Rare Exports

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Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale ~ 2010, Jalmari Helander

rare_exports_official_poster_en

From the land of folk metal and cell phones comes Rare Exports, an awesome and refreshingly original horror/fantasy film ideal for the Christmas season. Typically, these reviews get funnier the more I hate a movie… That being said, you may want to just skip this review now, because unfortunately, I don’t hate anything about Rare Exports. This one is a real keeper.

THE PLOT- Pietari and his father Rauno live in the rural Lapland region of Finland, in a valley bordered by an icy mountain range. Recently, a British dig team has taken up some sort of excavation atop a nearby mountain, and Rauno, who works as a reindeer farmer along with his friends Aimo and Piiparinen (no shit, that’s what Finnish names sound like) assume this to be some sort of geological study. Pietari and his friend Jusso know better. After sneaking up to the dig site and spying on the supposed Geologists, the two boys discover the truth; this is no mountain at all, but instead; a giant, ancient, burial mound long forgotten by human history. The occupant of this incredible, man made structure? A frozen, still living Santa Claus.

Horrified by the implications, Pietari immediately conducts research into the history of Santa Claus using ancient books which he somehow obtains, even though I can’t imagine where in the hell he found those, and what he discovers is that Santa has not always been the happy, jolly old man we now know him to be today. On the contrary, the original Santa bares a closer resemblance to a damn monster, and focused mostly on punishment, rather than reward. Freaking typical. Although no one takes him seriously, Pietari becomes concerned that a full-on Yuletide home invasion may nearly be upon him, and therefore begins taking safety precautions to protect himself from Santa’s impending reign of terror. This involves wearing butt-shielding inside his pants to protect him from Santa-administered spankings, and loading up the chimney with a bear trap, which he fails to warn his father about. Life in Finland looks really fun, you guys.

Meanwhile, for Rauno, Aimo and Piiparinen, things are looking horribly grim. The entire herd of reindeer, upon which their survival is entirely dependent, have turned up dead, a disaster which will financially devastate all three families. The men blame wolves, thought to have been driven down into the valley by commotion atop the mountain, but Pietari suspects Santa’s involvement right from the start. Furious, desperate, and not at all interested in Pietari’s Santa theories, Rauno rigs up an illegal trap to catch whatever wolves he can, for revenge, I guess, but much to his shock, he catches something else; a grizzled, naked old man with a long, white beard and a menacing disposition. With tensions high and no alternative solution to their crushing financial woes, Rauno, Aimo and Piiparinen decide to ransom this man, believing him to be one of the geologists from the mountain, even though he is clearly a monster older than human history, and also nude. From that point out things get progressively crazier, and it’s awesome.

So, at the root of Rare Exports, which was based loosely on a short film made by the same creative team, what we have is a coming of age story for young Pietari. When we first meet him, Pietari is childish in an exaggerated way, he carries a stuffed animal at all times, his best friend Jusso taunts him for still believing in Santa, that sort of thing. In general, Pietari is loved, but not respected, and the general consensus is that whatever it is, Pietari is too young to do it. Actually, we kind of get the feeling that he’s told he’s “too little” so often that he’s bought into the hype himself, and that what’s really keeping him from developing into an adult is how constantly people write him off for not being one already. This prolonged state of childlike open-mindedness actually gives him an edge, where Jusso would reject Santa outright in an attempt to appear as mature as possible, Pietari’s youthful perspective allows him to piece the situation together long before anyone else. When the time comes, Pietari bravely rises to the test, while Jusso’s posturing is revealed to be all bluster and no substance.

The film is told from Pietari’s perspective, which was a good choice. It adds to the charm significantly, and it gives the movie a modern fairy tale vibe, not unlike E.T. or Pan’s Labyrinth. Pietari’s exchanges with Jusso almost remind one of The Lost Boys, but in a good way, but the most impressive thing Rare Exports manages to do is that it makes us like Pietari, when it would have been so easy for him to come off as too whiney, or too much of a sudden know-it-all when the film climaxes and he’s  so much better informed than all of the adults. That’s such a tough balance, and if they hadn’t pulled it off, this thing would be dead in the water. They pulled it off wonderfully, though, and actually, pretty much all our characters are super likable. Aimo, Rauno, and Piiperinen are all solid dudes, and honestly, each time I come out of this film I do so wanting to spend more time with them. They’re well written, well acted, and believable, and even when their desperation pushes them to do bad things, we feel for them enough that we don’t end up hating their guts.

One weird thing about this film, however… I don’t think there’s a single woman in it. Pietari appears to have no mother, and, unless I missed someone, not a single female appears on camera, ever. I believe at one point Pietari phones the mother of another child, but we don’t see her, and as he checks to see if other children are okay, his little list does have some girl’s names on it, but we never meet any of these characters. I believe Rare Exports to have an entirely male cast. Is it just a major sausage fest over in Finland? What’s the deal? I’m not sure what this might be in liu of… Perhaps to exaggerate the lack of a female presence in Pietari’s life? Living without a mother in the harsh, frozen Finnish tundra can maybe make you feel like the world is just swarming with scruffy, old dudes, exclusively? Could having only one parent somehow have contributed to his immaturity? This is all speculation, but I thought it was worth bringing up, because it is admittedly pretty weird.

ANYWHOO…..

The ending is maybe a little overly sentimental and convenient, but it’s easy to forgive this after how charming the rest of the film is, and even at it’s most hokey, Rare Exports is great experience. I recommend it!

A+

Santa’s Slay!

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Santa’s Slay ~ 2005, David Steiman

santas slay

It’s December 2014, and things have changed. All celebrities now have sex tapes. Mountain Dew comes in no less than one hundred and thirty five flavors, The Learning Channel hasn’t shown anything educational in 15 years, and women are now so objectified that breast implants are no longer enough, indeed, anyone who’s anyone now has butt implants, as well. We’re all dumb as shit, isn’t it time we had a Santa Claus more reflective of our generation?

Enter Santa’s Slay, a 2005 horror comedy which casts professional wrestler Bill Goldberg as a foul mouthed, muscle bound Santa Claus who hates children and murders people constantly for no reason. Now you’re talkin’ my language! If that kindly, Jolly Old Saint Nick at the mall can no longer hold your interest after years of exposure to X-Box and Monster energy drinks, and if you demand a Santa who frequents strip clubs and spits fire balls at innocent people, then it sounds like Santa’s Slay is just the pick me up your Holiday season needs!

