or tomorrow, definitely. Hell, the film even managed to creep me out quite a bit thanks to an eerie testimonial from a freaky-deeky female medium giving the murder victim's side of the story. And I wasn't expecting this one to give me any willies at all. Many so-called "horror legends" can't even do that.

A Night with Vinyan; A Buck-Shot to the Senses

I wouldn't call it a beautiful mind exactly. More like a grotesquely-attractive one. A thoughtbox that has twice now managed to leave me in a slightly comatose state after being subjected to its creative, visual, and narrative sides, all at once, twice now. The guy has only made two films, but both shatter all conventional genre tricks, taking their time to stack up the dread and astonished confusion to Jenga Champion heights.

The fella's name is Fabrice Du Welz, a Belgian filmmaker, and I've finally seen his sophomore head-raper Vinyan, after nearly a year's worth of anticipation.


Fabrice Du Welz

After I watched his debut, Calvaire (The Ordeal), early on in my Netflix lifespan, I couldn't shake the cold, distant-from-reality feeling the film left me with. Some idiot writers have dubbed Calvaire the "Gay Chainsaw Massacre," due to its sporadic homo-psychotic scenes and the plot's skeletal cloning of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. While those jackasses trivialized it into a heap of puns, I fell right in Calvaire's existential malarchy trap, knees deep and loving every fucked-up second. At not one point did Du Welz take an expected plot turn, stage a seen-that-before scene. Even when the images made no sense and felt bizarre simply for bizarre's cheap sake, I couldn't help but love the shit. Like this random folk dance sequence, which I'm sure is meant to show the audience that the townsfolk in Calvaire aren't the most trustworthy, but really just comes off as some inexplicable hypnosis. You'll either laugh at the absurdity or be left in unease. Myself, a fascinating mixture of both:



Du Welz won me over with Calvaire, no doubt, so once word spread that the writer-director's next one, Vinyan, is a stylistic leap forward, I instantly become enthralled with the chance of some day soon seeing it. Of course, the film played well at the film festival circuit last year and had heads talking due to its eccentricity and holy-shit final act, which naturally meant it would linger in release purgatory before hitting DVD shelves with zero fanfare. Other than to those such as myself who put ourselves in "the know." All I had to work with was this mesmerizing underwater opening credit sequence, a "Huh" slice of coolness that leaves me with the same bewilderment that the opening credits of Gaspar Noe's Irreversible does:




So what did I get out of Vinyan? A viewing experience that made that of Calvaire seem only satisfactory. Where to begin? With the film's plot, perhaps: Paul and Jeanne (actors Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Beart, both quietly dynamic here) are on a vacation near Burma when they come across a tourist video that features a little jungle-living kid that Jeanne swears is their son Joshua, who was lost at sea during the 2004 tsunami and presumed dead. After some debate, Jeanne wins, and the couple doles out their entire life savings to hop on a sketchy boat to the Thai-Burmese border, where the video was shot. As the trip continues into a downward spiral of dead-ends and growing bleakness, the boat's guide gets lost and docks on a nondescript, dark, creepy isle full of silent little naked kids covered in hardened mud and preying around the jungle in stalker-mode.

The little bastards look like children straight out of a National Geographic issue guest-edited by the team from Fangoria. And once the couple's boat becomes off-course and stranded, Vinyan turns into Apocalypse Now crossbred with Who Can Kill A Child? scripted and directed while on an acid trip. That's a seriously twisted and potent elixir, and I'm not fibbing when I say that the final 15 minutes of Vinyan had me paralyzed to my couch. The paralysis first kicked in during this dream sequence that Jeanne has; she's been mentally deteriorating throughout the film, and by the time they're stuck on the tribal island, aka the Fifth Circle of Earthbound Hell, she's totally gone. A walking slab of jelly, only motivated by the sad, tragic hope of finding her obviously-dead son. In this dream, she's surrounded by a group of kids wearing the same red shirt her son wore on the day he was taken by the tsunami wave. Only, the kids' faces are all stretched-out and mask-like, and the camera zooms sideways and in-and-out rapidly as faint screaming sounds (the same ones heard at the tail-end of that above Vinyan opening credits). It's unsettling along the lines of that nightmarish Aphex Twin video for "Come to Daddy." Heebie jeebie central.




Vinyan isn't a film I'd honestly recommend to too many people. I'll be delicately picking and choosing who gets the "You should really watch this" heads-up. If your attention span is that of a pencil and a simple growling stomach makes you stand up and leave the room while a DVD is playing, do yourself a favor and stay the fuck away from this one. It's not meant for you; go watch The Love Guru or something. Du Welz moves this thing along at a snail's pace, but in a good way. I never lost interest, and was rewarded by Vinyan's haunting final act, but the only-marginally-patient watcher will most likely tune out or get bored by the 20-minute mark. If so, I'm sorry. You can't win them all. Only people like me who love this kind of bizarre shit. And also, lovers of intense, stark, gorgeous cinematography and some of the best jungle scenery presentation since Francis Ford Coppola and the already-referenced Apocalypse Now.

It takes some balls and some truly disturbed sensibilities to dream up and then so strongly execute Vinyan's final 15 minutes. But this dude Du Welz has done it rather convincingly. I'd really love to see him get the green-light for an American studio film, just to witness either his un-compromise or disappointing descent into studio politic bend-over bulldonkey. Because there's no way in Hell that he'd get away with making a film such as Vinyan on an American studio's watch.

Unfiltered DVD releases of international cinema, bless y'all.

