Saturday
Killing ground
Wolf creek has a lot to answer for. It feels like every other Australian film I see is about suburbanites out in the outback and running into rural psychopaths. That said its still a solid little film. It has an off kilter structure that's interesting and it delivers the suspense well. It has some horrid scenes but shy's away from the real nastiness and ends up landing itself a 15 certificate. Worth checking out if you get the chance but I wouldn't brace yourself for any real originality.
Sound from the deep
A 30 minute short from Finland. This one has a research vessel looking for gas deposits encounter a strange sound from the ocean floor. As they track the noise crew members begin going mad and what they ultimately find is pure cosmic horror.
The sad thing with short films like this is that they eventually disappear into the ether. Especially sad with this as its probably one of the best attempts at delivering pure Lovecraftian horror to the screen that I've seen. Keep checking youtube and places like that because this really needs to be seen.
Replace
A young woman finds herself stricken with amnesia and a really nasty skin condition that leads to extremely rapid ageing. She's being treated at a private clinic run by a sinister doctor (played by Barbara Crampton) who seems to have her own agenda. The woman discovers her own treatment however, that involves taking the skin from living victims to replace her own.
A new take on the vampire movie, with elements of Giallo pictures and Early Cronenberg. The Films biggest claim to fame is a script co-written by Richard Stanley. Its an interesting and stylish picture that some might find a little too icy for their tastes but I really dug it.
Fierce
A french animated short where an executive is kidnapped and dumped into a rural location. Here he's forced into a bloody game of survival against a mysterious man armed with a rifle. An interesting and nasty little film that hopefully will be available to watch again at some point.
Game of death
A group of idle, hedonistic teens are having a party when one of them discovers the 'game of death'. Thinking its a regular board game they all place their fingers on the board. The game then challenges them to kill 42 people or die themselves instead. The teens think its a joke at first but then one of their friends heads explodes and they realise they need to take it seriously. It then becomes a bloody, brutal and mean spirited road trip as the gang struggle with the decision to simply die or kill a bunch of innocent people. The film has a real comic book feel to it, not unlike the strange otherworldy media filtered tone of Oliver stones Natural Born killers mixed in with the almost misenthropic world view of Battle Royale. Worth checking out though.
Double date
I'm genuinely conflicted by this one. On one hand its gots got a sense of humour that in places is genuinely funny. The story, of a pair of hapless blokes going on a date with a pair of female serial killers who intend on using them as part of an occult rituals, is a decent one.
However the blokey lads mag humour feels a little worn with it not being the 90's and all. The main problem I had was a scene where a character that, for the rest of the film before and after is supposed to be seen as a mainly nice bloke, spikes the girls drinks. The film seems intent on playing this as a silly joke but its totally f**** up and really threw me out of the film. Certainly if you know someone who has been drug raped it might not be a wise idea to take them.
Leatherface
If you can disregard the film being a Texas chainsaw massacre film, then there is probably a fun road movie horror to be found here. Unfortunately its hard to divorce the two so it ends up feeling somewhat sub-par.
Partly it feels like a film that's been heavily tampered with. There's a feeling I had throughout that a better film exists somewhere but that the studios had zero confidence in it. Another problem is that the transformation of the seeming normal Sawyer boy into leatherface does not feel at all plausible as a fan of the 74' classic. There's an R-rating at the end which suggests there may be an unrated version. Its gory as it is but it would be interesting to see how more extreme it could get. Its better than part 4 and that 3D abomination. However The beginning which was the prequel to the remake (confusing!) was a better origin story. If you check it out, listen to the character names. It seems the writers were intent on creating some continuity between the four original saw films.
Fake Blood
What begins as a documentary on screen violence, moves into darker territory when they begin to look at interviewing people with real life experiences of violence. It morphs into a true crime documentary before the film-makers find themselves becoming drawn into the story.
A genuinely interesting mix of fact and fiction, the documentary draws on a lot of real life incidents to the point where its an actual debate over how much is real and how much is fake.
The Bride
A Russian attempt at doing something like insidious. A young Russian bride goes to visit her husbands family and discovers they are harbouring a dark secret. Its...ok. It does its job well enough but it suffers from a little of the carnival ride feel of the films its riffing on. It's still worth a look thanks to great set design and some nice moments but its no classic.
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