THE PLOT~ Nicolas Yulesen is our main character, and he totally sucks. He pretty much spends his days complaining and being emasculated by his girlfriend, Mac. Also, he lives with his bonkers ass grandfather, who mostly stays at home cooking up crackpot inventions and scroogin’ it hardcore with his aversion to the Christmas holiday. All the people in town think Nicolas’s Grandpa is nuts. Fact is, Grampa knows more than he’s letting on. As Nick comes to find out, his gramps is in possession of an ancient tome called The Book of Claus, which tells the true story of Santa, a centuries old antichrist type creature, born of an immaculate conception between Satan and a virgin woman. He’s totally evil and can breathe fucking fire balls. The only reason this Santa ever gave anybody anything that wasn’t straight lethal is because he was obligated to after losing a wager with an angel centuries ago. The conditions of this wager stated that Santa Claus must spare humans, act nice, and deliver presents for one thousand years- which, of course, pissed Santa off real bad, but he had to do it because of the demon honor code, or something, but guess what? Times up. Santa is now free to make up for lost time and really get back to slaughtering people super hard, as is his true heart’s true desire. Soon, he arrives in Hell Township (that’s where these fucking people live), and he’s aching for a Yuletide blood bath. It’s up to Nicolas, Grandpa, and Mac, to survive the night, and if possible, defeat Santa.

As mentioned above, this is a hard fightin’, killer Santa Claus for the new millennium. I can’t imagine why he doesn’t ride around in a Monster Truck blaring Metalica’s For Whom The Bell Tolls, but what he does do is ride is a sleigh pulled by a buffalo, which he calls a “hell deer,” and that’s also awesome. Goldberg does a good job portraying an enjoyable, likable killer, which is important in this era of horror cinema, because let’s face it, nobody goes to see Nightmare on Elm Street for the teenagers. Santa’s Slay has its problems, but none of them can be traced back to Goldberg’s performance, or his Santa character. They get a pass. Good job, dude.

The problems that stick a little harder stem from two sources. The first one we’ll talk about is budget; Santa’s Slay looks more like a high end made-for-TV movie than anything intended for theatrical release. The meager production quality might alienate mainstream movie-goers, but really, this movie wasn’t banking on bringing them on board anyway. Horror movies like Santa’s Slay come with a built in fan-base of hungry viewers who just want to see people get murdered by Goldberg, or Freddy, or whoever it may be, and they are more than accustomed to budget conscious production value. Hell, some of them even like that stuff.

One particularly heinous aspect of this cheap-o production, however, is the soundtrack. Damn, dude, it’s bad. It’s all weird Christmas pop, like something Brian Setzer would record with members of the All American Rejects, but would later be embarrassed about, and would never release. Most, or all, of these songs were probably recorded specifically for this movie; and they are a heavy burden for any film to bare. If I’m playing Devil’s advocate, I guess I can see how they don’t necessarily hinder the fun of watching Goldberg murder an entire police force, but it does limit the film’s potential. Santa’s Slay is fun, but it was never going to be a classic with horrible jams like this clogging up it’s screen time. Honestly, if they ever released a soundtrack to this movie, it would be a one way ticket into hell’s deepest pit.

Here’s something super crazy about this movie that I didn’t expect; the other problem with Santa’s Slay? It’s pretty damn racist! This may look like a cheesy Christmas slasher, and it is, but it’s also a biting criticism of Christians, Christianity, and Christmas, from a distinctly Jewish perspective. Seriously! It would be easy to ignore this subtext if subtext isn’t your thing, and I’m sure a big chunk of people eager to follow the cinematic career of professional wrestlers fall into that category, but seriously, this statement is in there if you look. Let’s break it down a bit:

Santa’s Slay doesn’t really have a hell of a lot of good things to say about Christmas, or Christians in general. In fact, the role of Jesus Christ in Christmas is utterly ignored in Santa’s Slay, something the film would like to suggest is accurate, given the current secular and commercialized nature of the holiday. I’ll give them that. Instead, the focus of Christmas is shifted more onto Santa Claus himself, who is pretty much the anti-Christ, thereby meaning that Christmas is a lot more misconception and a lot less immaculate conception (Budum-CHING!). Additionally, all identifiably Christian characters in Santa’s Slay are basically major pieces of shit… Most notably, Pastor Timmons, the town religious leader, played by the always excellent Dave Thomas (the Canadian one, not the square hamburgers one) who is a cowardly, lecherous, deceitful con man. Yep.

The opening scene is another good example, Santa’s Slay kicks it into high gear right out of the gate by opening with a multiple victim kill scene, which features Santa Claus butchering an entire family of wayward Christians. Santa get’s them all, but before they are slain, each of these characters takes a moment to establish to the audience that they are selfish, despicable, spiritually bankrupt pieces of trash. And the kicker? Most, possibly all, of these characters are played by well known Jewish actors, like James Caan, Chris Katan, and Fran Drescher. Hell, Santa Claus himself is played by Bill Goldberg, who is himself Jewish. It’s hard to imagine that this isn’t deliberate.

It’s not all Jewish actors portraying Christians, though, we also have some Jewish actors playing Jewish characters, such as Mr. Green, who runs the local deli where Nick works. Mr Green is portrayed in a way that is admittedly stereotypical, but also likable, and markedly positive. He comes off as an honorable, decent man, who goes out of his way to tolerate and accommodate the needs of various unruly gentiles which he can’t seem to escape, and he does so out of a inherent goodness that most of the film’s Christian characters flat out lack. Early in the film he is subjected to the intolerant ways of an elderly Christian woman, and Mr. Green takes it in stride and even wishes her a Merry Christmas when she balks at his initial, more P.C. offering of a “Happy Holidays.” The non-Jewish characters never display this sort of acceptance, or even awareness of others throughout this entire film. In Santa’s Slay, our good guys are good guys, but they’re not great guys, and in general, this movie is not very complimentary of Christians, or their most holy time of the year. It sort of feels like a large group of Jewish people in the entertainment industry converged and worked together to make a movie about all the things Christians do that piss them off, and that project is Santa’s Slay; a big, inside joke that we don’t quite pick up on.

I can deal with the anti-gentile sentiment, because whatever, dude, but the fact is; Santa’s Slay isn’t actually very tolerant of anyone else, either. Although the anti-Christian stuff actually forms the basis of the film, it’s still more covert. Much more readily apparent is the film’s small-minded and often bigoted attitude towards like, everybody. For instance;

The only black person I think you see in the entire movie: Nick walks up to the counter of a convenience store, and the figure behind the counter slowly and ominously turns to face him. The films plays with the suspense of not knowing who you’re about to see, letting you wonder if this is perhaps going to be Santa, or perhaps someone else equally threatening. Finally, the identity of this person is revealed, and it’s not Santa, its… A BLACK MAN?! Record scratch! Santa’s Slay makes an enormous, wildly offensive stink about this. Weird, electronic hip hop beats kick off, because, you know, he’s black, and he says “Whassup?” You know, like black people do. CRINGE. When Nick mentions to the clerk that he doesn’t recall ever seeing him before, the man behind the counter tells him something about moving here because it got too dangerous in “the hood.” Did a seventh grader write this scene? Really, this is just astoundingly tone deaf. Santa’s Slay plays off this exchange as a big joke, and the punch line is “Holy shit, that guys not white!!! Can you imagine?!” It’s the worst.