Vinyan trailer (that actually makes the film seem much more accessible than it is, believe me. Don't be fooled, this is only to give a sharper feel for the film):

Netflix Fix -- And Soon The Darkness (1970)

Just the other day, a friend and I were talking about the possibility of ever taking some kind of solo European vacation. One of those trips where its person, alone, exploring a far-off country. Full of self-discovery, adventure, intrigue. But then also a true test of one's survival skills, and street smarts. Personally, the idea of a one-man vacay overseas is rather compelling, though I'm not entirely sure that I'll ever pull the trigger and actually take one. Besides, I've seen enough movies to know how susceptible an American tourist in unfamiliar terrain. The old "fish out of water" plot device is one of the most abused and overused tricks in the thriller genre, with "good" flicks such as Hostel far outweighing the forgettable misfires, like, say, Turistas (anybody?).

And those are just a couple of the recent examples. Tomorrow, in fact, I'll finally get to watch Fabrice Du Welz' Vinyan on trusty DVD, and that's yet another entry into this subgenre. And Soon The Darkness, a largely looked-over British potboiler made back in 1970 by director Robert Fuest, has set the bar for Vinyan Mary-Jane-high.


Loving this poster. Looks a lot like that old Last House on the Left one I've always thought was/is top quality.

A few weeks back, news surfaced of an in-development remake of And Soon The Darkness, starring two starlet-apples in my eye, Amber Heard (Pineapple Express) and Odette Yustman (Cloverfield, The Unborn). The notion of remaking an obscure British film with a pair of America's hottest young actresses immediately got me going; I'd much rather see a little-known foreign throwback get the recognition over yet another iconic slasher series from here in the states.

Prior to the news of an Amber Heard/Odette Yustman sexy sandwich, I'd never heard of the original And Soon The Darkness, so the film instantly hopped into my Netflix. Finally came around to watching it late last night, and I'm glad to opine that its one hell of smart, suspenseful little number. Plays up all of the necessary "fish out of water" puzzle pieces to effective levels of unease.

Cathy (actress Michele Dotrice) and Jane (Pamela Franklin)

....and now, Amber Heard and Odette Yustman. Quite a difference, eh?


The story centers around Jane, a cute, short-haired, innocent-minded college-age tourist from London who has just seen her bicycling trip across France take a mischievous turn. After a verbal scuffle with her wilder, blonde bombshell of a best friend, and travel partner, Cathy, Jane rode off in protest, leaving Cathy alone near woods on the side of a road. But when Jane goes back to check on her friend, Cathy is gone. This leads to an investigation complete with shady strangers giving Jane prolonged stares and speaking in foreign languages that she frustratingly can't understand, and an unearthed murder mystery that brings with it eerie similarities with Cathy.


Now that's how you cut together a trailer.

The film's script (written by fellas named Brian Clemens and Terry Nation) is the real MVP here, a tightly-structured pressure cooker that loves fucking with the audience. His strongest constant-okie-doke is a character named Paul, a suave Frenchman that catches Cathy's eye intitially but then begins to look more sinister by the second. His motives remain unclear, difficult to pin down. It doesn't help the viewer's private-eye side that Fuest consistently flips our perceptions of Paul. We're made to believe that he's taken to Jane out of sympathy, but when he drives near the spot where Cathy disappeared on his motorbike, we see tire tracks next a pair of Cathy's missing panties. Instant connection made. And then later Paul reveals himself to be a detective, yet the head of the local police department claims to have no idea who Paul is moments later.

If And Soon The Darkness was simply a clever whodunit mystery, I would've been happy enough. But Fuest shows flashes of Alfred Hitchcock here that give the film a nice slice of nail-chomping atmosphere, amplifying the isolation of a scared, confused non-local impressively. The subtle creeps, all around. Two scenes in particular achieve a pretty strong anxiety: First, the last time we see Cathy before Jane's investigation begins; as she wakes up alongside the road from leaves rustling, Cathy cautiously begins to pack her belongings and get ready to ride and find her friend, but Fuest uses nifty sight tricks (a pair of panties there one second and gone the next; the sound of spinning bike-tire wheels; switching the camera's point-of-view to inside the bushes peering out at Cathy) to his advantage, and the end product is a damn tense sequence with little sound. Secondly, a scene near the film's end that finds Jane hiding in the closet of a trailer truck as the suspected villain snoops around; its a standard cat-and-mouse setup, but then we're hit with a total "Oh shit!" jump scare that is both revelatory and shock city.

File And Soon The Darkness under "Awesomely Pleasant Surprises." I went into this Netflix Fix hoping to merely meet a personal quota, seeing a film that the remake of which has become an anticipation-item of mine. I wasn't expecting to love this humble British flick as much as I now do. Looks like Amber Heard, Odette Yustman, and who-the-fuck-is-he director Marcos Efron have their work cut out for them. The Heard/Yustman And Soon The Darkness was honestly little more than a hormone-driven must-see, but now I'll be watching with a heavy "They better not fuck this up" microscope.

It's already been said that the remake will relocate the setting from France to Argentina, for whatever that's worth. Now, how about explaining what the hell the title And Soon The Darkness means exactly? The original takes place entirely during the daytime, and the impending nightfall is never referenced in any sort of menacing way, so what gives? It's an awesome title for a film, though. Just wondering, "Why?"

