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Flickan Som Lekte med Elden (The Girl Who Played with Fire)

September 1st 2010 23:50

The Girl Who Played with Fire movie poster

The second part of Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009), is as taut and compelling as its predecessor, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). A new director on board, Daniel Alfredson (brother of Tomas, who directed the brilliant Let the Right One In), has added a modicum of difference to the visual narrative, but essentially all the same elements are present, propelled by the superb character-driven storytelling that is at the core of Larrson’s books.

The Girl Who Played with Fire Noomi Repace

Noomi Repace as Lisbeth

The core cast returns: Noomi Repace in the role of damaged goods uber-hacker Lisbeth Salander, and this time the focus is on her and Michael Nyqvist in the role of investigative journalist and all-round good guy Mikael Blomkvist. Blomkvist’s media colleagues remain as peripheral characters, but are there to support him both professionally, and emotionally. There are several new and exciting characters, as the new plot unfolds.

The Girl Who Played with Fire Michael Nyqvist

Michael Nyqvist as Mikael

Blomkvist and his Millennium magazine crew have jumped on board the exposure of an Eastern European sex-trafficking ring. Another investigative journalist and his partner have already done the leg-work, they just need Millennium to frame and publish the findings. But evil forces are at work and the “Johns” who’ve been fingered are none to happy. A triple murder is the consequence, and Lisbeth finds herself the prime suspect. Blomkvist sets out to prove her innocence, and they become dangerously embroiled in sinister goings on that reveal a large part of Lisbeth’s murky past.

The Girl Who Played with Fire Yasmine Garbi and Poalo Roberto

Yasmine Garbi as Miriam and Paolo Roberto as himself

The Girl Who Played with Fire Mikael Spreitz

Mikael Spreitz as Niedermann

There’s a new screenwriter involved in the second installment, Jonas Frykberg, but he works with a similar template to Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg who adapted the first novel. The look of the movie, with its distinctly Eurpoean palette (colder tones and yellow hues), fits the mood of the story and creates a chilly, foreboding atmosphere. Yet the movie isn’t without its warmth and humour (the name on Salander's apartment door, V. Kulla, is a reference to Astrid Lindgren's character Pippi Longstocking and her house Villa Villekulla), even sensuality, especially in a decidedly raunchy love scene between Lisbeth and an old lover, Miriam Wu (Yasmine Garbi). However because of her involvement Miriam, and a boxer (played by Swedish professional and television celebrity Paolo Roberto), become unintentional targets.

Desire never plays far from danger

The central villain of the movie remains elusive, but the darkness is soon illuminated. Not before the raw brute strength of Ronald Niedermann (Mikael Spreitz in a role originally intended for Dolph Lundgren) is presented. This is a pillar of a man who suffers from a nerve disorder that renders him incapable of feeling pain, perfect for a standover man. His presence will shadow the movie to the very end.

Out of the frying pan ...

This is a movie about corruption and salvation, and the weight of one crushing the other. As Blomkvist pursues the exposure of the prostitution merchants he inevitably witnesses collateral damage, for this underworld is a realm much closer to his heart than he first realises. Lisbeth initially panics when she sees her face plastered over “wanted” posters on the street and in the news. Blomkvist waits for her to contact him, they both know they have unfinished business together. Blomkvist understands Lisbeth’s fragility, while Lisbeth feels Blomkvist’s genuine sense of protection.

New millennium mercenary

It is Lisbeth’s father, Alexander Zalachenko aka Zala (Georgi Staykov), that is the catalyst that brings them back together, but not in ideal circumstances. Unlike the intriguing, mischievous epilogue from the first movie, The Girl Who Played with Fire ends in semi-tragedy, with a serious fray of rope. And while a nasty loose end from the first movie is tied up, the bridge to the last part of the trilogy (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest) is firmly in place, tying the second and third movies together with a blond strand that possesses the deadliest of stings.

While The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo felt wholly original because we’re being introduced to characters, The Girl Who Played with Fire allows the audience to enjoy the pure satisfaction of an unpretentious, riveting thriller imbued with the main character empathy generated from the first movie.

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Open House

September 1st 2010 00:19

Alice (Rachel Blanchard) opens up her home to potential new buyers, which includes striking couple David (Brian Geraghty) and Lili (Tricia Helfer), who immediately take a shine to the house. Brian even takes a shine to Alice. The new home owners move in and make them selves comfortable. Fiendishly comfortable, indeed. This form of perverse comfort involves killing people, and stashing their dismembered bodies in freezer compartments in the garage. David and Lili have a very strange relationship, but codependent it seems. David, however, is keen to break routine, and that involves stashing one of the victims in a crawlspace in the basement … alive and shackled. Poor Alice, trapped like a rat.

