Machete (2010)

WANT.

Drag Me To Hell (2009)

Drag Me To Hell (2009) was directed by Sam Raimi and stars Alison Lohman.

Now, I saw this movie well over a month ago. I really enjoyed it, yet I haven't been able to write anything coherent about it. It seems to just evade my grasp.

Raimi's gruesome glee is there in full force. There are scenes of absolute horror-comedy disgustingness you can't help but be swept along, such as the first fight between the gypsy woman and Christine. The gypsy woman loses her teeth at one point, and basically ends up gumming Christine's face. My immediate reaction was "Awesome!" and there were many moments that captured the joy of Evil Dead (1981).

But then... You could SEE the end coming from a hundred miles away. As soon as she puts the cursed button in an envelope identical to the one she gave her boyfriend, you KNEW what was coming. I just... this doesn't ruin the movie, it just... I can't decide. The fumbling bits would not have bothered me in ANY OTHER MOVIE, but from Sam Raimi...

Just...
B

Kick-Ass!

School has taken over my soul for the last few weeks, but I'll be back soon with a review of Obsessed (2009) and maybe Skeleton Key(2004), finally?

But for now, I bring you: Kick-Ass.


All you need to know is that it involves an eleven year old assassin named Hit Girl. You know where I'll be Opening Night.

-DR

The Last House on the Left (2009)

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The Last House on the Left is a remake now in theaters, featuring Garrett Dillahunt and Sara Paxton. The original was filmed in 1972. Both were produced by Wes Craven.

There was never any way this remake could ever exceed or even accurately reproduce the original. The 1972 version is a classic, but also a relic of its era, much like many other exploitation flicks, such as I Spit on Your Grave (1978) or Cannibal Holocaust (1980). These movies typify a certain gritty "reality" aesthetic that can't be sincerely reproduced.

The closest we come is Grindhouse (2007), which is intended as a homage and does an excellent job, but is irreconcilably different from its source material in that it is deeply ironic. It seems now, post Scream (1996), everything MUST be presented with a smirk in order to be taken seriously, as contradictory as that may seem. This can work quite well, such as in Behind the Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon (2006), but often this ironic winsomeness can choke the true terror out of a movie, leaving just a shell of self-satisfied hipness behind.

With the kitchy over-the-topness of exploitation movies pretty much ruled out, all that is left to work within is the Eli Roth School of Torture Porn. While both categories use about the same amount of gore, Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005) have somehow gotten a reputation for depicting much worse acts onscreen, I think mostly as a result of self-promotion.

This version of Last House has fallen onto the Saw bandwagon, like most modern horror movies. The unpredictable, almost dangerous edge of the original has been replaced by startlingly real effects that are nonetheless a bit lifeless.

One thing I have to address is the microwave scene. When I went to see this movie, people cheered and walked out saying how AWESOME and HARDCORE and GNARLY that had been, that the father paralyzed the main killer, then exploded his head in a microwave. As I listened, I wanted to tell them to see the original or Dead Alive (1992) or basically any classic gore fest, then come back and tell me what they thought of that scene.


It felt tacked on to me, like someone decided the last day of shooting that there wasn't enough gore, so they shot another few minutes for the end, so they wouldn't have to change the continuity. Not to be a party pooper, but a microwave wouldn't WORK if the door was still open, and anyway, why would he go through all the trouble of paralyzing the killer if he was just going to kill him immediately? It just felt poorly thought-out, and seemed too much like pandering for my taste.

Despite all my grumblings, however, there were some improvements over the original. For one, the levels of gore throughout were more even. In the original, as in many Revenge movies, especially I Spit on your Grave, the rape and torture scenes are often much, much worse than the revenge, so much so that one often feels cheated for the main character. If someone was brutalized for the first half of a movie, one would expect much more by way of revenge than just shooting their torturer a few times. The new version is much better about this, up until the very end.

In fact, the gore was quite good, especially in the second half. The garbage disposal scene, in which someone's hand is ground to pieces, actually made me feel a bit queasy. All of the actors, except for Sara Paxton as Mary, were excellent as well. Everyone gave it their all, screaming and flailing with the best of them, but at times Paxton looked lobotomized. She is literally expressionless as her friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac) is tormented and ultimately stabbed. I know she was supposed to planning her escape, but it got a bit ridiculous.

Also, I found it unusual that Craven changed the ending, allowing both Mary and the son of one of the killers, Justin (Spencer Treat Clark), to live. It even felt at times as if they were trying to imply the potential for a relationship between them! Would a girl who was raped and almost killed really go for the demented, sullen offspring of her attacker? Most likely not, I would think.

Besides this, their survival puts a completely different spin on the plot overall. Rather than the revenge of desperate parents, it becomes just another aspect of escape, a necessary evil more than the result of rage, and therefore much less effecting.

Overall: C

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

Repo! The Genetic Opera was written, directed by and features Terrance Zdunich. This movie stars Paris Hilton, Anthony Stewart Head (who played Giles in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series) and Sarah Brightman.

First of all, Sarah Brightman?!? I though she'd be much too... classy for this movie. However, she did a great job as Blind Mag, and her voice really shines against the more modern styles of the other actors.

Overall, this is an amazing movie. Seriously. The lyrics and plot may be a bit weak at times, but the sheer over-the-top lunacy of the movie makes it a wonder to watch. It's like Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise (1974) in that it exists more as a spectacle than a story.

Also, it's worth watching to see Paris Hilton as a plastic surgery junkie whose face falls right off.

A+

Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009)

What a year 2009 will be for exploitation! This, Bitch Slap AND Repo: The Genetic Opera!

Baby Blues (2008)

Baby Blues was released in 2008 by Lars E. Jacobson and Amardeep Kaleka and stars Colleen Porch and Ridge Canipe.

I don't know what to think of the movie, exactly. It certainly took a rare kind of guts to make a slasher movie about Postpartum Depression, but that may not have payed off.

Baby Blues is, in fact, too heavily influenced by slasher films. This film could have been much more successful had it concentrated more on the mother's descent into her insanity and how her rage begins to manifest itself, like how Bug (2006) was set up, rather than parceling out a few faux-creepy/crazy scenes in the first few minutes before immediately segueing straight into the traditional stalk-and-kill second act.

Conversely, the slasher aspect could have worked had the movie not taken itself so seriously. I mean, the concept seems, to me, to be classic exploitation movie fodder, but by trying to be so SERIOUS and GRITTY, the movie lost what could have been a great example of bad taste. I mean, it IS a film about a mother murdering each of her children while spouting catchphrases such as "Come to Mama!" That's not exactly Highbrow Art Film material.

What makes exploitation movies great is their unapologetic and somewhat gleeful use of horrible situations, converting our deepest fears into something ridiculous we can goggle at. Without that sheen of hyperbole, the movie simply becomes uncomfortable to watch, and not in a thought-provoking kind of way. This is exactly the trap Baby Blues fell in to.

Also, without a mood of exploitation, the end of this movie seems jarring against the tone of the first two-thirds. The mother's survival, and the revelation that she is, in fact, pregnant again, seem a bit too "And the seemingly dead body sits up!" for my taste. Especially since the beginning of the movie worked so hard to retain realism, it feels cheap that she could have escaped, un-scarred, from a house fire to be taken back in by her husband, who then expects this relevation to sit well with his one surviving son. It's just too contrived.

Also, I understand the concept of Southern Gothic, but can't crazy people be from somewhere else every so often?

C

Bitch Slap (2009)

Who would NOT want to see this movie?