(Lack of) Food for Thought

Pride may not be the real issue here, but there's a certain amount of stock I hold dearly within my fortitude to handle films that "go there." That leave no image of brutality unseen, drop the gauntlet of good taste down fast in order to leave it shattered on the sticky cineplex floor. My stomach is deep, full of room for such harsh visions. So whenever a movie sneak attacks me and leaves me feeling queasy, I have no choice but to stand up and salute. Wave the white flag in the filmmakers' direction. The only time I can recall actually closing my eyes during a scene was when I first saw Inside at Lincoln Center, specifically the infamous-in-these-parts scissors scene at the end. One eye was half open, the other's lid pressed firmly atop the socket, unable to look away. It was a truly harrowing experience.


Steve McQueen

Having just watched Steve McQueen's unbelievably raw Hunger at the IFC Center, I can now shamelessly say that a movie has left me feeling nauseous like I've never felt before, regardless of the setting or my physical/health state. One sequence in particular had this effect, a single take tour-de-force that places the viewer in the midst of some of the fiercest, most inhuman police brutality imaginable. In a TKTK prison in Northern Ireland, back in 1981 (Hunger is based on true events), the British government has imprisoned dozens of Irish "political terrorists" who refuse to obey the Brits' law. The prisoners are on a "no wash" strike, meaning they're all filthy by choice, the walls of their cells caked in hardened, smeared feces. In an effort to enforce their methods with blunt precision, a slew of cops in full armored suits line in a hallway, shields before them and nightsticks in hand. In a bit of ritualistic pounding, they all begin to beat their sticks on the shields. Then, each prisoner is yanked out of their cells, naked, and thrown through the gauntlet of cops, who all take violent swings with their nightsticks as the nude inmate crawls through for survival. Once at the end of the hell-way, each beaten man is violated anally and then left to rot on the floor.



McQueen shoots the scene in one long take, and it's pretty breathtaking. Until this point, Hunger is a rather subdued, controlled film, moving along patiently with little dialogue and plenty of drawn-out in-cell scenes. That's why this police-imposed, one-sided riot is so unnerving. McQueen swoops the camera from prisoner to prisoner throughout the scene, erratic with his hands. Whatever feeling of ease the viewer has had is immediately swallowed up and spit out as if a T-Rex is doing the oral flinging.

I felt the bottom of my throat give out a bit, and the scene wasn't even halfway over. Crazy.

For a first time filmmaker, McQueen achives nothing short of a gargantuan effort with Hunger. Scene after scene, the film is an exhibition of the man's visual gifts. Directly after that aforementioned prison beatdown setpiece, we follow one of the prison's high-ranking officers as he visits his sick mother in a nursing home. It's obviously an attempt to make the viewer sympathize a bit with the mongrels in blue. But then, like the robber who sucker-punches McLovin in Superbad, we're hit with a point-blank execution that I totally didn't see coming. At all. As a result, McQueen had me second guessing his every subsequent move. I was basically the guy's puppet, a plaything that he could trick and blindside however he pleased cinematically.

Fortunately for my senses, the remainder of the film is devoid of random violence. Well, actually, "fortunately" isn't the right word. While never less than stunning, the final act of Hunger is tough to watch without cringing a tad. At this point, our lead, Bobby Sands (played amazingly by Michael Fassbender, who impressed in Eden Lake and will surely impress in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds; the guy is one to watch), has decided to kick his freedom-fighting into high gear by organizing a hunger strike within the prison, which 74 other inmates agree to. Now, I'm not sure if what we see from here on out is actually Fassbender, or just some incredibly realistic trickery by McQueen and his cohorts. But if you thought Christian Bale looked sickly in The Machinist, you haven't seen a damn thing yet. Fassbender turns into a breathing skeleton, rib-cage sticking out, every other bone excruciatingly visible. Sands lasted 66 days before succumbing to the emaciation, and if dying of hunger is even half as unbearable and painful as seen on Fassbender here, I'm taking my ass to Outback for lunch tomorrow just to make sure I'm well fed. Damn, does it look like almighty hell.


Michael Fassbender, pre-hunger pains

It's films like Hunger that remind me why I'm so infatuated with cinema, which makes it all the more shameful that it's only playing in one theater in this area. Going largely unknown, looked over, outside of film buffs and critics. Something this delicately made, richly acted, and historically significant deserves a chance, so whenever the DVD streets I highly recommend giving it a go. You might toss up your cheeseburger while watching, but there's no doubt in my mind that you'll finish the film feeling floored. Pedal to the emotional metal.

Put it this way: any film that can turn an overlong scene where a guy mops an entire prison hallway into an intensely hypnotic event isn't fucking around.

Nacho Supreme

Keeping this one short and tart. It's late, I'm zonked. Mentally tapped. Had a night of debauchery planned, but all went South (no) thanks to some tardy, unfocused friends. No sweat, though. It was all for the better, since I got to watch the great little Timecrimes (2007; put in minimal theaters in America late last year briefly), a Spanish "time travel" thriller that's smarter than a female MENSA member giving a male road scholar some brains. It's more responsible for my current cranial fatigue than a week's worth of job-doing, no question. Written and directed by a fella named Nacho Vigilondo, Timecrimes is one of those films that vastly impresses from opening frame to closing reel, full of head-spinners, mind-blowers, and tightly-constructed narrative zigs and zags.

It's serious like that.