Brian Geraghty as David

Open House (2010) is the debut feature of Andrew Paquin, Anna Paquin’s older brother (born in Canada, not New Zealand, like his more famous Oscar-winning sister). Andrew has written and directed, and the production smacks of nepotism. Oh I forgot to mention, Anna and her boyfriend, Stephen Moyer, both have bit-parts in the movie. Yes, very much bit-parts; Anna plays Alice’s best friend Jennie, and has about two minutes screen time, while Stephen gets to enjoy a few minutes more, before being savagely murdered with a kitchen knife plunged into the side of his neck after he succumbs to the psycho-sexual intent of Lili in the plunge pool.

Tricia Helfer as Lili

Because of their success on the True Blood series Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer have been used to help sell Open House, and it’s definitely a lure, but it’s deceiving as well. Ironically the movie is actually carried successfully by the performances of Brian Geraghty and Tricia Helfer (arguably two better actors). Rachel Blanchard’s role is borderline thankless, effective only as a catalyst for the collapse of the relationship between Brian and Lili. It is this psychotic breakdown that is at the core of the movie, and what makes it work.

Rachel Blanchard as Alice

Open House Anna Paquin and Rachel Blanchard

Alice and Jennie (Anna Paquin) have a brief and meaningful

Andrew Paquin’s direction is solid enough, if perhaps a trifle pedestrian. The unpredictable nature of his two serial killers keeps the tension taut and provides some decent scenes of suspense. Overall, Open House plays more like a really good television movie, or even better, a pilot episode to a series about a pair of roaming serial killers whose relationship keeps threatening to implode, but they manage to stay together long enough to keep their travelogue of death afloat. Certainly the last scene of the movie provides ample suggestion for the possibility of a sequel, and I must say I enjoyed the twist that came during the confrontation finale. It’s always good horror fun when the psychos keep a grip on things.

Open House Stephen Moyer and Tricia Helfer

Lili and Josh (Stephen Moyer) have a deeper, more meaningful

The gruesome detail of Brian and Lili’s killing spree is left mostly to the imagination. But boy, that garage must have really started to stink. There is more attention given to Brian’s penchant for videoing the murders, and to Lili’s delusional lifestyle. She is unaware of Brian’s hidden agenda, his private joy. But it’s inevitable Lili will discover Alice. The question is will Alice survive her ordeal? Will Brian be punished when Lili founds out what he’s been keeping from her? Lili is the one who wears the pants, but Brian wants some kind of emancipation, whether it be his own, or Alice’s.

Open House Rachel Blanchard and Brian Geraghty

Alice and David have several quiet and meaningfuls

Open House is best enjoyed for the performances of Geraghty and Helfer. Tricia Helfer could even rival Linda (The Last Seduction) Forientino in the scheming femme fatale stakes. I hadn’t heard Stephen Moyer talk in his natural English accent, and it was a pleasant change, but Anna came across as Sookie (still seemed to be employing her Southern twang) which was all too strange, considering Stephen Moyer was also in the cast.

Jennie gets it in the neck ... hmmm, looks familiar

Here’s the trailer:

Open House DVD is out now through Hopscotch Films’ Other label.

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Taxi Driver

August 26th 2010 23:51

“The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.” --- Thomas Wolfe, “God’s Lonely Man”

Five features into his distinguished career, but only his third major release, director Martin Scorsese delivered Taxi Driver (1976), the first of three masterpieces; Raging Bull (1980) and Goodfellas (1990) being the other two. At once a searing portrait of emotional alienation and psychological deterioration with a realm of urban decay, and also a blistering study of humankind’s innate loneliness and man’s propensity for extreme violence, Taxi Driver is still as powerful and dangerous now, as it was 35 years ago.

Robert De Niro as Travis

Jodie Foster as Iris

Screenwriter (and filmmaker) Paul Schrader penned the potent tale of Travis Bickle’s pathological despair in five days following his own nervous breakdown, being rejected by his girlfriend and in the midst of a divorce. He didn’t talk to anyone for weeks, frequented porn cinemas, and an obsession with firearms meant he kept a loaded gun on his desk for inspiration and motivation. Brian De Palma was slated to direct, but was fired. With the gritty realism of Mean Streets (1973) and the emotional depth of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore on his resume, Martin Scorsese entered the picture and brought with him Robert De Niro, who’d just won an Oscar for The Godfather Part II (1974), and the rest is history.

Cybil Shepherd as Betsy

Travis Bickle (De Niro) is a Vietnam veteran who takes a job as a cab driver in New York City, working long hours and driving to all the boroughs. His only acquaintances are a handful of other cabbies working for the same company. Bickle attempts a romance with uptown Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who is working on the political campaign for Charles Palantine (Leonard Harris), a Presidential candidate, but he screws that up royally. Twelve-year-old streetwalker Iris (Jodie Foster) crosses his path on several occasions, and as the weight of the city’s filth bears down on him and his psyche begins to crack Bickle decides to save Iris and free her from the pimp shackles (Harvey Keitel as Sport) of her pathetic prostituted existence.

