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Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
14 April 2020
It's Amateur Hour On Netflix
10 September 2019
What's Going Down In The Town With The Clown?
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16 July 2019
What A Massive Cult
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29 October 2018
I Dare You To Stay Awake During This Film
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10 September 2018
Bad Habits Die Hard
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18 July 2018
Don't Look Back In Anger
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14 June 2018
From Capitalist To Naturalist
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6 June 2018
The Sound Of Silence
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18 September 2017
King Of Clowns
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It tells the story of a creature that is tormenting the children of a town called Derry by taking the form of their biggest fears. Imagine a 1970's BBC presenter but that lives in the sewers and has slightly less embarrassing hair and you're basically there. A few years ago I got a little too stoned, downed a boiling-hot mug of hot chocolate, tried to tug myself off, felt ill because of the drink, accidentally fell asleep, and then woke up six hours later with chocolate caked around my mouth and my cock still in my hand. If I'd seen this shapeshifting monster as a child then I'm pretty sure that it'd have known my biggest fear and simply transformed into how I am now. Based on the 1986 novel by Stephen King, this film will forever join John Carpenter's The Thing on a list of titles that will sound like you're providing zero information to non-film fans that have just asked “What did you watch last night?” Or at least it would if it didn't seem like this film was already more popular than sliced bread, the Minions, and the concept of sending 'dick-pics'. When the first trailer for It went online it broke all records for the amount of views that it had, and, if how full the screening that I was in is anything to go by, the film will likely do very well at the box office. Although if the screening I was in is anything to go by then I'd like to ask the marketers to in future stop making their films seem so appealing to stupid fucking cock-munchers that can't sit the fuck still or shut the fuck up for a couple of hours.
6 November 2016
I Saw John Carpenter Live!
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17 September 2016
Alone In The Dark?
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23 September 2013
I Don't Like Human Beings
The story in itself is fairly simple to
explain... There's a misanthropic, mad scientist living in the woods who
decides to stitch three people together by attaching lips to bum holes. You
know how sometimes a film can be so bad that it becomes funny? Well, this isn't
like that. Even with that plot and
factoring in the inevitable shitting scene, the biggest problem with the movie
is that it's just so fucking boring. For a start, it hasn't even attempted to
be frightening, or if it has then it's failed miserably. Perhaps the problem is
that to feel fear you're kind of required to empathise with those being
terrorised and yet the main characters here are the most irritating mongtards
to have ever walked the Earth. From the moment the two idiot lead girls show up,
their voices begin to grate so badly that I was practically giddy when it was
time to sew up their fucking mouths. It's therefore down to the mad scientist
to hold our attention, but in the way that he torments his victims and despite
the bum related operation, he is ironically just an unwatchable pain in the
arse. We don't know his motivation and once he's stitched them together he
doesn't even do anything interesting with them. In the end, the only thing that's
remotely terrifying about him is his obviously freaky face although even that
was undermined when I figured out that he looked like a botox-free Cliff
Richard.
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| "We're all going on a Summer holiday!" |
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| Here the director expertly expresses fuck all about anything. |
So to conclude, it seems that the film
isn't gross, funny, scary or intelligent. It pretty much fails on every
possible level. There was this one time that I went for a piss in a McDonald's restaurant
when somebody noticed that one of the toilets was literally full of diarrhoea.
I'm not kidding when I say it was actually up to the very rim. It was then that
the dopey sod who'd found the mess decided it'd be a good idea to flush the
fucking thing. As water poured in, the obviously blocked toilet overfilled and
the shit flooded out. The knob-head who flushed it ended up coated in crap and
I stood there helpless and pissing as the lava-like puddle of turd crept
rapidly closer. I can only assume that the staff on duty would have earned
their exploitatively-low minimum wage that night. However that one moment
contained everything that this movie should have had but didn't. It was
graphically disgusting, traumatically suspenseful and fucking terrifying. I guess
to get across just how bad the film was we could use its own set-up as a little
analogy. Imagine three really bad films that are stitched together from mouth
to arse. Now feed the first one a lump of crap and then watch as it digests
through each of them becoming bigger and more stagnant until eventually being
shat out at the back. That final, massive uber-turd floating in an odorous
puddle like a tasty clagnut soup is literally about as much shit as The
Human Centipede was to watch. Also the title is kind of crap because
there's not enough people with enough legs to make up a centipede. If the film
did have a sense of humour then they should definitely have called it Kiss
My Arse!