You basically have this schlubby, everyday-joe middle-aged guy named Hector who sneaks some peeks, using binoculars, at a sexy naked chick in the woods behind his house as his wife is going out to run some errands. The birthday-suit-wearing lady disappears, so, being the voyeuristic perv that he is, Hector heads in the woods to find her, and from here sets off a chain of events that fondles the chronology of time in so many wicked ways that you'd think Vigalondo gets off to calendars that don't have swimsuit-clad chicks splattered throughout. Hector reluctantly enters some sort of time machine being worked on by a random scientist operating within the woods (scientist played by Vigalondo himself), and by doing so Hector embarks on a fucked-up journey where there's three Hectors all trying to not screw up the natural chain of events. It's like Groundhog Day on mean-spirited acid, but instead of the same day being started over and over again, Hector's day never ends, yet still restarts. Heady for days and nights.



Vigalondo must've fine-tuned this script for a good year or two un-distracted, because it's so neatly crafted and hole-less that I have no choice but to hail Sir Vigalondo as "that new Spanish filmmaking dude." Timecrimes is exciting, creepy, surreal, violent, confusing, streamlined, clever, and enigmatic, all at once, never seeming contrived.

Of course, since American film studios suck scrote, a Timecrimes remake is already being developed. I think by David Cronenberg, actually, which is rather promising, in ways. But I can't but wish that Timecrimes was given a bigger stateside theatrical release, for droves of audiences to bask in its dopeness. Filmgoers around these parts would've largely ignored it, naturally, but it deserved a big shot. Bigger than it got.

You should've rented it yesterday. Catch up with yourself, now.

Sweden has more to offer than hot blonde women....A pleasant surprise.

When it comes to A+ horror, should I be looking over at Sweden just as much as I am toward France? Last year's Let the Right One In first snapped Sweden's fingers to grab my attention, and now comes this new trailer for a flick called Psalm 21 that looks quite great.

Psalm 21 trailer

Official Synopsis: Psalm 21 is a thriller about Henrik, a modern young priest living in Stockholm. He has nightmares about his dead mother. One day, he recieves word from the coronary in a remote village, deep in the dark woods of Nothern Sweden: his father, a priest himself, has drowned. The circumstances of the drowning are unexplained.

Henrik drives through the endless forests of Northern Sweden up to the desolate village of his father to investigate the circumstances of his demise. As he learns more about the drowning - and about his father - the door to the unknown cracks open. Shadows from the past emerge from the void. They return to our world with one specific purpose.

Revenge.

The sad, harsh truth of the matter is that, like every other foreign film that excites me in potent measure, it'll be many moons before I get to see this Psalm 21 business. Fucking passports and expensivve airfare.

Trailer and synopsis first spotted over at: Dread Central

Childlike Insanity, A Disney-ish Road to Hell

I've been racking my brain for the past hour, trying to think of a film that depicts the descent into madness with more verve and imagination than Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994), and I'm failing miserably. Admitting defeat now. My watching this one has been in the making for years now, evolving from innocent thoughts of "I'd like to check that out, sounds interesting," to repeat "not in stock" letdowns at Blockbuster, to, most recently, a "very long wait" status on Netflix.



Finally, by some divine hands reaching down into my Queue and lighting fire into the DVD's donut-hole-center, Heavenly Creatures arrived in my mailbox the other day. This was the rare instance of me going into a movie with virtually zero prior knowledge or spoilers read. All I knew was that Jackson co-wrote the script after researching the hell out of a 1954 murder case out in New Zealand, in which two teenage girls killed the one girl's mother but were soon captured after the daughter's diaries were discovered. What I didn't know was that the two girls, Pauline (middle name Yvonne, which she's frequently called) and Juliet (played by Kate Winslet, in her feature film debut) , shared a lesbian love that was rooted in deeply disturbed delusions, heightened through a fairy tale novel they were dreaming up together. Peter Jackson, who had previously proven himself a master of over-the-top gore spectacles with flicks such as 1994's Dead Alive, used Heavenly Creatures as a creative departure of sorts---a slick choice of subject, too, since this film does include a few scenes of carnage, and an overall sense of growing disturbia that Jackson plays like a colorful toy.

Watching Heavenly Creatures, you can see the seeds being planted for Jackson's eventual Lord of the Rings-era excellence. Particularly in two sequences: the first, a daring, unique tracking shot through a sand castle, with the camera zooming through the sandy corridors and up the staircases at a dreamlike clip; and especially in scenes where the girls daydream of prancing around with the mythical characters of their novel, medieval power-players depicted in life-size clay form in Jackson's eyes. Rarely has losing one's mind felt as innocently wonderous as it does here. As if it's Laurel Hardy's March of the Wooden Soldiers (a childhood holiday favorite of mine). This one comes during Pauline/Yvonne's first sexual experience:




The most impressive aspect of this film, however, falls more into the writing department than solely directing. On paper, this story most likely reads as an international equivalent to something along the lines of Harmony Korine's Bully, another "escalating revenge plot" based-on-true-events narrative. Bully took a much more straightforward, bleak approach to its rising homicidal tendencies; Heavenly Creatures, on the other hand, basks in the---mostly in Yvonne's unhappy head--- are presented as joyous, transcendent forms of escapism. Playful, even. As the story progresses, though, and the murder plan starts to show itself, Jackson slowly pulls back from the fun-side and embraces the darkness. It's so subtle how he does it. Until the final 15 minutes, it's invisibly handled. Only when the girls go off on a day-trip with Yvonne's mother does Jackson show his death-in-all-its-horror card.



The focus on expanding insanity can also be seen as an ironic counterpoint to the age-old, Proposition 8-related idea that homosexuality goes hand in hand with madness. Total bullshit, of course, but a discussion that Jackson comments on with a firsthand sense of objectivity. Heavenly Creatures seems to agree with the anti-homosexuality prosecution whenever the girls' parents take centerstage, but then switches back to defending such a sexual choice through euphoric exchanges between the female leads. It's an interesting back-and-forth, one that is up for debate (if anybody out there has seen this film and is down to chat).