Taxi Driver Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro

Sport (Harvey Keitel) gives Travis an earful

From the opening image of the subway steam filling the screen and Bernard Herrmann’s jazz-wounded score soaked in melancholy, the ominous strings scraping, the sad alto saxophone singing a song of desperation, a yellow checkered cab pushes through the white subterranean mist of the city and begins its long drawl in and out of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx, uptown, downtown, midtown and the lower East side. Taxi Driver is Scorsese’s dark ode to the city that never sleeps, capturing the quintessential grime and low-life glamour of 70s NYC that perpetually feeds its moral and physical corruption.

Martin Scorsese as a cuckolded passenger

“Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is … a man who stood up.”

Taxi Driver Steven Prince and Robert De Niro

Easy Andy (Steven Prince) offers Travis his ballistic expertise

Building steadily towards its frightening, shattering denouement Taxi Driver is a tour-de-force of direction and performance. Robert De Niro is mesmerising in his method brilliance, Cybil Shephard exudes a wonderful coquettish charm, Harvey Keitel provides the perfect sleazy foil to De Niro’s deadly coiled spring, while Jodie Foster (in the defining year of her career) exhibits amazing subtlety and vulnerability. A nod also to Steven Prince, in one scene as Easy Andy, a cocky gun salesman with style and merchandise to burn (Scorsese would later make a short doco called American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince).

It’s curious to note the extraordinary who’s who of actors who were offered or auditioned for (and in some cases cast, but withdrew) the role of Betsy; Farrah Fawcett, Jane Seymour, Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Ornella Muti, Isabelle Adjani, Liza Minnelli, Barbara Hershey, and Sigourney Weaver, and the role of Iris; Melanie Griffith, Ellen Barkin, Kim Basinger, Geena Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Brooke Shields, Debra Winger, Carrie Fisher, Mariel Hemingway, Bo Derek, Kim Cattrall, Rosanna Arquette, Kristy McNichol, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Linda Blair.

Taxi Driver Garth Avery, Jodie Foster, Robert De Niro

Travis gets to know Iris who is with her friend (Garth Avery, a hooker whom Scorsese modeled Iris on)

Martin Scorsese himself appears in two scenes; the first is a silent background cameo (seated on a ledge outside Palantine’s campaign office), but the second is as one of Travis’s more unhinged fares, spouting a disturbing, misogynist monologue which undoubtedly contributes to Bickle’s already heavily affected and troubled persona. Scorsese stepped into the role after the intended actor sustained injuries prior to filming.

The psychological cracks widen

Whilst Bickle’s psychosis slow burn (narrated in diary form) toward the inevitable brain-snap is the movie’s tightening focus, it is the ultra-violent bloodbath at movie’s end that provides Taxi Driver with its piece de resistance (although Robert De Niro’s improvised “You talkin’ to me?” scene commands its own cult adoration). Dick Smith, special effects make-up legend, was hired to provide shocking authenticity to the brothel carnage, but ironically Scorsese was forced to desaturate the blood’s hue (making it look an odd pinky brown colour) in order to avoid an X-rating. It still packs a punch, especially the shocking .44 Magnum impact to the hand. Smith also made the famous Mohawk wig for De Niro (which I always thought was real!)

Kiss kiss bang bang

Taxi Driver continues to impress and fascinate; superficially as a date stamp of mid-70s New York City (Scorsese shot entirely on location), but more importantly Scorsese’s effortlessly fluid, but controlled and deliberate visual narrative that never once feels contrived, yet sustains the tension of a crouching tiger, a sleeping cobra, a lost soul at the end of his tether. Schrader’s story wraps up with a curious epilogue that has Iris’s father’s voice-over praise on Travis Bickle’s rescue efforts while the camera drifts over newspaper clippings describing the gun-battle with the gangsters and his subsequent pedestal as urban hero.

But has this twist of fate actually happened, or is it just a figment of Bickle’s distorted imagination, a wish-fulfillment fantasy he’s projecting in the moments before his death as he sits on the sofa mortally wounded …?

Scorsese adds a coda to suggest otherwise: Travis Bickle back behind the wheel of his safety net, his trusty checkered cab, on the dark crowded streets of the big rotten apple, and low and behold, into the back seat climbs Betsy. The vibe is awkward; she acts aloof, “Travis I’m … How much was it?” Travis replies, “So long”, as he clears the meter. She gets out, he drives off, but something catches his eye in the rear-view mirror and Travis does a double-take …

We’ll always wonder just what was it that caught the paranoid eye of God’s lonely man, perhaps it’s best we never found out …

Here's the trailer:

You talkin' to me?