And it doesn’t end there! Later, Nick gets in trouble and meets the captain of the local police force, who is introduced in a similar fashion to the store clerk. His name? Captain Caulk, clearly enunciated as “Captain Cock.” Apparently, this character is gay, and although his sexual orientation in no way plays a role in the events of the film, they still go out of their way to point this fact out, for no real reason. Essentially, this character is exploited for what I assume is supposed to be comedic value. Was 2005 really that long ago? I feel like this sort of thing would never make it into a movie in this day and age unless it was deliberately trying to provoke outrage. Maybe we have come a long way after all.

The bigotry actually doesn’t feel especially malicious, if you can believe it. I know I’ve really called it out here, but it’s less glaring in the grand scheme of the movie. It really feels like this prejudice is more rooted in ignorance, than in hate, sort of like what you might hear from a high schooler who hasn’t really gotten a perspective on the real world yet. The bigotry in Santa’s Slay feels redeemable, like we could take Santa’s Slay, slap it in the face, and then make it hang out with gay people or black people for a weekend or two, and then it would maybe realize the error of it’s ways and step back in line with more socially progressive attitudes toward diversity. It does seem to be a little more adamant about looking down on Christians, but I wager that in the eyes of director David Steiman, all the black and gay stuff is seen more as a harmless joke than an expression of hate. This doesn’t excuse it, not by a long shot, but clearly, Santa’s Slay isn’t very smart, and neither is it’s writer/director. There’s just no reason to take anything this movie says seriously, and so you’ll only get as offended as you let yourself. If you’ve watched Family Guy or South Park, you’ve probably already seen much worse. The only difference is that what Santa’s Slay offers isn’t going to be as funny.

Still, all of that remains a hard pill to swallow… It’s really, really easy for me to forgive the aspects of Santa’s Slay that just plain suck, because dammit, this is a movie where Santa Claus lights Fran Drescher’s head on fire and murders her in the very first scene, and where the fate of humanity rests on the outcome of a curling match. Santa’s Slay had this one in the bag, and it really had to go out of it’s way to shake me. More pernicious is the bigotry woven in to the very fabric of the film, but as I mentioned above, these derogatory statements don’t carry much weight. When you saw the worlds “Brett Ratner’s Santa’s Slay, Starring Bill Goldberg,” were you expecting this to be a socially progressive experience? Santa’s Slay isn’t progressive in any way whatsoever. The movie still manages to be fun by virtue of premise alone, and the execution is passable, but if you’re sensitive to things like outrageous bigotry and anti-Christian sentiment, then you should probably pass on this one.

Also, Brett Ratner’s attachment to this film hurts it in a way more devastating than any racist content ever could. You suck, Brett Ratner

D+

Silent Night, Deadly Night!!!

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Silent Night, Deadly Night~ 1984, Charles A. Sellier Jr.

Silent-Night-Deadly-Night

Deck the halls with- HUMAN INTESTINES?!?!

That’s right, folks, Christmas is supposed to be the happiest time of the year, but for many of us, it totally isn’t. What better juxtaposition, therefore, than to pair joyful, seasonally mandated goodwill for all mankind with gruesome, gore-laden campaigns of wanton terror and graphic violence? I’m glad you see things my way.

There is certainly no drought of Christmas themed horror movies out there, and while Silent Night, Deadly Night is admittedly not the best of the batch (that honor probably belongs to Black Christmas), it’s still maybe my favorite. There’s something about how openly sleazy it is, while still trying to make a head-scratchingly genuine mad dash for that special “feel-good” Christmas magic in sporadic segments. What kind of a lunatic included the cozy sounding “Warm Side of the Door” musical sequence in this controversial, violent slasher film? That shit was straight heartwarming, and therefore, its inclusion is hilarious.

THE PLOT- Billy is a kind, ordinary boy, whom fate has selected to progressively beat the shit out of in the most sadistic fashion imaginable. Because the universe despises Billy so, so much for absolutely no reason, he is, from a young age, subjected to the most traumatic, nightmarish bullshit ever. It is hilariously over-the-top. First, on Christmas eve, Billy’s supposedly catatonic grandfather chooses a moment when he and Billy are alone to snap back to his senses, just long enough to deliver the most needlessly menacing Christmas monologue ever, right into Billy’s young, horrified face.

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Your damn grandfathers deranged, kid!!!

He then goes back to acting like he’s totally comatose, leaving Billy looking like an idiot for saying Grandpa talked to him. Then, mere hours later, again, on Christmas Eve, mind you, a man dressed like Santa Claus sexually assaults and murders Billy’s parents, while Billy sits and watches, utterly powerless to do anything but soak up the trauma like an sponge destined for counseling. After this, Billy and his little brother are sent off to a Catholic School for orphans, where they are abused and treated harshly. If you thought the worst was over, you were mistaken, because fate has also chosen to deal Billy some pretty shitty cards on the physical appearance front- this kid is sporting the hideous combo of bucked teeth, freckles, and a mullet. Good luck getting adopted now, asshole, you’re a bargain bin orphan at this point. You’d be lucky to be chosen for medical testing.

billy Is this a face you could grow to love? I jest, of course, he is clearly an abomination.

So, as an orphan, Billy doesn’t have a life so much as he has an ongoing series of altercations designed to remind him that he is alone in a world that hates him. Confused and neglected, he’s a damn time bomb waiting to go off, and there has been little to no attempt at patching up the deep seeded horror he has associated with the very idea of Santa Claus. If anything, his Catholic overlords seem to unknowingly confirm in Billy’s mind the idea that Santa Claus is more of a judge/jury/executioner style figure than anything else. Regardless, when the time comes, Billy is promptly booted out into a world which does not deserve him, and many innocents would soon pay the price. Santa should have finished him off when he had the chance.

The weird thing about this part of the movie is that by this time, Billy’s hideous, Gorgon like façade has been shed, and from it has emerged a hunkier, butterfly stage Billy; good looking, tall and well built. I want to slow you down if you think that this is a sign of things turning around, however, because the truth is that he remains largely distant from humanity, and this is really just nature’s way of outfitting him with the tools he will need to carry out an effective rampage. It’s a bad thing that he’s big, it just further illustrates how doomed he is.