I'd love to describe the entire final sequence in all its blindsiding force, but I'd rather allow others to check the film out for themselves and feel similarly pistol-whipped from their closed-eye's side. Just know that Heavenly Creatures is one of the most peculiar, fascinating, and creatively diesel studies of madness that I've seen. Even inspirational in many ways, as well as motivational, but I won't get into the reasons as to why here, now. Saving that for later. Jackson's best film (in my opinion, this one is better than the Lord of the Rings series, but that's a matter of preference) shows that pitch-black issues can be covered in shiny cloth and still maintain the integrity. Well done, sir. Well done.



I'm now even more intrigued to see Jackson's upcoming The Lovely Bones adaptation; Heavenly Creatures is about the closest piece of evidence available that the man is capable of bring Alice Sebold's equal parts melancholy and hopeful book to life. I'm ready. Bring it on.

Drunk yet fully aware of the brilliance of these two audio treats, you bastards!

When you're drunk as a fucking skunk, as I am right now at about 3am after an evening of Bacardi Orange shots and 22-ounce Coronas (great times had by me and my two co-defendants tonight), you come back home in a rather vulnerable, loose, susceptible state of mind. As in, the type of fucked-up mindframe that would voluntarily watch the following videos on repeat just to fuck with his own cerebellum (worth mentioning....I've had to proofread and retype every fucking word of this post due to severe inebriation at thisi current moment).

But anyway, back to the mission at hand. Me, watching these bizarre, brilliant, subversive, off kilter, what-the-fuck opening bits from a pair of foreign cinematic gems, one I own on DVD and love (Irreversible) and the other I'm ready yo buy come April 7 instantly, as I'm ready for some heady ish from the sick fucker behind the wildly wonderful Calvaire, Fabrice Du Welz (this flick being Vinyan). Revel in the craziness, won't you?:

The dizzying, mesmerizing, genius spin-cycle score from the early section of Gaspar Noe's amazing Irreversible: [The damn file has been removed from Youtube, sadly, but trust me, it's incredible-ness.

2) The opening sequence for Du Welz's Vinyan,a credit bit that I'm in love with for its utter ballsiness and otherworldy demeanor. Just listen to the sound on this bitch, give it a couple of minutes to kick in, please:

Martyrs Watch -- The End Is Nigh

A little over a month left before I finally see this nasty, subversive little French ditty. Been close to a year now that I've been anxiously, impatiently twiddling my thumbs and reading polarized review after reaction. Weeks of checking the Film Society of Lincoln Center's website to check if this would be playing at their annual "Rendezvous with French Cinema" series (just as Inside and Frontiers did last year) proved useless once the playlist was released and not one horror flick was included, let alone this. Reality settled in, and it became obvious that I'd never get to see this on a big screen, which blows but I'll live.

At least the Weinstein Company has balls enough to release it on DVD here stateside, uncensored. In preparation for its looming April 28 street date, a new United Kingdom advertisement, or "quad," has made its way onto various horror websites. Take a gander, it's a good one:



It's almost mathematically impossible that this one will disappoint. Enormously unfeasible, even.

First spotted over at: Bloody Disgusting

Wait....the Jonas Brothers get the IMAX treatment, but not THIS? Kill Yourselves.

It's been another busy one today, thus zero posts (not that anybody other than myself really cares; I'm more so just speaking to myself like a total loser than explaining an absence to any actual audience). But I couldn't let something as baffling and amazing as this go unposted:

Behold, Big Man Japan



Webster's should just cut to the chase already and file "Japanese" and "crazy" as synonyms and keep it moving. In a great way, not derogatory in the least. Where else could something as nonsensically jaw-dropping as Big Man Japan be thought up, really?




Nice diaper.

Netflix Fix -- Inferno (1980)

You know a film is pretty awesome when even after your third time seeing it you still can't figure out what in the hell is exactly going on. Well, at least I know it's awe-to-the-you-know-what. Inferno, a sequel of sorts to Dario Argento's could-be-a-horror-masterpiece Suspiria, falls splat in the center of that category. As far as I can tell, and realize that this is the same explanation I mustered after my first time seeing it years back, the second Mother, "Mater Tenebrarum," doesn't want any of these too-curious New Yorkers to discover her, and she's hellbent on slaughtering them in some truly stunning ways.

Such as this, which happens early on and too-quickly concludes the screen time of one Eleonora Giorgi, who is dynamite to look at and actually gives this character a nice weight of anxiety (sorry about the Italian language....it's all I could scrounge up). Something tells me that Brian Bertino, the man behind last year's great The Strangers, was influenced by this scene; it's all in the eerie, off-putting record skips:


Beware the Following Geek-Out (Any Ladies Reading This....Please Don't Hold This Knowledge Against Me): Oh, yeah, "There's more than one Mother to warrant calling this one the second?" the unseasoned Argento/horror head may ask. Basically, Argento has arched three of his flicks around a mythology known as The Three Mothers, three witches living in a trio of locations: Mater Suspiriorium, "The Mother of Sighs" and formally named Helen Markos (seen decrepit in 1977's Suspiria), lives in Germany; Mater Lachrimarum (who shows up in last year's so-bad-it's-kinda-good Mother of Tears and is a true hottie, evil or not) lives in Rome; and this film's Mater Tenebrarum, "The Mother of Shadows," lives in New York. Yes, I'm a huge nerd for knowing this, but any self-respecting horror lover should. Wanna fight about it?