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Piranha (2010)

August 26th 2010 01:53

Wow! Alexandre Aja’s 3D remake (his second after the excellent The Hills Have Eyes) of Joe Dante’s Roger Corman-produced Piranha (1978) is sensational! It’s a spectacular piece of super-trash, an adult cartoon; hard candy for the horrorphiles. If you like your gore extreme, if you (shamelessly) dig gratuitous female nudity, if you appreciate a slick, severed-tongue-in-cheek indulgence in All-American pop culture dumbness directed by a young talented European, Piranha (2010) is the flick for you.

Elizabeth Shue as Julie

There is very little of John Sayles original screenplay that Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg have incorporated into their script. There’s still a lake and there’s still mutant fish (well, sort of). The original resort and summer camp has been changed to Spring Break celebrations. And that’s about it. The original movie featured popular B-movie actors from the 60s and 70s (Barbara Steele, Bradford Dillman, Paul Bartel, Dick Miller, Kevin McCarthy, Heather Menzies), so Aja has filled the remake with several well-known character actors, such as Richard Dreyfuss, playing Hooper from Jaws (1975), Elizabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, Dina Meyer, plus a cameo from Eli Roth (as wet t-shirt host), and Jerry O’Connell channeling Joe Francis, the mogul behind the Girls Gone Wild porn site.

Piranha 2010 Steven R. McQueen and Jessica Szohr

Steven R. McQueen as Jake and Jessica Szohr as Kelly

The premise to the remake is stupidly simple: earthquake beneath Lake Victoria, Arizona, opens a huge crevice on the lake bed which when explored by Sam (Ricardo Chavira) and Paula (Dina Meyer) reveals a massive cavern and thousands of prehistoric piranha spawn. Unsurprisingly, neither of the marine biologists survives, but one of the ferocious fish is captured and taken to Mr. Goodman (Christopher Lloyd) who is more than a little fascinated

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Zombies of Mass Destruction

August 25th 2010 05:44

It’s zombie snigger time! “A political zomedy” reads the tagline. It tries hard; it bites and tears a-plenty, but ultimately it shoots itself in the foot. I’d be tempted to shoot it through the head and put it out of its misery. Zombies of Mass Destruction (2009) isn’t the worse zombie comedy I’ve seen, there are puh-lenty of those crapozoids out there littering the DVD shelves. But ZMD is nowhere close to the calibre of Shaun of the Dead (2004), it’s not even on the same level as Zombieland (2009).

Janette Amand as Frida

ZMD is an indie flick, the debut feature from former boom operator Kevin Hamedani who directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Ramon Isao. The movie is a essentially a satire (but not a very good one) on American foreign affairs and homophobia dressed up in zombie shenanigans as a metaphor for all the conflict and prejudice imposed upon the gay folk and Middle Eastern immigrants who proudly call America their home. The majority of the jokes are pitched at homosexuals and Iraqis and Iranians. The other gags are indirectly referenced to zombie movie culture, like when son reminds dad that a zombie bite will lead to infection, “Haven’t you seen any zombie movies?!”, and dad replies, “You know I’m a vampire man!” … Mildly funny.

Doug Fahl as Tom and Cooper Hopkins as Lance

What did impress me was the high level of gore, even though much of it wasn’t actually horrific, but over-the-top: geysers of blood from chomped necks, arms being torn off at the slightest yank, zombies chewing on their own eyeballs, a guy having his face peeled off like a cheese wrapper, impalement, dismemberment, and the proverbial gut-munching. Special effects supervisor Tom Devlin even gets the movie’s opening credit. Other credit – zombie gore and effects – goes to Kristoffer Larsen. It’s a solid mix of CGI and gooey prosthetic work, and the blood is a convincing hue and consistency too

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La Horde (The Horde)

August 23rd 2010 05:33

Gallic flesh tearin’ zombie mayhem! The Horde (2009) is a blood-soaked carnival ride; all loud noise and ferociously exhilarating. For a screenplay co-written by four people, there’s not much plot; several cops on a vengeful mission to free a kidnapped colleague end up in a derelict apartment high rise on the outskirts of Paris. After the initial confrontation and conflict with the murderous criminals who had taken their friend hostage, a more serious problem presents itself: the dead are returning to life and are possessed with a ravenous appetite for human flesh. The zombie plague is upon us once again!

