HORSEMEN
(Review)

“And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, ‘Come and see.’”
-- Revelation 6:7


There are certain recurring elements that seem to be thrown at the viewer when the standard serial killer thriller/procedural is on hand: among them, some Bible bits, and a slew of disturbingly gruesome kills.
Se7en did it.
Millennium did it. A lot.
So it is that it takes quite a lot for me to get worked up over a serial killer thriller/procedural these days.
Now we’ve got Jonas Åkerlund’s Horsemen, which, admittedly, attempts to take the sub-genre a little further than it’s traveled before.


I’ve been following Horsemen’s trail for quite awhile now, tuning into the project after it looked like Jaume Balaguero was going to direct it for Platinum Dunes.
That ultimately didn’t work out though, and Horsemen instead fell into the lap of Åkerlund, whose last feature was the frenetic entry in the canons of drug cinema, Spun.
I rather liked Spun, so when news broke that Åkerlund was in the director’s chair, I was still determined to check out Horsemen.
And now that I have seen it, I must admit that while some of it works, some of it doesn’t.


Det. Aidan Breslin (Dennis Quaid) is a troubled cop whose specialty—forensic odontology—brings him to the fore of a case that quickly reveals itself as one where the perpetrators display a distinct fixation on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Cue Biblical bits (complete with expository chat with the neighbourhood priest, played by Paul Dooley) and disturbingly gruesome kills (courtesy of the awesome K.N.B. EFX).
Those aspects, and the view we get of Breslin’s struggles on the homefront, particularly his fractured relationship with teen son Alex (Southland Tales’ Lou Taylor Pucci), are what work in Horsemen.
There’s also an attempt to portray a complicated plan that’s compromised by the very human nature of its perpetrators; we eventually see where the scheme buckles, despite the intentions of its mastermind.


Where Horsemen doesn’t work though is in its underutilization of some very capable actors (among them, Clifton Collins, Jr. and Peter Stormare).
We get a fine performance from Patrick Fugit (who’d previously worked with Åkerlund on Spun), but it’s limited to a short portion of the film, playing almost like a vignette in the context of the entire narrative.
In fact, there are elements of the script (by Dave Callaham, who’s also written the script for Michael Cuesta’s Tell-Tale) that just don’t seem to reach any manner of resolution, among them, the subplot that involves Zhang Ziyi.
Then there’s that ending, which plays like such a Hollywood copout, the sort of ending that isn’t earned at all, but somehow feels tacked on.


Granted, the perpetrators have a point to make, motivations that transcend the usual psychopathology of your average movie serial killer, but in the end, Horsemen just doesn’t cohere as well as I’d hoped.
Disappointing, considering my fondness for Spun.
At any rate, Callaham’s script showed a certain level of ambition, so I can only hope that his screenplay for Tell-Tale (a contemporary update of Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Tell-Tale Heart") will likewise strive for something more than your average Hollywood horror thrills.


Parting shot: With Cuesta at the helm of Tell-Tale, my hopes for it rise even higher…

(Horsemen OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of bad-taste-it.)

THE CHILDREN
(Review)


As if the French weren’t bad enough, the holiday season gets yet another kick in the nuts in Tom Shankland’s shocking The Children.
And, as if to up the that’s-just-so-wrong ante, Shankland looks back to Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s ¿Quién puede matar a un niño? (Who Can Kill a Child?) and casts the eponymous wee ones as the film’s antagonists.
It’s a recipe for a tense and disturbing cinematic experience that leaves many other so-called “horror films” wondering where they left their teeth.


Rebellious teen Casey (Hollyoaks’ Hannah Tointon) is hijacked by her mum Elaine (Eva Birthistle, soon to be seen in David Keating’s upcoming Hammer Film, The Wake Wood) and stepda Jonah (The History Boys’ Stephen Campbell Moore) for a holiday weekend in the snowbound country home of her aunt Chloe (The L Word’s Rachel Shelley).
But it isn’t long before—amidst the shrill clatter of squealing children (including Chloe’s own)—it becomes glaringly obvious that this is not going to be one of those regular, interchangeable holidays.
Something’s wrong with the children.
Very wrong.


The premise—from a story by Paul Andrew Williams, writer/director of London to Brighton and The Cottage—is simple enough, but it’s in Shankland’s helming where this film asserts itself as a nastily effective yarn for those who’ve always suspected that all kids are just little devils in disguise.
Not only does Shankland have a rather good cast here (including the four child performers; hats off to the children’s acting coach, Jane Karen), he also has Nanu Segal as DP, Tim Murrell as editor (masterfully deploying the lightning-quick cuts where they’re most potent), and Stephen Hilton on music.
United by Shankland’s vision, Segal, Murrell, Hilton, and Karen, help in very significant ways, to bring The Children to the unsettling heights it manages to reach, and they make it all seem so effortless.
Neat trick, that.