For his next string of tragedies, Billy is hired on at a local toy store to preform unpleasant manual labor, because even as a hunk, he remains a second-class citizen in a society that can still somehow sense his childhood mullet and bucked teeth. Soon, Billy is hastily elected to play Santa, which, holy shit, they can’t have picked a worse candidate for this job, but before the socially dim Billy can express that Santa Claus is, to him, synonymous with the darkest, most unspeakable of horrors, he is thrown into the costume and ushered out into a space filled with innocent children. It’s a wonder he holds it together as long as he does, but it’s immediately clear to the audience that whatever still turning gears existed within the badly battered psyche of young Billy completely shattered this day, when he understood himself to be Billy no more- From that moment forward, he was Santa, a bringer of violent, bloody justice. No children are slain in this scene, but soon afterwards Billy happens upon people being “naughty”, and he brings the hammer down hard, murderer style. And that’s just the beginning; the rest of the film is really just Billy wandering around, encountering people having a good time and murdering the shit out of them. Meanwhile, cops and nuns unite, as they so often do, to crack the case of the murderous Santa Claus, and hopefully rescue Billy from his own madness. But they don’t! Yes, the world hates Billy right up until the end.

billy

And so do I!

The movie is a fun, effective slasher, but as you may have gathered, its strongest attribute is how unreasonably merciless it is to kids. If your sense of humor has truly rounded the bend into dark territory, and you’ve reached the point where there is absolutely no distinction between tragedy and comedy, then you now know that in a fictional setting, terrible things happening to children who don’t deserve it can actually be pretty hilarious (see Butters from South Park. You know the words I speak to be true, just admit it). That is what Silent Night, Deadly Night really brings to the table. Billy gets it worse than anyone, but all the kids in this movie are subjected to irrationally, unreasonably severe instances of complete terror, none of which they are sophisticated enough to cope with. Dozens of well meaning boys and girls have the screaming shit traumatized right out of them so, so hard, and it’s not real, therefore, it’s really funny. I know you’re judging me right now, so cut it out.

Anyway, that’s not to say that there isn’t plenty of fun to be had with Silent Night, Deadly Night’s straight horror sequences, as well. Billy pulls off a fine rampage, every bit as enjoyable as those found in rival slasher films of the era, including many of the Friday the 13th movies. There are some creative kills, as well as an appearance by beloved scream queen Linnea Quigley.

Silent Night, Deadly Night is really great. As Christmas horror films go, it belongs in the top five for sure, and close to the top. It spawned a few sequels, including Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2; Youtube infamous for it’s hilarious “Garbage day!” scene. It was also remade in 2012 as Silent Night, which totally sucks. You could watch that one too, if you wanted to ruin your afternoon.

B+

Thankskilling

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Thankskilling ~ 2009, Jordan Downey

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“WARNING: BOOBS IN THE FIRST SECOND!” – RIGHT ON THE COVER OF THE DVD!!! Right on the freaking cover. Clearly, this is thought to be a selling point. Well, I timed it, and it’s not even true. There is some text that actually kicks off the movie, just some backstory nonsense that nobody cares about, and depending where the film actually “begins,” the boobs (boy oh boy!) are actually between 16 to 18 seconds in, a far cry from literally the first second. As if you could even withstand further mammary related let-downs in your short, miserable life, these initial breasts are also the only boobs in the entire movie, which, I feel, is not at all the implication made by hyping boobs on the cover of your damn DVD. Really, that’s a good lesson for us all to learn right off the bat, because Thankskilling is all about promises that it doesn’t keep. Get ready for let-down after let-down, folks.

THE PLOT~ When a mismatched group of small-town youths head into the woods for a camping trip, they find themselves at ground zero for the return of a weird, talking turkey monster, which was summoned by Native Americans as a form of revenge against white settlers. It’s effective, that thing ruined a full 90’s minutes of my life! As the turkey begins to kill our characters one by one, they must band together, traditional teen slasher style, to defeat the killer critter, before it’s too late.

Thankskilling is a comedy wrapped up in the trappings of a horror movie. Therefore, by order of priority, you would expect it to be funny first, and scary second. You’d expect wrong, Thankskilling is the furthest thing from scary, and it’s painfully unfunny to boot. Lame, one dimensional jokes are doled out in great abundance from the very first scene, and they will absolutely let you down. I went into this with genuine, foolish optimism, but after the first botched one liner I felt my heart sink, and I thought, “oh…. So, this movie sucks ass, then…”

Yes, it does.

The killer Turkey is our first problem. As the only asset this franchise possesses of even minor, passing value, he really needed to be great, but damn, he isn’t. Turkie, as he is known, is a typical one-liner oriented movie monster, but he has absolutely no charisma, and his one liners totally suck. Now, this is something that demands clarification; cheesy one liners are awesome. Please, do not misunderstand; I’m not saying I don’t like one liners, or even stupid one liners, but there is a way to do one-liners right, and a way to do them wrong. Here, let’s use the 2002 micro-budget movie Scarecrow as an example:

In Scarecrow, there’s a one liner where our murderous scarecrow guy backflips into frame, looks a character in the face (somebody’s dad), says “Heads up, daddy-o!” And then decapitates his screaming, probably confused victim, with a sickle. Awesome. Now, that is just wonderful. Excellent work, Scarecrow. I don’t want to have to break down why this is an actual one-liner and why that flies when Thankskilling’s jokes cannot, truthfully, this is just how one-liners work. What we have in Thankskilling are ineffective one-liners that do not work. Let’s take a look at an example:

…The very first one liner in the movie: Our topless pilgrim woman (topless for no reason at all) is confronted by our killer turkey. He says “Nice tits, bitch!” and then he kills her. That’s it.

SNL_1376_03_Debbie_Downer…

That’s not really a one-liner… That’s just like… A statement… A vulgar, ugly statement… And it’s really, really lame. This is not an isolated thing, I kept track, Downey manages to pull off two one-liners this entire movie, and that’s two that worked and dozens that didn’t. In summation, Jordan Downey decided to make a one-liner movie, but he apparently doesn’t understand what a one-liner even is, and let’s face it, this shit ain’t rocket science. If you can’t match the wit of Arnold Schwarzenegger, then maybe comedy isn’t your thing.

In general, the jokes in Thankskilling are pretty clear examples of humor written by someone who isn’t funny, and who has confused humor with vulgarity. Now, vulgarity can be funny, but you still have to do it right. This is the sort of hasty, excited vulgarity you get from someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing, but retains an enthusiasm you would have to assume is rooted in ignorance. It’s kind of like a sixth grader who’s just starting to use profanity for the first time. Eyes bright like a kid on Christmas morning, face twisted into a joyful smile, F-bombs ploppin’ out of his pubescent maw with no articulation or purpose, that’s what the jokes in Thankskilling feel like. That’s the vibe, it really comes across. Tactless and witless, yet enthusiastically vulgar. “WEINER!” Giggle giggle. That kind of thing.