Eriq Ebouaney as Ade

The Horde packs a lot of action and carnage into its 90-minute running time. And there’s a fair amount of running too. These zombies are of the Dawn of the Dead (2004) remake kind: they don’t shuffle around like George Romero’s sluggish undead, they run like motherfuckers and wail like hounds from hell. They want your guts and they want them now! Co-directors Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher don’t pull any punches; they go for the jugular and rip the throat out. Like [REC] (2007), the ghoulish situation is presented as a claustrophobic nightmare, with lots of handheld camerawork and low lighting

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Dressed to Kill

August 19th 2010 23:13

It’s been thirty years since Brian De Palma released his giallo-inspired, blatantly Hitchcockian assault on the senses tagged as the latest fashion in murder. Dressed to Kill (1980) excited and offended audiences when it was released and had to be trimmed considerably in order to avoid an X-rating in the US. It was one of my early “adult” movie experiences (as it had been rated R18 in NZ) which I watched with mates on VHS (back in those glorious pre-cert video days). Later I scored a full-size poster, which is still one of my favourites. The movie hasn’t exactly aged like fine wine, but there’s still much to savour.

WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS!
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Wilderness

August 19th 2010 01:06

British juvenile delinquent bullies push things too far and as a result a young prisoner commits suicide. The ward of seven boys is subsequently sent off in an officer’s custody to a nearby, supposedly, uninhabited island for intense character building. On the island they are hunted by an unseen killer armed with a powerful crossbow and a pack of ferocious, man-eating Alsatians. Who will be left and what will be left of them?

Written for the screen by Dario Poloni, who has penned Christopher (Creep, Severance, Triangle) Smith’s new period nightmare Black Death (2010) and directed by Michael J. Bassett, Wilderness (2006) offers nothing new in terms of plot and character, in fact it’s more obvious as an amalgam of Lord of the Flies (1965), Deliverance (1972), Scum (1979), and Southern Comfort (1981). Its strengths lie in the decent performances, the brisk pacing, and the execution of violence. However this is a tough, demanding picture because there are few characters that aren’t obnoxious or arrogant or both

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The Hitcher

August 13th 2010 00:57

It’s Friday the 13th. It’s Horrorphile’s birthday tomorrow. Time to review one of my favourite movies, up in my top twenty of all time, and one that’s been there since I first saw it at the cinemas. The Hitcher (1986) is a ferocious beast unto itself. Written directly for the screen by Eric Red and directed by Robert Harmon. This was Harmon’s feature debut, having worked as a still photographer on Fade to Black (1980) and Hell Night (1981). It was Eric Red’s first feature script, and he’d write one other top-notch screenplay, made the following year, Near Dark (1987). Red claims inspiration for The Hitcher came from The Doors’ Riders on the Storm.

C. Thomas Howell as Jim Halsey

Teenager Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) is doing a driveaway; a car relocation from Chicago to San Diego. It’s dark and he’s tired, nodding off at the wheel, dangerous stuff. It’s raining heavily which doesn’t help. Then out of the shadows, thumb extended, drenched, is a man, a hitchhiker. Halsey recognises this as a golden opportunity to prevent him from falling asleep, without having to pull over and lose time. He picks up the stranger, immediately announcing that his mother told him never to do this, and then introduces himself. The suspicious-looking character turns and smiles, “John … Ryder”.

Rutger Hauer as John Ryder

Ryder (Rutger Hauer) is soft-spoken, brooding, calculated. Halsey asks where Ryder’s going, but the man avoids answering. Ryder can sense Halsey’s trepidation, but he’s in the car now, Halsey will just have to deal with it. They drive on into the long, cold, dark, slippery night, passing a car with its lights on, but seemingly abandoned on the side of the road. Halsey slows down, but Ryder clamps his hand on Halsey’s thigh forcing him to accelerate past. Now Halsey is on edge and wants Ryder out. But Ryder plays the out-of-gas card and Halsey swallows the bait

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Hellbound: Hellraiser II

August 12th 2010 01:14

Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) might have survived the carnage at her uncle’s Frank (Sean Chapman)’s house, but she still ends up in the psychiatric ward of Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham)’s Institute. Lucky for her boyfriend Steve he was discharged before the movie even began, obviously the demon encounters at the end of Hellraiser (1987) did little to mess with his mind. Kirsty, however, will need to experience Hell for a little longer before she’s released. Poor girl, it seems the Cenobites were right when they told her “We have eternity to know your flesh …”

Ashley Laurence as Kirsty

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) was greenlit even before Hellraiser had been released. New World Pictures knew they had a hit on their hands and that there was more diabolical earth to exhume, more filth to spill, more flesh to corrupt. Clive Barker made it clear he wasn’t interested in returning as screenwriter and director, but would act in an executive producer capacity and provide the basic story elements. Peter Atkins was brought on to script, and Tony Randel, who had been an uncredited editor on the first movie, took over the directing duties.