The thing is, this was all so much easier to follow in Suspiria, the best of the trilogy by far stretches. The mythology wasn't airtight in that one either, but at least I only scratch my head for a few seconds; here, in Inferno, however, whatever fingernails I have left from not biting them off completely end up dull and edgeless as a result of the incoherent narrative. If there's one thing I never turn on an Argento film for, though, it's a storyline that makes total sense, since his earlier films all looked absolutely magnificent and not many filmmakers can stage a murder scene as fluidly and eye-poppingly as my boy Dario. In some ways, I hold Inferno up in the same league as David Lynch's films---the type of movie-watching that never even-partially exposes its true thread but never lessens its vice grip on my attention.

Oddly, my favorite moment in Inferno is one where the character manages to survive a run-in with the Mother. The film's opening stretch follows the poet sister as she first investigates the cellar of the apartment building, believing in this Three Mothers story and wanting to see for herself just who hides out "beneath the soles of her shoes." Turns out, the cellar is flooded, and she, being a dumbass, drops her keys into a watery hole in the floor. Naturally, she jumps in to retrieve the keys, and the underwater sequence that follows is pitch-perfect in its hallucinatory creepy.



Yet, so many inquiries remain: Why are there so many damn cats running around this apartment building, and why is that old dude on the crutches drowning a sack full of the felines? Why isn't there at least one sympathetic, even-partially-developed character for me to root for? How fake is the crutches-guy's "accidental" fall into the water? Whoops, my ass cheek. Did Argento write this script by simply designin the many elaborate death moments and then just add a few connecting scenes of dialogue and boredom while he was on the can? And finally, do we really understand why Mater Tenebrarum is even bothering with such a lame crew of intruders?

How does Mater Tenebrarum magically travel to Rome in a matter of minutes to kill the lifeless, cardboard male protagonist's sexy-poet sister? Fuck if I know. You could leave it at "She's a f'n supernatural demon witch, so she can do whatever her cold heart pleases," but still, I would've appreciated even an attempt to explain. Nevermind, ultimately, because what results from this inexplicable location jumping is this murder-set-piece, which is stellar:



Oh, and I can't let this one slip by: why does crutches-guy inform himself that "Rats are eating me alive!" when nobody is around and, yes, rats are eating him alive. Meaningless, an answer is, because the scene as a whole rocks harder than Pantera, especially when the random deli butcher runs over and drives a meat-clever into dude's neck.

So many questions, so little reason to truthfully want, or need, answers. Inferno is the most nonsensical script that Dario Argento ever scribed. Zero sense is made. The skeletal costume worn by Mater Tenebrarum looks like some $50Halloween get-up you could buy at Ken's Magic Shop., and the ending confrontation between the Mother and our "hero" very anti-climactic. If not for the plethora of gorgeous-looking, slickly-paced murders, the film would be laughably terrible. Pure Mystery Science Theater 3000 fodder. It could be the ultimate "film that's just an excuse to show repeated whoa moments" experience, but when would that ever be a bad thing?

And now.....flying cats, anyone?

REC back in effect

Because these sorts of things excite me much more than they really should, how's about I post the first two stills from REC 2, eh? Yes, I'm probably the only person who visits this blog of mine (Do I mean that I frequently log on to my own site, like a loser who IMs himself? I'll leave that for you to decide) who has actually seen [Rec], or even heard of the film prior to reading about it here, but this is my world, and REC 2 is an important part of my things-to-look-forward-to.

Zero plot has been divulged about REC 2, but this first still shows that it'll clearly be a direct continuation of the first flick. How can I tell? Well, that's my man Manu right there being (unsuccessfully, I presume) subdued, all infected and still thirsting for sexy-ass Angela Vidal, and the interior design seen here looks just like the inside of the apartment building that [REC] so awesomely staged itself.



This second still seems to promise a younger cast of protagonists, or at least a few teens mixed into the bunch. Fine by me. I'm more excited that this still directly references the coolest moment in [REC] ---- that shot from the top of the staircase before Angela and the cameraman haul ass into the mad-satanic-scientist's apartment. If you're still reading all of this despite having no idea what in sam-hell I'm talking about, I must salute your loyalty, by the way.



Here's to Angela Vidal (played by Manuela Velasco), infected or not, showing up in Rec 2. There's no such thing as "too much Manuela Velasco," as far as I'm concerned. I mean, just look at her:



Bizarro Shakira, much?


Stills spotted over at: Bloody Disgusting

I just watched Donald Duck kill his way through softcore porn, and I'm now angry at myself.

In the opposite-spirit of the Academy Awards (which concluded an hour or so ago and brought with them only one minor-surprise, that being Sean Penn unfortunately besting my dude Mickey Rourke), I've followed the "elegant," celebratory broadcast by watching the a film that Oscar would hate me for: The New York Ripper (1982). Why, you may ask? Well, it's quite simple, really----everybody and their aunt will be writing their post-game Oscar reactions, frustrations, agreements, etc, if they haven't already, and it'd be pointless for me follow the obvious road. Which is why I also refused to do any "live Oscar blogging," like every other unoriginal movie site has been doing for the past four hours. Just go on Twitter instead. It's equally as lame while doubly as unfortunate.

Like a fucking duck!

Sorry, a bit of momentary Tourettes there.