Oddly enough, the movie does start to pick up steam a little more towards the end, as if Downey wrote the first half at the age of eleven and picked it up again while in college. One or two of the jokes in the third act approach legitimate comedy, including the two successful one-liners I mentioned before. Here, we’ve been rough on this movie, let’s be nice and walk you through one of the film’s fully functioning one-liners. Seems only fair. My favorite one goes like this: When one of our human protagonists is bending over to look into a refrigerator, Turkie jumps up behind him and stabs his butt with a meat thermometer, at which point he quips “You’re done!” Good job Downey, you did it! That’s a real live one-liner! Did you get help from your parents?!

It’s still pretty much too little too late. Thankskilling managed to succeed financially because of how bonkers it was. After all, this is a movie where a murderous turkey says “Gobble gobble, mother fucker,” and kills people, it’s easy to see how people would want to enjoy that experience. I sure wanted to. Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to not love a movie about a murderous turkey puppet ?! I tried, man!!

But try as I might, I couldn’t ignore how painfully mediocre Thankskilling really is. For a lot of people, the premise is still going to be enough, no matter how shitty the execution was. I really want to stress this, however; you don’t HAVE to watch Thankskilling if you want that “no budget/I can’t believe someone made this movie/holy shit” type experience. So, so many movies have already come and gone and done it better, and there’s no shortage of flicks I’d lump into this category that are ACTUALLY FUNNY. Don’t waste your time, I would recommend you instead check out The Taint, Blood Car, Yeti: A Gay Love Story, and Coons: Dark Night of the Bandits of the Night, as well as just about anything by Chris Seaver, most especially I Spit Chew on Your Grave, Ski-Wolf, Terror at Blood Fart Lake, and Sexsquatch. If you want a Thanksgiving themed horror movie, that’s a little harder to come by. You should just watch Thanksgiving, the faux trailer Eli Roth did in Grindhouse. Watch it fifteen times before you watch Thankskilling even once.

D 

Thankskilling 3!

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Thankskilling 3 ~ 2012, Jordan Downey

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Thankskilling was a movie wherein a group of young people found themselves repeatedly menaced by a murderous, talking turkey, who would kill them one by one until finally being defeated by a lone survivor. It was not good. What we didn’t know at the time, however, was that Thankskilling was also a very real, very high stakes example of the phenomena outlined in cherished children’s book; If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. When people enthusiastically jumped at the chance to watch a turkey puppet swear and kill people, they unwittingly gave the go-ahead to director Jordan Downey to keep the bullshit coming. They gave him an inch, and he took a mile; welcome to Thankskilling 3.

THE PLOT~ Who the fuck knows?

Okay, so, I kind of know, but I feel angry having to explain it, due to how overwhelmed I am by its shittiness. Basically, Thankskilling 3 is an adventure comedy, not a horror comedy, in which several different types of “who gives a shit” become interwoven into a vast tapestry of raw, unprocessed nonsense. Firstly, we have Turkie, the killer Turkey from the first movie. He wants a copy of Thankskilling 2, which was apparently the worst movie ever made (in reality, it was never made. They skipped part two, aren’t they hilarious?). Copies are scarce, because the studio decided to destroy the film after seeing how horrible it was. If only they did that in real life. Opposite Turkie, we have two humans who are obsessed with colonial America, and a shit load of puppets. Yeah… Unless I missed somebody, there are only two actual human people in this movie, and the rest of the cast are all Z-Grade muppets, plus one animated cat, for some reason. This might almost sound cool on paper, but I beg of you; please, believe me when I say that it isn’t. One of these horrible, boring puppets is Yomi, a painfully unfunny character who eats up way too much screen time and who gives us nothing back.

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Behold: Yomi; the worst character ever.

Her deal is that she’s “lost her mind,” and thinks that she can reclaim it through observance of the Thanksgiving holiday… Because she heard something about Thanksgiving providing “peace of mind.” Cute… See, this movie goes out of it’s way to provide explanations for the wrong stuff. They offer explanations only when those explanations kill jokes, other stuff that demands further clarification remains shrouded in vulgar, irritating mystery. It’s infuriating. But let’s get back to topic; Yomi. Yomi sucks so, so, bad, like damn Jar Jar, and is a real chore to tolerate. Basically; her felt ass shouldn’t be in the movie at all, and I can’t imagine why she was included. Wanna know what else shouldn’t be in the movie?! The movie. All of it. Every friggin’ frame. Thanksgiving 3 is unwelcome in this dimension, it should have remained stranded in the diseased imagination of Jordan Downey. Thanks, dude.

This thing is actually less funny that it’s predecessor! I counted three instances of successful comedy in the entire film- and I wasn’t laughing. I wasn’t even smiling, I could just tell that these three gags were actual jokes, rather than just boring, lame vulgarities and/or puns. The rest of the movie can’t actually give you what it advertises, which is nothing new from this trilogy. Can it be a trilogy if they half assed it to the point that there wasn’t even a part two? This is the first two movie trilogy in mankind’s regrettable history. Fuck, I hope it’s also the last.

What seems to have happened after the success of Thankskilling, motivated 100% by the sheer absurdity of the its premise rather than it’s execution, is that Downey became so enthused that he rapid fire spat out an unrefined, stream of consciousness style script, never once read over it, and then just put the movie out before he could even think about what he had done. Either that or his allergy medication left him deranged for the entire production cycle, and because the budget came from crowd-funding, there was no studio system in place to reign him in. This is an early example of how Kickstarter can screw the human race, we sometimes need a studio-head to step in and question the mad ravings of our writers and directors. This schizophrenic disaster is what can happen without these often detested, but apparently necessary safeguards, and none of these ideas should have made it even onto a rough draft of anything. And there are so, so many bad ideas in Thankskilling 3! Every concept is explained by introducing two additional and equally shitty concepts, and there is never any pay off. This movie is like a weird dream you wouldn’t even want to explain to your friends, because what would be the point?

I guess it does have a couple things going for it, though. The budget is clearly much higher than it’s poorhouse predecessor, and you feel that come across in the production value. The music feels especially professional, even if it does feature a lot more dub-step than any other DVD that I own. What you’re really going to appreciate in Thankskilling 3, however, is the art department, who really did a fantastic job. The sets, and many of the puppets, look excellent this time around, and clearly, this is where most of that budget went… but it still doesn’t redeem the movie.