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
8 July 2013
Wanna Play A Game?
Anybody who read last week’s blog will be
aware that I have recently seen Furious 6 for the first time and loved
it a little too much. After seven
days of intense medical investigations though, there is apparently nothing newly wrong with the contents of my head,
meaning my enthusiasm for a film which is obviously a pile of shit still cannot
be explained. Both Fast 5 and Furious 6 were directed by a chap
named Justin Lin who is either a full on intellect or the most human-looking
vegetable to ever step behind a camera. For anybody who missed last week’s waffling,
the conclusion was that these two films are so inventive and shocking in their
stupidity that there's a very small chance that they were made by a genius.
Sadly though, Lin will not be involved in Fast and Furious 7 meaning the
directing duties have fallen to somebody else. I guess he's either too busy
using his mind to solve our world’s biggest problems or more likely has had his
life support machine turned off after so long without any sign of brain
activity. Whatever the reason is though, the future of this enjoyably retarded
franchise now rests on the shoulders of director James Wan. I therefore decided
to refresh myself with his work and re-watch his breakthrough film, Saw.
The rest of this blog will be mostly
nothing to do with The Fast and The Furious franchise and so I'll confess to the tenuous link
between that intro and everything that's about to follow. But at the same time,
fuck it! I can't help but take any opportunity to bang on about that shitty
film series. Oh and The Rock, I didn't even mention The Rock... Argh God, I
need to focus... Ignore the distractions. Must crack on!
So- Saw opens with two strangers
chained up in a bathroom, unaware of how they got there and with a dead body
lying between them. Although my initial assumption would be a smack party with
Charlie Sheen, it turns out that something only slightly more sinister may be
taking place. A murderous psychopath is keeping them locked up and forcing them
to perform gruelling tasks in exchange for their lives. It's kind of like a more
adult version of the kids’ game show Fun House but instead of sliding
into gunge, you have to rip up somebody’s intestines before you get your head
snapped off. As the film progresses, we learn that the orchestrator of this
violent ordeal is some mysterious nutcase known only as 'The Jigsaw'. I guess
'Jigsaw” isn't the best alias for a serial killer but if you're going to name
yourself after a puzzle it's probably more intimidating than either 'Jenga',
'Boggle' or 'Kerplunk'.
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| Murtaugh finally hears the 'sugar tit's rant... |
At the same time as all this is going on,
Jigsaw is also being hunted by a slightly deranged Danny Glover. In many ways,
this film could be seen as a sequel to the Lethal Weapon franchise with Glover again
playing a reliable detective who’s just a bit too old for this shit. In this
film, Murtaugh may come across as a little on the mental side but let’s face it-
that's probably just a side effect of spending too much time with Mad Mel
Gibson. In regards to what Glover is hunting our villain for though, the very
obvious answer is ‘murder’. A friend of mine once told me that the clever thing
about Saw is in how the bad guy isn't actually a serial-killer because
he gets his victims to kill themselves instead. Well clearly that's a load of
shit isn't it, as he is very definitely guilty of some sort of homicide. If I
died of blood loss after being stripped naked and forced to crawl through a
maze of razor blades then I'd be seriously pissed off if it was then declared
that I was a victim of suicide.
As the two trapped men try to think their
way out of their situation, we're treated to several flashbacks that provide a
little context. I should point out that things are about to get a little
spoilerific so newbies might want to leave now. Although considering the film
is almost ten years old, I'm guessing you've probably either already seen it or
are just at a point where you really couldn't give a toss. Anyway, so of the
two men trapped in the bathroom, one is a photographer and the other a doctor
who is cheating on his wife. Apparently the reason they've both been chosen for
this is as a punishment for not valuing their lives. Although considering the
doctor has a loving family and a fuckbuddy on the side, I'd say he was enjoying
his existence as much as is probably possible. The theory behind this sadistic
game being that if they sum up enough will power to endure and survive all the
horrendous traps, then afterwards they'll have a new found appreciation of
life. It's kind of like that bit in Fight Club in which Tyler Durden
pulls a gun on a store clerk and encourages him to become a veterinarian but
stretched out over about ninety minutes. Generally when we see suffering, we do
our best to help the situation improve. This philosophy of making things
significantly worse before then just restoring the original grimness would
certainly make charities such as Aid For Africa an interestingly
different organisation.