For the record, if you haven’t yet figured it out, The Children is quite simply not for those who love-love-love the holidays and/or children.
This film is not for you.
Everyone else, if you’re in the mood for some unflinching horror—not so much in the French school of disturbo shock-and-grue, but rather in the narrative’s subject matter—then The Children is a timely and provocative title that should really be on your to-watch list. It depicts quite chillingly, in the best kind of horror film milieu, the deep-seated fear all generations have, of forced obsolescence, of being cruelly replaced by one’s progeny.

It should also go without saying (though I’m saying it anyway) that this should not be seen by the young ‘uns.
It could give them ideas…


Parting shot: Of the three Segal-shot films I’ve seen thus far (the other two being Paddy Breathnach’s Shrooms and Oliver Blackburn’s Donkey Punch), The Children is most definitely the best.

Parting shot 2: Reviews of The Cottage, The History Boys, and Shrooms can be found in the Archive.

(The Children UK quad and images courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

LESBIAN VAMPIRE KILLERS
(Review)

“It’s spelled A-D-V-N-T-U-R-E, my friend.”
“Christ, you’re a tit.”


It’s all right there in the title, innit?
The glorified send-ups of the B-movie romp—as exemplified by such films as James Gunn’s Slither and Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror—find a new recruit in Phil Claydon’s Lesbian Vampire Killers.
Here, there’s a little English village called Cragwich, with a curse laid down upon it by the dykey vampire queen, Carmilla (Van Helsing’s Silvia Colloca, who is now, by the way, Mrs. Richard Roxburgh; sign up for a movie single, and get a gorgeous wife out of it… brilliant!). As the curse goes, every village lass turns into a lesbian vampire on her 18th birthday.
But hope lies in Jimmy McLaren (Mathew Horne), the descendant of Baron Wolfgang McLaren III, who vanquished Carmilla once before. But in Jimmy’s blood also lies Carmilla’s one shot at resurrection.
And all we need for that, is a virgin.


Yup. It’s that kind of British horror-comedy.
And while it may not fulfill its promise as successfully as a Shaun of the Dead or a Severance, it’s nonetheless a sight funnier than efforts like The Cottage.
At the very least, there’s loads of hot women in this, so that’s got to count for something, yeah?

“Yup. Lesbian vampires.”
“How ridiculous.”
“No. Just another one of God’s cruel tricks to get on my tits. Even dead women would sooner sleep with each other than get with me, it would appear. But eatin’ me alive? Oh, no, that’s fine!”


Much of the film’s humour can be found in the funny, overweight sidekick figure, as essayed by Nick Frost in Shaun of the Dead, or to use an American example, Tyler Labine in Reaper.
In Lesbian Vampire Killers, that role is taken quite ably by James Corden (The History Boys’ Timms, who’s been previously paired with Horne on TV’s Gavin & Stacey and Horne & Corden). As Fletch, Corden gets away with most of the script’s winningest lines.
That said, the script (by Stewart Williams and Paul Hupfield) just isn’t as hilarious as I imagine it could have been, given the patently preposterous premise.


Still and all, it’s a bit of harmless, goofy fun (the sort of fun where lesbian vampire blood isn’t red at all, but rather, a milky white substance, looking much like gallons of… umm… err… never mind).
There’s also what could very well be a fleeting verbal nod to hentai classic, Chôjin densetsu Urotsukidôji. (I was hoping for a subsequent visual, but sadly, that never came to pass.)
So if that sounds to your liking, well then, check Lesbian Vampire Killers out by all means.
It may not be a classic by modern horror-comedy standards, but it does give it a good go.

“Lesbian vampires?!”
“Next time, he’ll have me bummed by a big, gay werewolf, I swear!”


Parting shot: Reviews of Severance, The Cottage, Slither, Planet Terror, and The History Boys can be found in the Archive.

(Lesbian Vampire Killers UK quad and images courtesy of empireonline.com.)

VINYAN
(Review)


Paul and Jeanne Bellmer (Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Béart) are a couple living in Thailand, still reeling from the loss of a child to a recent tsunami. But when a brief glimpse on a DVD offers the tantalizing hope that, just maybe, their son is still alive, the couple goes on a trying, soul-torturing odyssey to recover that which has been forcibly taken from them.
That’s Fabrice Du Welz’s Vinyan in a nutshell, and it’s another film from the Belgian writer/director that stretches the boundaries of the modern horror film.