Hellbound Clare Higgins and Kenneth Cranham

Clare Higgins as Julia and Kenneth Cranham as Dr. Channard

Hellbound describes Kirsty’s adventures in the Labyrinth, the tale of the Channard Cenobite, and Leviation, Lord of the Labyrinth, the God of Flesh, Hunger and Desire. Ripe in her confusion, luscious in her pain, Kirsty mistakes Frank’s message in blood scrawled across her hospital wall “I’m in Hell, help me” as her father’s. She’s determined to free him. Meanwhile Dr. Channard, a brilliantly deranged surgeon, takes matters into his own hands when he learns of Kirsty’s recent involvement with the Lament Configuration. He instructs authorities to release the blood-stained mattress from Frank’s house (the one Julia was destroyed on) into his care, as it might hold clues to Kirsty’s mental rehabilitation. The mattress is deposited at Channard’s home

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Hellraiser

August 12th 2010 00:46

Shortly after Clive Barker published his six volumes of short stories, The Books of Blood he published his first novel (The Damnation Game), and then followed it with the novella The Hellbound Heart, a most succulent and succinct piece of nightmare prose. It was this phantasmogorical and diabolical inner darkness, where sadomasochists emerged from beyond the grave, which was then adapted (semi-faithfully) for the screen and directed by the demon writer himself Clive Barker, and Hellraiser (1987) was unleashed upon the modern horror world.

Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman), an impulsive and violent man, eagerly purchases an arcane box, somewhere, in the back lanes of Morocco. In the privacy of his abode he studies the puzzle in front of him. It appears to be some kind of device and Frank runs his fingers over its esoteric design. It comes alive, parts move, shift, and re-adjust. The puzzle has been solved, the Lament Configuration completed. Chains shoot out from nowhere and hook themselves into Frank’s flesh. He screams out in agony

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Tenebre (Tenebrae)

August 11th 2010 02:16

“There was only once answer to the fury that tortured him …”

When Dario Argento announced he was beginning production on a new movie early in 1982, many critics and fans assumed he would be telling the story of the Mother of Tears, and completing the third part of the trilogy which had began with Suspiria (1977) and followed with Inferno (1980), but instead Argento wanted a break from the supernatural realm, and had decided to return to his roots: the giallo
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The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

August 10th 2010 01:57

I saw this strange and spooky gem late one night on television by myself. The Sunday Horrors was the name of the show, a popular showcase in New Zealand during the 80s. It creeped me right out, yet didn't possess any dark supernatural element nor any graphic violence, not even scary music. It just got right under my skin and crept into the back of my mind where it lay in wait, occasionally reminding me of its unusual, unsettling presence.

Based on his novel and adapted for the screen by Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976) is a rare and tenebrous nightmare. It operates with the stark and minimal efficiency of a stage play, yet never feels restricted by any of that medium’s trappings. There are only five main speaking parts, and essentially only one location, yet director Nicolas Gessner moves the camera just enough to give the viewer a sense of freedom within the confines set by the narrative. Yes, the visual style does feel a little like a television movie, but not like any television movie you’ve ever seen before or since

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Straw Dogs

August 9th 2010 03:31

At surface level a powerful study of violence both implicit and explicit, but under the bruised skin, Straw Dogs (1971) is a complex and disturbing morality play that poses far more questions than answers. It provokes and outrages, yet by the end offers only slight reward, leaving a bitter taste of copper, and the acid after burn of contempt. After the assault on the senses that is the siege of Trencher’s farm, empathy is left in a ruinous state, humanity has been torn asunder, and faith in relationships is left as fragile as eggshells.

Dustin Hoffman as David

Two years prior director Sam Peckinpah had delivered one of the great, uncompromising Westerns, The Wild Bunch (1969), a ruthless, indulgent portrait on male self-righteousness, bravado and violent machismo. It was a farrago of raw energy and moral corruption, and it polarised audiences. Peckinpah then took his dark fascination with the human spirit and society’s innate misanthropy to a deeper, more insular level. Straw Dogs would tear apart all notions of love and trust, of jealousy and desire, and of man’s acumen for violence.

Susan George as Amy

Based on the novel, The Siege of Trencher’s Farm by Gordon Williams and adapted for the screen by David Zulag Goodman and Peckinpah, Straw Dogs tells the story of meek and mild David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), an American mathematician who, with his pretty young wife Amy (Susan George), has moved from the States back to Amy’s home of Wakely, a small village on the coast of England, where she grew up. They’ve bought an old farmhouse up on the hillside that needs repairing, so David has hired a few of the local handymen, so that he can concentrate on his treatise on celestial navigation (“astro-mathematic structures of stellar interiors

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The End

August 6th 2010 01:45

The East End of London was once riddled with criminal behaviour, and it still is, but the original characters have gone. The End (2008), a fascinating documentary by Nicola Collins, spins the yarns and spills the beans of the cockney gangster told coldly, bluntly and dead honest. Using her father, Les Falco, as a starting point, she interviews him and ten of his associates; Mickey Taheny, Bobby Reading, Danny Woollard, Victor Dark, Matt Attrell, Mickey Ganella, Jimmy Tibbs, Alan Mortlock, Mickey Goldtooth, and Roy “Pretty Boy” Shaw, an unlicensed fighter gifted with the power of the punch.