However Fight Club in fact may not
be the only film directed by Fincher that Saw shares similarities with. Se7en
also seems to have been a direct influence too with both movies featuring a
sadistic but intelligent killer who punishes his victims in ways that are
supposed to mirror their sins. Contrary to what the franchise may have become,
I think Saw is more of a thriller than a horror and despite the sequels,
I actually do enjoy this film. It's suitably grim, interestingly structured and
has an enjoyable twist at the end. Again, spoiler alert, but... as it turns out,
the dead guy between the two chained up victims was actually Jigsaw all along
who for some reason was just having a bit of a mong-out down there. Considering
that all he had to do was lie down on a bathroom floor for the entire duration
this must have been the easiest acting role of Tobin Bells life and was
presumably written with a pissed up David Hasselhoff in mind.
Despite churning out about three hundred
sequels, I have only ever seen the first two Saw films. From what I hear
though, the franchise became increasingly more convoluted and dumb by quickly
descending into that crappy fad known as 'torture porn'. For anyone unaware
other examples of 'torture porn', might be Hostel, Final Destination and
One Night In Paris. The difference between Saw and Saw 2
though would be in that with the first, you wonder how the characters will
survive and with the second you wonder how they will die. Could I escape from
being chained up in a bathroom? Maybe. Could I hack up my own eye to remove a
key that will prevent my head from exploding? Not a fucking chance! Anybody who
seriously believes that Jigsaw isn't a serial-killer is clearly a fucking
idiot.
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| "Where's me tickling stick?!" |
As a film on its own though, I think the
first is pretty good. Sure it's reputation has been a bit screwed by the shitty
sequels, but perhaps it's not alone here. There's about a trillion entries in
the Halloween Franchise but that doesn't mean John Carpenter's 1978
original should be considered any less of a masterpiece. Not that I'm saying Saw
is a masterpiece although it does deserves some credit for adding a few
memorable creations to the genre. There's a creepy puppet thing that looks like
an albino Ken Dodd and a sinister Jackie Stallone/Pig Mask that have both since
become very minor icons over the last decade. I do question the believability
of some of the traps constructed by a man we're told is dying of cancer though.
When my Granddad was dying of emphysema, he spent most of his days watching
daytime TV and moaning. This fucker though has spent what looks like years
building an S & M wank-dungeon of joy. Still it's all good fun and nastily
inventive, so for this first film at least, I'll go with it.
So yeah- I guess I'll be interested to see
exactly what director James Wan does with Fast and Furious 7. The acting
isn't overly brilliant here, which is a good start. Everything is okay in the
beginning but the moment that actor Cary Elwes chops off his own foot, the rage
he conveys is a bit too much like a grumpy old man whose just noticed some kids
on his porch. There's also a fucking awful car chase that, although was clearly
done on a budget, is ridiculous looking enough that it shows the lack of
promise that I'm after. So yeah, Saw is pretty good and although not
nearly as amazing/shite as Furious 6, I think I'll still stand by my
claim that the seventh instalment will be the greatest film of all time.
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
21 October 2012
You Call That A Knife?!
Steve Irwin was a conservationist, and a proper
fucking nutcase, who spent his entire life caring for animals and then doing
his best to piss them off. There's no denying that the man knew his stuff
although even I'm aware that most creatures don't like being poked in the eye
for fun... and higher ratings. I don't mean to insult his television shows but
should an animal documentary really have so much in common with Jackass?
The only thing missing from The Crocodile Hunter was a beard of pubes
and a cast of bruised ball-sacks. I presume Irwin's risky method of teaching
was intended to prove that animals aren't simply monsters and so won't just
kill for no reason. Unfortunately however this lesson seemed somewhat
undermined when one of them decided to freak the fuck out and left him for dead
on a beach.
The irony of course was that of all the
creatures that he annoyed, the identity of his killer was both surprising and
anti-climactic. The man made a living from dry humping Crocodiles and pissing
about with snakes and yet in the end he was murdered while paddling with a
stingray. No offense to that odd looking fish but if the sea had vaginal flaps,
I strongly suspect they'd look alike. The fact that Irwin was killed by the
ocean’s equivalent to a meaty cape just goes to prove one thing- Australia is
fucking dangerous.
