Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop  WITCHERY – 'Witchery' hails from late eighties Italy and stars David Hasselhoff and Linda Blair. If that isn't enough to recommend it, I don't know what is. It's about a house on a deserted island, the ghost of a movie star, and... well, even though it's pretty linear, I kind of lost track. Suffice it to say that, despite some boring bits, there are also enough instances of haywire Euro-weirdness to justify its existence in my eyes. I was particularly taken with the 'Dr Who theme sequence worm-hole effect' which happens when various victims are sucked into a demonic counter reality / dodgy film set where their lips are sewed together and where messed up hags taunt young pregnant woman by waving dessicated babies around. There's also a fairly obnoxious sex assault initiated by another dude with the lip-stitch problem. For me though, the film's shining moment was a bit right at the end which involves L Blair, D Hasselhoff, a child in peril and a Sesame Street cassette recorder. If I said much more, my mind would melt. 'Witchery' is not the pinnacle of Italian horror, and I sometimes wonder whether it's simple nostalgia which makes these things seem worthwhile to me, but if you're into this kind of stuff you'll probably like it.
COLLAR – Ryan Nicholson is the guy who did 'Gutterballs' and 'Hanger', pretty perverse movies which, along with most the rest of his oeuvre, laid out a characteristically sickly, grimy aesthetic. 'Collar' is his latest work. It continues in the same vain tonally, although seems a little slicker and maybe slightly less 'transgressive'. It's fair to say though that there's plenty of gore and sexualised violence rolling around in the gutter here. It's about a derelict guy who, having been traumatised by a priest, becomes a silent killer with ritualistic tendencies. Just to emphasise that he hasn't entirely got it in for the homeless, Nicholson gives us two villains in the form of middle class hipster types who go around filming bum fights for their website. In fact, there isn't a single likeable character in 'Collar', much to my relief. Visually slimy, the film captures back street vibes of decline very well, although its tawdry mise-en-scene is undercut (undermined?) by lurches into black humour which appeared a little arbitrary. Things also seemed a bit haphazard and rushed towards the end, although for me this simply added to its exploitative charm. 'Collar' will appeal to fans of nasty horror, and I liked it.
NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS – Dug out my old Shameless disc after I realised that I've never actually made it to the end of 'Night Train Murders' – this has less to do with the film than the fact I've always put it on when I've been drunk. I felt I at least owed it a sober run through. Not convinced this Italian rehash of 'Last House On The Left' does all that much for me, but it certainly has its plus points – the awful theme tune, the intensity of its mid-section, and its eye for social criticism. Maybe comparisons shouldn't be made, but I find the threadbare nihilism of LHOTL much more alluring, and NTM certainly doesn't have any of Craven's film's cold, reptilian drive. It's much better made though, and has a sharper socio-political brain – the bourgeoise are shown as both cause and effect of the film's violence. Not entirely my cup of tea, but interesting and well put together |