No, I've opted to watch and discuss a film that opens with a Lassie clone playing fetch with a severed, totally-fake-looking human hand. Something must be wrong with me. Because I can't resist a bad horror film, and because it's from one Lucio Fulci, who, like Dario Argento, has a long resume that I've vowed to conquer sooner than later. Seeing all of Fulci's films is something that one could either brag about or wisely keep unspoken; none of his movies are "good" in any real stretch of opinion, only deemable as "worthy of attention" due to the man's gleefully over-the-top scenes of splatter. If ever an opportunity arises for mutilation, gut-spilling, close-up shots of flesh being ripped open, or agonizing female death, Fulci goes in, almost sadistic to the point of "This feels like something I shouldn't be watching voluntarily." So, of course, I watch his shit voluntarily.



The New York Ripper, however, is a whole other league of wrong for Fulci. The Fulci flicks I can admit to truly enjoying are pure fantasy bullshit---his Dawn of the Dead jackoff Zombi, namely, which combines some of my favorite horror movie music with tons of head-scratchingly awesome moments (zombie fights shark underwater) and inventive kills (the splinter-in-eyeball gag that lasts an eternity). I'm also fond of his The Beyond, one of the most confusing films ever made that's saved by some wild imagery, and City of the Living Dead, another zombie puke-fest. In these films, Fulci kept both feet firmly planted outside of reality, which made all of the good-taste-free work go down much easier. None of what you see is meant to disturb you on any human level. The New York Ripper is an exception, though. The killer is a living, breathing creation from Fulci's sick mind, and the rampant naked-girls-defiled-and-bloodied fetish Fulci seems to be massaging just feels ickier than a raw sewage facial.

This is a really bad movie. Laughably poor, and never once scary. Painful-to-endure dialogue, a weakly-constructed "who's the killer?" mystery. The New York Ripper is a "giallo," a murder mystery seeped in elaborate death scenes and an overarching whodunit subplot that guys like Fulci and Argento cashed many a check thanks to. Argento's giallos make Fulci's seem like hack student films, though. Argento's mysteries genuinely surprise, and there's real tension to be had in stuff like Deep Red and Tenebre. On the other hand, Fulci's filmography drips with meandering scripts, zero character development, and misogynistic undertones upon undertones. The guy loved to film beautiful women meeting horrible ends, which isn't necessarily as twisted as Argento's repeated scenes where his daughter, Asia, is raped in some fashion, I guess, but that's a whole other point.


Lucio Fulci, probably describing a dream he had in which some Sophia Loren-lookalike was being raped by a demon and then gutted open in extremely-tight close-up shots and scored with '80s porno music.

The New York Ripper is easily the worst Fulci film I've seen yet. Rather than break down every bad aspect at play here, though, I'll mention only one element that defies logic---the killer, for no understandable reason whatsoever, talks in a Donald Duck voice. No shit. "Quack quack" and all. Early on, an eyewitness tells a policeman that the killer talked like a duck, but I figured this was a mute point that wouldn't come to realization. But literally five minutes later, we have our first murder, and, unfucking-believably, Donald Duck opens his beak and The New York Ripper goes from already-bad to that little piece of shit that won't totally flush. Who knows, maybe Fulci was pulling a Punk on horror audiences and meant for this to be a comedy. How else can you explain a killer who talks like a goddamn duck?! Like a fucking duck!



It's my own fault, really. I borrowed this DVD from a friend at work who warned me about the duck voice and how bad this movie is, but I still wasted 90 minutes of my life sitting through it. Another night of going to sleep at 2am because I was suffering through a sleazy horror show. Certain movies I can watch, accept the fact that I'm a bit tetched for watching, but then still recommend them to friends. I enjoy being a harbinger of fucked-up cinema. The New York Ripper isn't one of those films. Honestly, me writing about it on a blog that is available for all of the world to read is pretty counter-productive. Now that this is written and out on the Interwebs, somebody could very well seek this dreck out and watch, thinking, "I wanna see what all of Matt's fuss was about." But then, said fool will see The New York Ripper's drawn-out female public masturbation scene in a seedy Manhattan peep show, and the part where a girl is tied to a bed as the killer slices off her breast with a tiny razor. And I'll be to blame, and said person will most likely look at me with a permanent screwface from that point on.



Really, Fulci should've just called this The New York Stripper and went full-on porn. Then, at least, you could perversely revel in the smut. But any time you start enjoying this shit on a smut-peddler level, that Donald Duck bastard flies out of nowhere on some "Quaaaacckkk!" ish and digs some sharp object into the hot chick you've been ogling, and we're not talking any sexual entendre here. Like fucking Donald Duck!

The New York Ripper really doesn't deserve to exist. There's not one positive thing to be said in its respect. Being a Fulci flick, you'd hope that I could at least sing the praises of its gore effects, but even those fall short in this one. Apparently, The New York Ripper is held in some high regard by horror die-hards, which, if true, gives a horror die-hard such as myself a bad name. There's seriously a scene where a dude "toes" (think "fingers," but with toes) a women inside an open restaurant/bar for a good two minutes. Again, in The New York Stripper that could've possibly worked, but no dice here.

Terrible movie. I should've just watched Quarantine again like I'd initially planned. Or, better yet, the Let the Right One In screener I proudly own. Damn you, Donald Duck.

In all fairness to anyone who might actually watch this clip, be warned: though totally fake-looking, there is much bloodshed and Duck-fuckery to be seen/heard. Donald Duck's wrath just needs to be heard to be believed.....and don't mind the Italian speech. It's actually better than the shitty dubbing job done for the DVD version I watched. Just hang in there 'til the Duckman cometh:


....or....