The film is just bad madness, plain and simple. I actually really enjoy madness, typically, but this in’t Jodorowsky or Lynch, this is more like Battlestar Galactica meets the first season of South Park as related to you by an eight year old. If you’re going to give us madness, it at least has to be compelling, or rewarding somehow. This movie is just a joyless descent into The strata beneath mediocrity. You know what Thanksgiving 3 is like? Here’s a good way to explain it: You know like, when you wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, and you write it down because you’re convinced you’re a genius, but then in the morning you read it, and you’re like “Oh, damn. What was I thinking?” So then you just discard it, humiliated by the inadequacies of your sleep addled brain? It feels like Jordan Downey, woke up, wrote this script, and then instead of reading it and throwing it away the next morning, he just made the movie before he could even think about what was happening. And that’s terrible. Someone should have intervened, stepped up and said, “Hey, Jordan… I like you, and I want the best for you, but nothing in your movie makes any damn sense, and it all sucks. I think maybe you just need to put your script in the garbage… And then maybe let someone who isn’t high on cold medicine write a new one…”

Someone needs to stop this guy. I mean, seriously, YOMI!? Sober up, Downey, so you can feel the shame of what you’ve done. Honestly, give me a Jar Jar Binks solo film before you give me one more second with that nightmare.

F

ASWANG!

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ASWANG~ 1994, Wrye Martin and Barry Poltermann

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The story of Aswang is a tale as old as time. A young woman, burdened with an unwanted pregnancy, is propositioned by a wealthy man who looks suspiciously like Shooter McGavin; “come out to my big mansion in the middle of no where and pretend to be my wife and then give me your baby, because my damn mom is dying and if I can’t produce an heir I don’t get any of them fat Aswang dollars.” Win win? No, never trust anyone who looks like Shooter McGavin. Our gal agrees, though, and travels to an isolated country home thinking this was your boiler plate, run of the mill baby sale, when in fact Shooter and his family are a bunch of shady aswangs looking to chow down on her unborn child. Record scratch!

But just what is an aswang? It’s some form of weird Filipino ghoul that, among other things, eats babies, while still en utero, via a long, gross tongue (Asia has the best monsters.) Clearly, the horror movie potential here is just through the roof, and there have actually been a few aswang movies, but at present this is the only one I’ve seen that was actually made for English speaking audiences. Obviously you’re looking for Aswang 101, and unless you speak Tagolog and have an all region DVD player, this is a good place to start.

Aswang, being a film about a unique kind of monster, vaults back and forth between creature feature and slasher when appropriate, but the entire time it maintains an interesting and creepy body horror type vibe, kind of like what you would have seen if David Cronenberg had directed a slasher concurrently with The Brood. It’s kinda creepy, kinda gross, kinda funny, there’s a little blood here and there, and the concept feels fresh and interesting to we Westerners who didn’t grow up under constant threat from nocturnal baby eaters our entire lives. Check your privilege, guys.

So, Aswang is a lot of fun, I like it quite a bit. It could be gorier, it could be more gross, or more scary, but it’s a very well done low budget horror picture with some interesting new ideas. More importantly, this is probably the greatest Shooter McGavin related horror movie available on home video right now, and that means something to me. I hope it means something to you, too.

B-

Miami Connection!!!

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Miami Connection ~ 1987, Woo-Sang Park

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Miami Connection is the story of Dragon Sound; just your typical 1980’s rock/synth pop/power metal band made up exclusively of orphans who are all black belts in Tae Kwon Do. The five members of Dragon Sound all live together in one modest house, like the damn Muppets, so that that way they can pal around and enjoy each others company every minute of every day. When they aren’t performing songs about battling ninjas or the power of friendship, Dragon Sound can be seen goofing off at the beach, grabbing a bite to eat, or locked for all eternity in a constant and brutal street fight with increasingly dangerous martial arts gangs throughout Miami’s neon lit, smoke shrouded Urban areas. Dragon Sound wants to spread the message of Peace, unity, and happiness for all mankind, and also they kill people on the regular.

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Timeless.

THE PLOT- Despite being made of model citizens with nothing but goodwill in their ethnically diverse hearts, Dragon Sound has found themselves at the nexus of some shady shit. Fate has it out for them, and they seem totally unable to avoid constant tae kwon do related conflicts with people they barely know. Firstly, the bass player thinks it’s okay for him to date a girl he met in class. What? Oh, no, think again bass player, her brother is some kind of coke dealing street commando, and he does not approve- Time for a Tae Kwon Do battle.

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Coke Dealing Street Commando- How else would you describe this gentleman?

Hey, Dragon Sound, you guys are the new house band at a local night club! Exciting, right? Wrong! Guess what; the old band is angry that they got shit canned. They demand satisfaction- via Tae Kwon Do battle, of course. What’s that, keyboard player? You bought a new suit? Tae Kwon Do battle. Even the old man who owns the restaurant Dragon Sound likes to go to ends up in a Tae Kwon Do battle. In Miami Connection, Tae Kwon Do battles are just the natural resolution of any and all events, positive or negative. Then the movie ends with a caption about the pursuit of peace and the elimination of violence. Asshole, I work in an office, don’t talk to me about eliminating violence from the world, I just saw you Katana blade a stranger to death in an fucking swamp.

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This man is known for his unrivaled commitment to peace.

So, not to imply that Miami Connection isn’t just top to bottom ridiculous, but the movie’s heartiest chuckles come from its deadbeat dad subplot. As mentioned above, all of the members of Dragon Sound are apparently orphans, which really opens the door to a bad ass prequel trilogy where they all meet in a tae kwon do/rock and roll orphanage, but as the rest of the band comes to learn, their keyboard player has a dad, and has actually been trying to hunt him down for years. Watching a grown man try to force tears over his absentee father in a Miami pop band flop house is a special experience. They really, really try to tug the shit out of your heart strings in these scenes, but no one is really a good enough actor to pull it off, so the whole thing feels uncomfortable and hilarious. Also, like, more than half of these guys are shirtless in this scene, so that is a contributing factor. Shirtless men crying is never NOT weird.

Miami Connection (Richard Park, 1987)

They just look strung out, and coming down.

So, there’s really not much to the movie, beyond that. The acting is what you’d expect, sometimes decent, sometimes horrible, and never great. Some of the choreography is actually pretty good, and the movie looks pretty nice for its budget, especially the extravagant 80’s nightclub scenes. Damn! Why did nightclubs in 80’s movies kick ass so hard?! Were real nightclubs anywhere in the world ever really like that? Or is this just a beautiful, beautiful lie that Purple Rain wants us to believe? I want to believe it, Purple Rain. If only I could.

B-

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The Uninvited!!!!