Les Falco, dad

Boy, do these guys have stories to tell! They’re all aged roughly between 40 and 60, all grew up in the sound of Bow bells, the East End, and were involved in the underworld from an early age, whether it be stealing, debt collection, or enforcing (“I thought of myself as a Robin Hood, everyone else saw me as a robbin’ bastard!”), these tough-as-nails cons (they’ve all served time at one point or another, some only a few months, others, like Roy Shaw, nearly twenty years) have never really seen themselves as “gangsters” (although some of them don’t mind the title), but only as a part of society that has struggled through the extreme poverty that existed around WWII trying to make a better life for themselves.

Alan Mortlock, fight promoter

There’s a code they live by, a code of honour, and it is this rule of thumb that has enabled all ten of these men to still be alive now. It’s old school and very simple: don’t grass (dob your colleagues in, or become an informer). At school if you left an apple core for someone, they were yer mate. A true cockney would give away his asshole and shit through his ribs for ya. That’s serious loyalty, right there. One of the Mickeys smirks, “We don’t take life seriously, we just take life.” They all enjoyed their time on the wrong side of the law, and most of them don’t have any regrets, except getting caught and doing time. They all describe prison life as hell, and many would commit suicide, or got killed inside

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Bliss

August 5th 2010 03:22

Australian director Ray Lawrence made a significant impact when his adaptation of Peter Carey’s award-winning novel, Bliss, was released in 1985. It’s screening at the Cannes film festival was disastrous with major walkouts. Lawrence subsequently re-edited the movie, cutting out twenty-odd minutes. The theatrical release went on to win several AFI awards, but it polarised audiences. In twenty-five years since it’s garnered a modest cult following and is considered an Australian classic, if perhaps a rather difficult one to digest.

Barry Otto as Harry Joy

Harry Joy (Barry Otto in a career performance) seems to have it all; his loving family consists of wife Bettina (Lynette Curran), son David (Miles Buchanan), and daughter Lucy (Gia Carides). He runs a successful advertising agency with partner Joel (Jeff Truman), and his family live in a large beautiful home on the fringes of Sydney. But fate is about to deal Harry a rather cruel blow. He has a heart-attack on his front lawn and is clinically dead for four minutes. When his soul returns to his body and he’s undergone a bypass operation Harry’s life is far from normal

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True Blood (second season)

August 4th 2010 02:24

Things are heating up around the small Louisiana enclave known as Bon Temps, and it’s not just the humidity. Temperatures are rising, and in some cases the blood is boiling. The vampires are feeling the heat from the Fellowship of the Sun, a Texas-based Church run bunch of zealots who are determined to wage war on the foul and unnatural blood-suckers. Of course it’s Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), the plucky waitress from Merlotte’s Bar & Grill, and her old-fashioned undead lover, Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), and Sookie’s dumb hunk brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten), that become the most seriously embroiled. But being a small town and all, everyone is soon implicated in one fashion or another. Welcome back to the second season of the best soap opera ever, Alan Ball’s adaptation of Charlaine Harris series of romantic-horror novels, known to viewers as True Blood (2008-10).

True Blood Alexander Skarsgaard, Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer

Eric (Alexander Sakrsgaard), Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Bill (Stephen Moyer)

The determined agenda of the Fellowship of the Sun might be of concern, but there is something much darker weaving its magick through the minds, bodies and souls of Bon Temps residents; the mythological desires of Maryann Forrester (Michelle Forbes), who sets up camp at Sookie’s house and causes all manner of grave concern. Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) seems to be the focus of Maryann’s bigger picture, but Tera Thornton (Rutina Wesley) and her new lover Eggs (the impressively-built Mehcad Brooks) who Maryann has in the palm of her hand are also feeling Maryann’s formidable power.