As with Du Welz’s Calvaire, Vinyan is endurance cinema that doesn’t travel the usual Grand Guignol route, instead focusing on the mental and emotional tortures visited upon its unfortunate protagonists.
Anchoring the production are the raw, turbulent performances by Sewell and Béart, whose Bellmers are a husband and wife severely damaged by their loss. Guilt and grief weigh them down, Jeanne struggling to retain the belief that she will see her son alive again, while Paul can do nothing except stand by her.


Largely eschewing the blood-and-guts school of thought, Vinyan finds much of its horror in the minefield of emotions that lies between individuals who’ve experienced the brutal lashings of cruel fate. Amidst the turmoil of love and loss, Du Welz mines for the existential terror that dwells in the thin line separating hope from delusion.
Which is not to say that Vinyan is completely bloodless. It has its visceral moments as well, but it’s in the sweat-soaked, rain-drenched desperation, in the fragile mental state of the bereaved, that the narrative finds its most compelling elements.


Oh, and just so you know it isn’t all weighty matters at hand here, it’s also got Julie Dreyfus (Kill Bill’s luscious Sofie Fatale), and one Petch Osathanugrah looking like a crazy-a$$ anime character come to flesh-and-blood life.
And it’s shot by Benoit Debie, who also shot Calvaire for Du Welz, as well as Gaspar Noe’s infamous Irreversible. (There’s a seedy, neon-drenched, handheld sequence early in Vinyan that actually elicits vague echoes of Irreversible.)
What more could you want?


Once described by Du Welz as “a mix of The Brood by [David] Cronenberg and [Nicolas Roeg’s] Don’t Look Now,” Vinyan is a disturbing descent into the netherworld born from the anguish of loss.
It’s a potent sophomore effort from Du Welz that further solidifies his stature as a director willing and eager to test the limits of the cinematic envelope.
One wonders what could be in store should he decide to rip the envelope wide open…


Parting shot: Vinyan went up against the likes of Sean Ellis’ The Brøken, Kim Ji-woon’s Joheunnom nabbeunnom isanghannom (The Good, the Bad, the Weird), and Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs, for Best Film at Sitges 2008, though ultimately, Jennifer Lynch’s Surveillance took home the big prize.

(Vinyan French OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of carpenoctem.pl.)

VIKAREN
(THE SUBSTITUTE)
(Review)

Ole Bornedal first came to my notice with his 1994 thriller, Nattevagten, which I heard good things about back then, and which he then remade three years later as the English-language Nightwatch, with Ewan McGregor, Josh Brolin, and Patricia Arquette.
Having missed the original, I made it a point to check out the redux, and found it to be an interesting, but flawed effort. It felt compromised, which happens quite often with English-language remakes, even if the original’s helmer is still in place.
After 1997, Bornedal fell off my radar, till he screeched quite forcibly back with 2007’s Vikaren (The Substitute). Following a bunch of students who suddenly discover their teacher is an alien, Vikaren sounded, at first blush, like Robert Rodriguez’s The Faculty.
So here I was, with a film that not only brought my attention back to Bornedal, but also potentially felt like a vindication of the “my teacher is an evil alien” idea, which was largely squandered by The Faculty (a double disappointment, since it was a tantalizing team-up between Rodriguez and screenwriter Kevin Williamson).


Vikaren is perhaps most interesting in that Bornedal (with co-writer Henrik Prip, who also plays inept school psychologist Claus) chooses a tone which successfully mixes horror, black comedy, and bizarre humour, to produce an entertaining hybrid that’s miles better than The Faculty, and yes, is indeed a vindication of the “my teacher is an evil alien” idea.
Said evil alien is one Ulla Harms (Paprika Steen), who goes down as one of the most gonzo, politically incorrect, apparently hormonal substitute teachers in film history. A significant portion of the film’s humour stems from Steen’s performance, as she essays this inhuman entity who’s heretofore only known violence, but has arrived on Earth in order to learn about love.
Yes. Love.
But, being an evil alien, Ulla naturally just goes about things the wrong way, almost instantly alerting her students to her otherness, and ultimately uniting these misfits long enough to take her extraterrestrial a$ on.