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The Uninvited ~ 1988, Greydon Clark

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The Uninvited has got to have one of the most bizarre monsters I’ve ever seen. It’s not bizarre in a creative or interesting way, it’s bizarre in a “But why?” kind of way. Like, really- why? This is an unnecessary monster.

 Uninvited 3And there it is.

So, let’s talk about this monster a bit before we dive into The Uninvited; what we have here is a house cat, which has been biologically experimented upon. It is a fluffy, orange cat, it’s pretty cute, actually. Now, this cat, when it feels so inclined, opens up its mouth, and a small creature, vaguely catlike itself, crawls out. Upon leaving the mouth, this creature is suddenly the approximate size of the original cat, maybe bigger. It looks like a cat, but ugly, angry, and leathery, not so fluffy. And it kills people and is venomous. This weird creature then crawls back into the cats mouth, and people are none the wiser. The perfect crime. Purrr-fect crime? No, I won’t let this be that kind of blog…

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So, is this creature “wearing” the cat, like that giant bug did with Vincent D’Onofrio in Men in Black? Or, is this a symbiotic relationship? None of that’s really touched upon, but what we have here is an elaborate attempt at making a cute little cat into a terrifying monster, and you should not be surprised to learn that this was not a success. Also, couldn’t you have just, like, Jekyll and Hyde’ed the cat into a monster? This whole “crawling in and out of the mouth” thing feels onerous and weird. It’s too late to have that conversation with writer/director Greydon Clark, though, because this damn movie is almost thirty years old at this point. These are sins we cannot erase. We have to live with them everyday.

 

THE PLOT~ Shady Wall Street tycoon and all out bad guy Walter Graham (Alex Cord) takes to sea aboard his luxury yacht, along with his aged and lovable, yet intimidating goons Mike (George Kennedy) and Albert (Clu Gulager), for a jaunty cruise down to some crooked island nation where he can duck the Feds, who totally know he’s up to some dark, immoral shit. Before taking to the sea, he recruits some fine honeys to add to his maritime bacchanal of decadent pleasures, and plus because that way he’s not just hanging out with two white guys in their sixties the whole time. Good idea, bro! (fist bump) The girls instantly spoil everything for Walter by inviting along three douche bags they met at the marina, as well as a murderous, biologically mutated nightmare cat, which would slowly kill the shit out of each and every one of them as they drift aimlessly through the ocean and begin to lose their very sanity. Spoiler alert? That’s what happens. They all get on the boat, the damn thing breaks down, cats killin’ people, people freak out, power struggle, Clu Gulager get’s drunk, whatever. Roll credits.

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The movie ends with a pretty heavy-handed moral illustration. As the yacht begins to sink, our two survivors are aboard a lifeboat, along with three briefcases, each containing one million dollars in cash. As they try to get away from the capsizing vessel, the menacing, no longer fluffy murdercat hops into their boat again and again, and again. They keep tossing him out, but he just keeps jumping back in. They conclude that, because there are no other floating objects for this cat to climb onto, he will never grow tired of leaping out of the sea and into their small lifeboat. In a stroke of overt preachiness, our characters toss one of the briefcases out into the water, where lo and behold, it floats, and Murdercat climbs onto it, allowing them to row away to safety. Oh, gee, so, our insatiable desire for wealth leads us to a gruesome end, and only by letting go of this can we live prosperously. Trying to teach us a lesson, movie? Shut up, Greydon Clark, we’re all poor now. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a living wage in this country!? I’d keep every one of those briefcases and bite that damn Murdercat right back, right on his damn cat snout. “Forget it, Murdercat, I’m tired of retail!” Toss his ass into the ocean.

But I digress….There are a lot of laughs to be had at this movie’s expense. The production is on the shabby end of passable, and frequent fumbles, especially with the audio and the monster effects, stand out. They had like, four cat noises, and they just play them over, and over, and over, often when the cat doesn’t even seem to be around. Then, when we do see the cat, he is sometimes very visibly a puppet, in a big way. It’s kind of awesome.

If we were going to look at this as a real, live movie and NOT an overly long, hilarious cat video, it would be important to point out that a major problem with the film is that the only likable characters in it are the bad guys, far and away. Specifically, Clu Gulager and George Kennedy. These two are great, as always. On the other end of the spectrum, our six college aged characters are unlikable and without worth to us. There is no reason at all to root for their survival, and you won’t. Hell, the cat is more likeable, and it’s straight venomous. That’s a formula for a hilarious Murdercat comedy adventure, but not for a tense, horrific drama/morality tale on the open seas, so the value of The Uninvited as a piece of work is dependent upon which of these two things you want it to be. I think Gradyon Clark wanted it to be the latter, and Greydon, baby, I’m sorry to break it to you; it’s not.

B

Versus

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Versus– 2000, Ryuhei Kitamura

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At some point, someone in Japan said “Hey- I really liked The Matrix! Let’s do that! Only, we want zombies. And blood. And swords. And we only have 11 dollars. And we aren’t really very talented. Also, the zombies can do karate sometimes. Now go!”

And with that, Japan crapped out Versus. This formula apparently works for a lot of people, and the film does have a large following. I was misled into first viewing Versus after a blitz of positive buzz from some of its fans, who assured me that if I like sword films, Evil Dead, Dead Alive, or zombies in general, I would LOVE Versus! Think again, friend. This movie is live action anime, first and foremost. Just because something works as a cartoon does not mean it should be brought into reality. Did none of you see Cool World?! If not, don’t.

The biggest issue with Versus is that it lives in eternal pursuit of the cultural construct we call “The bad ass.” For many, being “a bad ass” is the single highest honor a fictional character can achieve. Idiots especially worship the Cult of Bad Ass, because to them, the bad ass is in direct contradiction of subtlety, which they despise and do not understand. To them, a Bad Ass can do anything cool that it wants to, and it completely ignores boring things like “motivation,” “depth,” or  “not having a learning disability.” Therefore, when a moron generates media (Paul W.S. Anderson), in this day and age it is overwhelming how often they will strive to create a “bad ass” for their piece. Since they don’t understand what actually makes someone a bad ass, this usually means taking a douche bag, tossing him in some wrap-around sunglasses, maybe a tank top, a trench coat, or both, and asking him to speak in a low, raspy voice and act like he can’t be bothered by explosions or impending death.

The characters in this movie want to be bad asses so, so hard. Everyone wears black exclusively. It’s like the costume designer showed up with dark blue once and the director punched them in the throat for insulting his mandatory and entirely monochromatic wardrobe demands. These black clad dopes spend a lot of time slowly and laboriously sleazing through shots, just basking so hard in how much of a bad ass they want to be, techno music doing it’s part to confirm that yes, in case you missed the wrap-arounds and black clothes, these guys are total bad asses, seriously, you guys.