Riddle me this: How is The New York Ripper like a duck? It's wack, wack, wack, wack, wack, wack.

"The award for Best Canine Actor in a Supporting Role goes to...."

The Academy totally missed this one back in 1982.

On my catch-up quest to watch all of Dario Argento's films, I've just come across one of the best canine actors that cinema has ever produced. In the Italian horror icon's Tenebre (1982), there's this totally badass sequence where this dog-shit-crazy Doberman randomly chases after one of the doomed female characters, and this bitch (assuming its a female dog, for the word-usage-here sake) stops at nathan. What makes the scene so wonderful is that Tenebre has nothing to do with killer dogs, at all. It's about an author on a book-tour in Rome whose latest hit murder mystery novel has inspired some psycho to kill a slew of Italian girls in ways written in the book, also titled Tenebre.



Tenebre, this actual movie, is a hands-down winner. Not as stellar as Argento's Suspiria, and mere inches behind Deep Red in coolness, but still victorious. The way the movie is paced, you know when a girl is going to be hacked and slashed instantly, because Argento lingers on an otherwise-insignificant female character long enough to ensure she'll be dead within ten minutes. Being that I sign on to Argento films to watch beautiful people die even-more-beautiful, exquisitely-staged deaths, this is a good thing. Gets right down to business. As it should be.

So this dog in Tenebre serves absolutely no purpose other than provide some extra tension, and that it sure does. The first victim is bothered and chased down by a dirty hobo in a similar fashion to how this dog gives this girl the bad-business, and that's the only aspect of this sequence that rang somewhat purposeful, to possibly beat home the idea of "this girl is totally fucked, so don't worry if she escapes this first assailant." Indeed.

It also helps in bulk that the dog actor here is dynamite. Relentless, athletic, menacing. You'd think this chick was packing some Snausages in her pants pockets.

Enjoy:



And after surviving all of that, she ends up catching a couple axe-swings into her gut five minutes later. Should've just let the dog use her for rawhide instead.

Martyrs Watch -- Returning After Months of Silence

It's been tons of calendar turns since I've anxiously anticipated seeing this (as word has it) gruesome, cerebral, provocative French horror cult-classic-in-the-making. So what better way to bring the talk back then with news on its rapidly approaching DVD street date. Like Inside, Martyrs is said to be so damn raw-dog that no American theater would ever screen it, hence it's straight-to-DVD release plan (it comes out on April 28, so expect me to unsuccessfully plan screenings at my apartment). As long as I can see the film in its uncut glory, that's cool with moi.

The DVD cover art:



"Extras include a 55-minute behind-the-scenes documentary called Chroniques Organic: The Making of MARTYRS....." = superb. I love bonus feature documentaries, especially ones that exceed nine skimpy minutes. Yet another reason to purchase this one on sight.



DVD cover and info spotted over at: Fangoria

Tranformers: Revenge of the Fallen trailer blows everything to shit / [Rec] 2, for even better measure

Call me a lapdog for Michael Bay's robotic brand of explosion-ridden heartlessness if you must, but I can't shake this loving feeling. This new Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen trailer is precisely what a "giant alien robot movie directed by Michael Bay" is supposed to be---nothing but money shots, expensive effects, total devastation, incoherent anarchy, and a reminder's glimpse that Megan Fox is still down.



Toss in a seemingly darker, angrier tone, and you've got my vote for "Most Anticipated Flick for Summer '09." This coming from the same guy who swears that The Wrestler got robbed of a deserving Best Picture nomination, and that Let The Right One received similar snubbery out of the Best Foreign Film slot.

I'm like the 2Pac of cinema-junkies....a walking contradiction, just as apt to put my thinking cap as I am to bask in juvenile absurdity. Obviously I don't mean that as anything more than a joke. Let's be real. As a matter of fact, Grandma's Boy is on cable right now, and that's a foolish gem I never miss.

****BONUS

Here's another newly-unleashed sequel teaser, this time for the incredible Spanish horror whirlwind known as [Rec], obviously titled [Rec] 2. Absolutely nothing in the way of plot is revealed here, which makes it a sort of foreign-horror kindred spirit to the above Transformers one. But the actual finished product will be from the original's same two directors-writers, and [Rec] itself benefitted from an early miniscule teaser such as this, so...so far, so good.

I'd love to know how they're approaching this one story-wise: investigators looking into the apartment building from the first? the infection spreading itself throughout the city, past the building's quarantine zone?



I'm guessing American won't be seeing a Quarantine sequel any time soon (the film performed well, but not blockbuster-y enough to warrant a new chapter), so for Quarantine lovers, this is most likely the closest you're going to get.

Son (Me) Got [Rec]!

After almost a year of wanting it, needing it, getting tired of watching it in shitty quality Torrent file-form on the laptop....one of the top three horror films to be made within the last five years (possibly more) has joined the elite ranks of my DVD collection.

Thanks, the Canadian division of Amazon.com and your Region 1 ways:


Just in case you don't know, or forgot (or weren't checking out my little site during Quarantine's pre-release months), [Rec] is totally-insane-and-amazing Spanish flick that Quarantine offered a surprisingly-worthy American version of. [Rec] is the superior one, naturally, but kudos to Quarantine for holding its own. No easy task.

For those who want to see this, hit me on the hip (means call my cell), and we;ll schedule something. It'd be both my honor and pleasure.



Yeah.....it's the shit.

And don't dare come at me with that inexcusable "Oh, but it has subtitles, forget that then" jargon. You'll immediately be dissed and dismissed.