Another refreshing tack Vikaren takes is to have a bunch of young kids (as opposed to horny teenagers) as our protagonists. Trapped in a world of mostly clueless and ineffectual adults, who never listen when he really needs them to, Carl (then-newcomer Jonas Wandschneider) not only has to deal with a recent family tragedy, but also bring his classmates—some of whom don’t particularly like the “weird” kid—together to stop the alien’s insidious plans.
And while the film buckles in certain portions of its tail end (sudden leaps in logic and editing; a missed opportunity to highlight the class as a cohesive, empathetic unit), it’s still very much a wild and welcome ride that’s not quite like anything out there that comes readily to mind.
It’s oddball, yes, but it isn’t really the horror-comedy of titles like Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead or Christopher Smith’s Severance.
Actually, this feels closer to David Lynch territory. Sort of.


What must also not go unmentioned is the fact that, since the protagonists are essayed by child actors, the performances aren’t uniformly laudable.
There are some rough patches here, but nothing that can be considered a major stumbling block.
After all, Vikaren is all clearly in good fun.
Though I expected it to be more deadly serious than it turned out to be, Vikaren is nonetheless a title to be checked out.
At the very least, it’s loads better than The Faculty. (Yes, even without Famke.)

Parting shot: Almost as if to make The Faculty link even more overt, Vikaren also employs Faculty composer (and frequent Wes Craven collaborator) Marco Beltrami.


(Vikaren DVD cover art courtesy of wordpress.com; images and The Substitute DVD cover art courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

SPLINTER
(Review)

Polly Watt and Seth Belzer (Jill Wagner from TV’s Blade and Everything’s Gone Green’s Paulo Costanzo) are all set for camping, both looking forward to some anniversary sex under the stars. But when the tent defies their romantic intentions, they relent and head for the nearest motel, putting them on a collision course with another couple, and placing them on a path that will bring them to the Sherman gas station, and the gruesome thing that awaits there…


Toby Wilkins’ Splinter is a frisky blast of low budget horror that grabs you from the get-go (with a splendidly-edited opening, courtesy of David Michael Maurer), and introduces us to one of the freakiest cinematic beasties from 2008.
Wisely opting to utilize old school physical effects—by Quantum Creation FX—Wilkins amplifies the suspense and tension of the dire circumstances the film’s characters find themselves in as Splinter unspools.
If this had been some bigger-budgeted Hollywood horror flick, the monster might very well have been achieved with CGI, which is still usually a problematic option, as, a lot of the time, the pixels really don’t display any genuine physical presence. It’s hard to get worked up when the onscreen menace is clearly not having any actual interaction with the cast, as with, say, Francis Lawrence’s I Am Legend.
In Splinter, the creature is most definitely there, banging and scuttling and flailing about with the rest of the flesh-and-blood cast.*


But Splinter is more than just that horrible beast (co-designed by Wilkins); Splinter is also an involving narrative populated by characters with actual dimension, who surprise us with their humanity, and keep us involved by gaining our sympathy (some, more quickly than others).
Here, the headstrong characters occasionally show their vulnerability, the physically inept step up when the chips are down, and the apparently despicable… well, let’s just say even they’ve got their own story.
And while the cast (which includes Wristcutters: A Love Story’s Shea Whigham, who does a thoroughly bang-up job here) is to be commended for that vital grounding in an essential humanity, the film’s script—by Kai Barry and Ian Shorr—should also be noted.
There’re also some nice bits of scoring in here by Elia Cmiral, who also scored Jim Sonzero’s remake of Pulse.


With Splinter, Wilkins makes quite a shuddering first feature impression, enough that I’m actually driven to check out the straight-to-DVD The Grudge 3—which he also directed—despite my having been underwhelmed by Ghost House’s first two English-language installments. (Wilkins had already previously directed the Tales of the Grudge shorts.)
Here’s hoping Wilkins continues to fly the flag of earnest, low-budget horror in the future, even if he, like other indie horror helmers before him, crosses over into the majors.


* In light of Splinter’s decidedly lo-tech effects approach, it’s interestingly ironic to note that Wilkins is an experienced Inferno/Flame artist.

Parting shot: Reviews of Everything’s Gone Green, I Am Legend, and Wristcutters: A Love Story can be found in the Archive.

(Splinter OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; images courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

THE DEVIL’S CHAIR
(Review)

“I guess you’ve seen Hellraiser. I’m guessing you’ve seen all those kind of films. Pumpkinhead or whatever. That’s probably why you’re watching this now.”