Ryan Kwanten as Jason

Nelson Ellis as Lafayette

Like any soap opera True Blood weaves multiple sub-plots in and around each other with its ensemble cast. Each episode immediately follows the previous and ends in a small medium or large cliffhanger. The pool of writers and directors has a distinct blue-printed style to follow, but each employ their own subtle nuances. I’ve not read any of the novels, but apparently they television series is quite faithful to the books, if perhaps upping the ante on the blood and other bodily fluids. Of course this is what makes the show so sensational and memorable; the sex and the death. Even Alan Ball’s previous creation, the superb Six Feet Under, didn’t harness the same level of sexual intrigue and mortality, despite it being about a dysfunctional family operating a funeral home. The vampire undead have always conjured a high level of sex appeal, so it makes sense

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The Descent: Part 2

August 3rd 2010 02:49

If there’s one movie that did not warrant a sequel, it’s Neil Marshall’s masterful nightmare The Descent (2005), one of my favourite horrors of the past twenty years. But following its huge box office success, in particular the US version (which featured an alternate "upbeat" open-ending), producers decided a sequel would be a sure-fire hit. Marshall remained in an executive producer capacity, and Jon Harris, the editor of both movies, took up the directing duties. J. Blakeson, the writer/director of the excellent The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009), and James McCarthy were brought on board as screenwriters, with James Watkin, writer/director of the very good Eden Lake (2008) working on it as well.

Shauna MacDonald as Sarah

Well, they botched the screenplay up real nice. But it’s not just the lame screenplay that makes this movie so mediocre; it’s the overall cheap look of the movie, the less-than-impressive performances, and the stupid-as-hell ending (which, of course, sets up the possibility of another movie). Director Harris has no style, the gore effects are compromised by very fake-looking blood that has the consistency of water and the colour of bright ketchup, and the production design (the caving system) has none of the authenticity of the original, despite the same talented designer (Simon Bowles) on board. As for the ridiculous amount of light underground that renders all the torches essentially useless (yet are still used by everyone), dear, dear, dear ...

Vaines (Gavan O'Herlihy), Sarah, Cath (Anna Skellern), Rios (Krysten Cummings), Greg (Joshua Dallas) and Dan (Douglas Hodge)

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Session 9

July 27th 2010 23:18

Director Brad Anderson’s impressive debut feature, Session 9 (2001) deals with the slow-burn wrath of insanity, the pickled psyche ruined by the error of one’s ways, aggravated by circumstance and surroundings … and possessed by something beyond the realm of the natural. Session 9 is a chamber piece superbly acted and directed and shot on an expertly realised low-budget. Anderson would go on to direct another impressively disturbing portrait of madness and despair, The Machinist (2004) starring Christian Bale. Although Session 9 doesn’t have the slick look of the follow-up feature, it’s drenched in an assured command of atmosphere and dread, enough for a half dozen features.

David Caruso as Phil

Danvers State Insane Asylum, Massachusetts. Phil (David Caruso) and Gordon (Peter Mullan) take on the job of asbestos removal from the mental hospital, a massive building which has been closed since the mid-80s. They recruit three others to help; Mike (Stephen Gevedon), Hank (Josh Lucas) and young Jeff (Brendon Sexton III). If they get it down in a week they each get a $10,000 bonus. Game on.

Peter Mullan as Gordon

Stephen Gevedon as Mike

During lunch break on the first day Mike spills the beans on the building’s closure: a demonic possession and sex-abuse scandal which involved a patient by the name of Mary Hobbes. This story places a quiet shroud of dread over the group. Further complications arise with Gordon’s preoccupation with his wife and baby; a breakdown in the marriage and Phil’s concern over Hank’s liability (and resentment that Hank stole his girlfriend). It doesn’t help that Mike discovers the taped doctor’s interviews with Mary Hobbes, and having done law school he can’t help his fascination, so secretly starts making notes. Meanwhile Hank uncovers a hidden stash of valuable old coins stashed in a crumbling wall and sneaks back after dark to loot. Instead he’s confronted by something else

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Coffin Rock

July 27th 2010 01:13

Jessie (Lisa Chappell) and Rob Willis (Robert Taylor) are married and living in a small fishing community charmingly known as Coffin Rock, in South Australia, probably not too far from Adelaide. They are a happy couple if perhaps a little on edge. You see they’ve been trying to conceive for a while now without much luck. Jessie’s feeling desperation scratching at her biological door, and Rob’s feeling the pressure. Enter young Evan (Sam Parsonson), a drifter from the city looking for work, but as it becomes quickly apparent, looking for love, and not just love from anyone, he’s looking for love from Jessie. He’s taken quite a shine to her; a shine with the dark gleam of the psychologically unhinged.

Lisa Chappell as Jessie

Coffin Rock (2009) is the debut feature from writer/director Rupert Glasson and it’s a solid little horror-thriller indeed. Great cast, taut script, and tidy direction, and if perhaps the movie loses steam during the last third, it’s still an entertaining, but familiar ride. This is your poor man’s Fatal Attraction, but still well worth investing 90 minutes into. The performances are uniformly strong, especially Lisa Chappell and relative big screen newcomer Sam Parsonson, who delivers a convincing portrayal of a man on the edge of the abyss and losing his footing.

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