Wolf Creek was
a 2005 horror movie telling the story of a group of tourists who went missing
in the Australian outback. The film is allegedly “based on a true story”, which
technically isn't lying but only in a Bible-y sort of way. They're both
completely true unless you're after any facts or honesty at all. It's sort of
like how The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is based on the factual story of Ed
Gein who didn't live in Texas and didn't massacre anybody with a chainsaw. Not
that this is a problem by the way. Due to the films content, if it was based on a true story, Wolf Creek
would be horrifically exploitative and as morally sinister as R Kelly offering
to child-mind with a full bladder and a throbbing erection.
In a way, Wolf Creek is a film of
two halves with the first section being spent getting to know our three main
characters. The group consists of two British girls named Liz and Kristy and an
Aussie, surfer type dude called Ben. Liz and Kristy are played by two
Australian actresses who are about as convincing as Brits as George Lazenby was
when he played James Bond in OHMSS. In 1969 the only way 007 could have
seemed more Australian would have been if he'd killed Blofeld with a boomerang,
drank a can of Fosters, committed infanticide and then blamed it on a dingo.
Accent aside however, Liz and Kristy are
genuinely believable characters that I completely bought throughout. It's a
credit to them too, that after thirty minutes I also very nearly stopped
staring at the freakishly large stalactite chin attached to Liz's face. I don't
mean to make a big deal out of it but there was one point when, despite all
evidence to the contrary, I convinced myself Liz might actually be played by
Bruce Campbell. The third character of Ben was an Aussie played by an Aussie so
it's hard to criticise him. He's a bit of an idiot but not in an unlikeable way-
more in an adrenaline junkie kind of way. It's not that I dislike people who
surf in an ocean infested with sharks, it's just that the term, “adrenaline
junkie” is clearly the polite way of saying someone’s a knob-head. Oh and by
the way, did I mention Liz's huge chin? Honestly if you stuck a nipple on the
end of it, I reckon she'd have herself a pretty sexy face-boob.
Anyway so like I said the first half of the
film is all set up with the three tourists having decided to take a road trip
into the outback. We learn the dynamics of the characters and watch as Ben
develops a crush on 'Liz the chin'. During their journey, one of the sites that
they intend to stop off at is a giant meteor crater known as Wolf Creek. For
anyone unsure, a meteor is basically a giant rock that falls from the sky and
not, as my friends genuinely assumed, a type of dinosaur. After I corrected
them they laughed at their mistake and then informed me that they'd actually
gotten it confused with the dinosaur known as a Minotaur... I need to get
myself some new fucking friends.
As soon as they get to their destination,
things start to go a little wrong. Their car mysteriously breaks down leaving
them stranded and alone in the middle-of-fucking-nowhere. Considering how
dangerous that country is, with its venomous spiders, massive snakes and boxing
kangaroos, if I were them I'd have accepted my upcoming death a lot more
quickly. It's at this point that the main villain of the film finally arrives
and in the form of a friendly, old-school style Aussie bloke called Mick
Taylor.
Played by John Jarrett, Mick may well be my
favourite horror character of the last decade or so. To my mind, his only main
competitor would probably be Jigsaw from The Saw series, but in
honesty he really pisses me off. He preaches to everyone about savouring life
and yet spends all of his time building torture chambers instead of going to
chemotherapy. Although even beyond the stupidity of his motives, I think what
annoys me most about Jigsaw is just how much of a pretentious, bald cunt he is.
Mick on the other hand is a great laugh and if it wasn't for all the killing
and craziness, he'd make great company down at the pub. Being an Australian
archetype, he's kind of like a cross between Mick Dundee and Jack the Ripper.
He's a violent crazy bastard but fuck it at least he's having fun. I guess it
serves as a good reminder of Australia's history as a giant prison. Even the
friendliest of people there are descended from a British convict and so
shouldn't be trusted… kind of like scousers.