Well, this one was interesting. I can’t say I completely love it, but it’s an intriguing piece of horror cinema nonetheless.
We open with the scathingly knowing narration of Nick West (Andrew Howard), as we’re treated to fragmentary glimpses of how this tale will end, before we’re quickly shown the foundation of Adam Mason’s The Devil’s Chair: Nick and his bird Sammy (StarStreet’s Polly Brown) are larking about the abandoned Blackwater Asylum, when they discover the eponymous chair, which becomes instrumental in Sammy’s apparent demise.


We’re never really certain what exactly happened—not yet, at any rate—but Sammy’s body is never found, and Nick’s crazed rantings about the chair land him in a functioning loonybin for four years, before he’s prematurely sprung by Psychology professor, Dr. Willard (David Gant, possibly familiar to some of you from Paco Plaza’s Romasanta, François Girard’s Le violon rouge, or Terry Gilliam’s Brazil).
Willard intends to write a book about Nick, about the incident and his delusions. Central to that book is Nick’s reactions to his return to Blackwater, in the company of Willard and a few handpicked students.


Right off the bat, we can plainly see the terrible Catch-22 here: if Nick is indeed a nutter, then the good doctor is returning to the scene of the crime with the lunatic murderer (something which is actually brought up by one of the characters early on in the film); if Nick is telling the truth, then there’s some weird supernatural shenanigans going on in Blackwater.
Either way, an abandoned asylum is the last place any sane individual would want to be in.
But Willard and academic company take the plunge, with Nick in tow, and The Devil’s Chair chronicles the results of that boneheaded decision.

“Look at this poorly written, badly acted bullsh!t! Is there any truth in this B-movie banality? No! No!
“There is no truth, my friends. Believe no one. Believe nothing.”


At its core, The Devil’s Chair is a fascinating look at the dichotomy of the traditional supernatural-tinged horror film and the more modern, grounded brand of endurance horror which finds its roots in Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes.
Nick’s voice-over, which runs the entire length of the film, serves as a sort of postmodern commentary on the on-screen action, adding another layer to the whole. Initially, this may at first seem to be a way to inject a Guy Ritchie-esque air about the proceedings (complete with freeze-framing the action so as to better punctuate Nick’s observations and opinions), but ultimately the narrative technique bolsters the climactic reveal.
It’s the non-linear narrative though, which could make or break it for an audience.

As it is, that opening montage pretty much telegraphs the film’s outcome; it’s all right there.
Given though that the third act eventuality was always in my mind, when Mason and co-writer Simon Boyes choose to let that particular shoe drop, it’s still a horrible, pivotal moment that subsequently drags the audience through the grueling, bloody climax.
And, potential deal-breaker though it is, the reveal is certainly more intrinsic to the material than, say, a plot flip like Haute Tension has.
Love or hate that curve which The Devil’s Chair takes, it’s undeniably part of the whole.


For my part, I’ll say this: You know those moments in a movie where you see another film that might have been, had the filmmakers chosen to go down a particular path?
Those instances when you exit the theatre and go, Why didn’t I see that movie, instead of what I was actually shown?
Well, in the case of The Devil’s Chair, I can safely say, I’m glad I didn’t see that movie, the one that was actually going on… What we do see of it is enough to drive the point home.
After all, in this day and age of extreme cinematic horror, there’s something to be said for the adage “A little goes a long way.”

“I tell you what, party people, you geeks and freaks, you bloodthirsty morons... F*ck you. Bring on the red parade.”


As potent a brew as The Devil’s Chair is though (with enough bravado to sneak a David Lynch moment in before the end credits), it’s not without its warts.
There may have been a tad too many of those aforementioned Guy Ritchie moments, and the voice-over did get contrived in some bits, and in one stretch, strangely derisive of the film’s intended audience.
I was also none too thrilled with the CGI bits.
And even though the borderline hammishness of Gant’s portrayal of Willard makes a little more sense by the time the film wraps up, it’s still a borderline hammy piece of acting that we need to endure for the length of the feature.


Still and all, it’s an effective piece that marks Mason as a name to watch in the future. (I’ve yet to see his previous film, Broken, though in the wake of The Devil’s Chair, I’m certainly looking forward to his next feature, Blood River, which reunites him with Howard.)
If you, like me, revel in the broad and dark spectrum that horror resides in, then The Devil’s Chair is a title that needs to go on your viewing list.
At the very least, it could open up some involved discussions of the different kinds of horror, and the particular personal preferences of any given horrorhound.

“Do you ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

Parting shot: Incidentally enough, having mentioned Ritchie, Howard had a role in his underappreciated Revolver.

(The Devil’s Chair OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; images courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com & shocktillyoudrop.com.)