The clever thing about the film however, is
that Mick never quite becomes an anti-hero. After meeting the three main
characters at Wolf Creek, he proceeds to take them back to his home and torture
them. However, where other films have fallen in love with their villain, at no
point here do you find yourself on his side. An example of this sort of
character could be Hannibal Lector who started off as a creepy cannibal before
evolving into a loveable, dapper gent with an insatiable taste for face. Despite
Mick being such a laugh, there's a moment where 'Liz the chin' points a gun at
him and all you want her to do is blow his fucking head off. This is probably
due to the films genius of allowing us to get to know the victims in the first
half. Now that we've formed a bond with them, it's less enjoyable to watch them
die. That's coincidentally also why in reality I never learn the first name of
any whores.
In a way, the difference between Wolf
Creek and most other slashers is the same as the difference between Saw
and Saw 2. Rather than being presented with a gang of talking meat, we
are watching likeable humans who we want to see survive. In Saw 2, the
conflict isn't how are the victims going to get away but rather how are they
going to die. The traps are too complicated, the characters too weak and the
investigating detective is Donnie Wahlberg. If I was being held hostage and my
only chance of hope was a member of 'New Kids on the Block', I'd probably leap
eyes first into the pit of needles just to save time.
The point that I'm starting to drag out is
that for the viewer, watching the violent scenes in Wolf Creek is
actually less of a sadistic pleasure and more of a masochistic endurance test.
Just to clarify, an example of sadism would be the derivation of pleasure from
burning Piers Morgan for his corruption with fiery copies of the News of the
World. Masochism would be like forcing yourself to wank with a knife up your
arse whilst staring at a picture of Britney Spears's snaggletoothed vagina.
The very first torture scene in Wolf
Creek is voyeuristically shot through the crack of a broken window. Like
the cupboard scene in Blue Velvet, this isn't done to titillate the
audience but rather instil a feeling of helplessness, fear and realism. There's
no close-ups or kinetic flourishes to remind us that this is actually a movie.
Instead it's filmed amateur-porno style with a handheld grittiness that's more
reminiscent of a news story than a Hollywood film. By underplaying everything
that happens, it really helps to highlight the nihilism of our world and the
pointlessness of life. Mick kills for seemingly no reason at all and does so
apparently free of any civilised consequences. There's probably not a God and
the loneliness and pointlessness of Mick's killings really do highlight just
how little everything really means. However, as depressing as that might sound
don't forget that Wolf Creek is still a righteous chucklefest in
comparison to the grimness and cynicism of the genuinely evil Sex and the City
2.
However it's not all just doom and gloom as
visually, the film looks genuinely phenomenal. This is mostly down to the
gorgeous scenery that the Aussie landscape has to offer, although its vastness
does still highlight how insignificant we all really are. I guess as a country,
Australia is a bit like Ted Bundy- there's no denying that it is fucking
dangerous, but it can scrub up well when it needs to. In fact it could be
argued that the whole of Wolf Creek is simply about the clash between
civilisation and the wildly uncivilised. In a way, Mick is the face of the
outback with his final shot almost highlighting his connection to the
uncontrollable wilderness. It seems that he feels as genuinely comfortable in
that environment as a drunk Lindsey Lohan does when facehugging a camera lens
with her vagina. I suppose everybody just has their natural place in this
world.
Wolf Creek came
out during the height of the 'gorno' craze and so was unfortunately and wrongly
placed into that category. The only thing that Hostel did was spend
ninety minutes chopping its characters up and then boring my tits off. This is
something that was proved to me when I had a girlfriend who told me how
genuinely clever Hostel Part 2 was. The fact that she also once asked
me, “Where about in England is Down South?” may indicate the level of
intelligence required to enjoy that crap franchise.
In the end I'd say Wolf Creek is
actually a lot closer to something like Jaws than any of that 'gorno'
bollocks. Both are less explicit than you might remember with the camera
actually instead focusing more on the suffering of the victims than the actual
injuries they've sustained. In the way that Jaws has put me off ever
going back into the sea Wolf Creek too has ensured I'll never go
backpacking anywhere ever. Not that I had any plans to visit Australia anyway.
Beyond all the murderous wildlife and psychotic loners, you've got to question
the morals of a country willing to inflict Kylie Minogue onto Western
civilisation. I know I enjoy the masochistic pleasure of enduring Wolf Creek,
but listening to that Aussie midgets hollow, pointless warbling is just a
pain too far.
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
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