Here’s an example of the sort of blatant, towering douchebag colossus you will see in Versus:

photoBehold! This is possibly the most flamboyant of Versus‘ childish, “bad ass” characters. As you’ll notice, he has a black belt in over-compensation, and the term “understated” ain’t in his dictionary. Every single aspect of his personage has to just tug on your sleeves and plead with you to believe that he is a bad ass. Let’s break it down;

  1. ponytail
  2. sunglasses
  3. no sleeves
  4. fingerless gloves
  5. leather pants
  6. a damn motorcycle

All of which are black. If douchebag/faux-badass spotting was birdwatching, this would be like spotting a bald eagle soaring above the Rocky Mountains with an American flag clenched in it’s talons.

Here’s another fun “bad ass” character- this magical flying Kung Fu zombie (I hate you so much, Versus…)

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First off; if your hairstyle could be described as “The Ronald McDonald,” you are not a bad ass. EVER. PERIOD.

Secondly, look at this asshole’s face. Where does he get the gall? Look how cool he thinks he is. Let’s talk about this. That asshole went in to a salon and paid to get his hair dyed. This means he had to sit quietly in one of the little caps while it bleached, and then wait in the lobby wearing a little towel on his head, and then lean back in one of those sinks, ALL of that shit this guy did- OR he had to go to a store, buy a dye pack, and do it at home, probably with a friend to help him. Not very bad ass. It’s important for you to visualize anyone who will pass themselves off as unflappably cool primping their balls off on the regular like a high school sophomore to remind yourself that this guy did a lot of really, really, really not cool stuff to look this way, so you shouldn’t just take his word for it. Do you think he wore those sunglasses and kept his eyebrows cocked throughout his entire barber shop experience? Do you think he went to one of those trendy salons? And then he gelled it. Every morning. Think about that. Try to imagine anyone looking like a bad ass while they painstakingly primp their hair so that it looks just spiky enough. A bad ass doesn’t care if his hair is combed!!! Fuck you, Versus! Fuck you, these people are not cool! All your characters are total dorks!!!

THE PLOT- In a veritable “clash of the bad asses,” two bad ass escaped prisoners rendezvous with some yakuza bad assess for some reason. I’m not sure. However, this bad ass cocktail turns out to be a little too bad ass, and the deal goes south, leading to a massive yakuza bad ass karate throw down, which, according to movies, is  customary in Japan. Things are further complicated when we discover that, holy smokes, this is some kind of fancy zombie forest! You die here, and you get back up. Get ready for some techno.

So, the gangsters brought a woman with them, and apparently, the plan was to sacrifice her in some ritual. The yakuza boss, who arrives a little later in the film, is some sort of black magic practitioner bad ass who hopes to open some magic portal, which is hidden somewhere in the forest. This is the cliched, boring plot Versus has to offer, but it’s buried underneath a big, stupid heap of stylized violence, so you might have a hard time following it. Or giving a shit. Guys, I know that on some level this sounds awesome, but trust me, it sucks so hard.

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Do you think this guy was thinking “yeah, I’m such a bad ass!” while he gelled his fucking hair and shaved his little goatee just right in his bathroom mirror that morning? It had to be perfect. He got up early to do it.

Almost no one in this movie has a name- details like that are deemed trivial by Versus. The identities of these characters are throwaway, all that matters is their actions and the role they play in this story. That’s really reflective of two tenets of Versus‘ theology; one; the rejection of anything too boring to hold the interest of today’s youth culture (Translation: “Uuhhhhh, who cares what his name is? Fred- No! Master Chief! Look, he’s a bad ass, okay?!”), and two; the notion that throughout history there are cyclical patterns caused by the reincarnation of key individuals, an idea central to Versus’ plot. The film takes place mostly in present day, but also features brief scenes set in Feudal era Japan, as well as the distant future; and in all three eras our character’s roles remain identical. These people are reincarnated again and again and forced to carry out the same battles throughout history, so their individual histories at any given point in the timeline are unimportant next to their roles in the grand scheme. I can recognize that this is a cool idea, but that’s really the only thing going on here that I respect. Beyond that, Versus is a vapid thing, and it’s saddled with stylistic choices that are childish and annoying. And stupid. They are. They really are.

Here, look, some stupid; these yakuza hop into a nifty little trio pose before blasting a zombie.

12345678910Isn’t that cute? While the man on the bottom, or “the power bottom,” as I believe they call him, holds in place, the two men on the outside edge of the screen run to the opposite sides of him, do little gun twirls and freeze into some choreographed yakuza power pose so they look extra bad ass while shooting. What the fuck?!? Is this a shoot out or a chorus line?!?? Attention; people who like Versus; THAT is in your movie. Who is going to argue with me over this?! Are you kidding me? I can’t believe the shittiness of this movie is disputed!!!

And don’t you dare pull that “you’re thinking about this too much” shit with me. When an artist does their job well, you will appreciate their work more and more once you start to analyze it. If spacing out and drooling happily to the noises and moving shapes is required to appreciate your art, then you suck and you’ve done a horrible job, and also you are an idiot and I hate you.

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One legitimate boast for Versus; it’s gory. Lots of blood, lots of violence, and that’s going to win over a lot of people. However, it’s no Dead Alive. There’s also nothing to anchor the gore that isn’t stupid and totally void of substance, so unlike Dead Alive’s goofy RomComZomDram hero’s quest, Versus comes out feeling like a goofy snooze fest full of losers and dorks. On this one I must differ with popular consensus, Versus sucks, and it can fuck itself.

Fuck you, Versus.

D-

 

OGROFF/MAD MUTILATOR!

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Ogroff AKA The Mad Mutilator ~ 1983, Norbert Georges Mount

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Ogroff is a low budget, nonsensical French gore film about a masked Frenchman who lives in a shack in the woods and massacres anyone who blunders into his little world, which actually seems pretty easy to do. People wander all over his woods like it’s no big deal all the time! Ogroff always finds them, too, one lady doesn’t even leave the highway, she just pulls over and walks to the rear of her vehicle and somehow Ogroff is already in her trunk, just chompin’ at the bit to do some mutilating. The movie does nothing to smooth over how hard that makes no sense at all. It’s sort of like a French version of Violent Shit, but although the craftsmanship is arguably slightly better than it’s German cousin, from a narrative, or even artistic perspective, Ogroff lags miles behind, and that’s a terrifying statement. Simply put, the film is real, real horrible, like so horrible it makes Andy Milligan or J. Piquer Simon look like Orson Wells by comparison. Apparently, director Norbert Georges Mount was a video store clerk by day and a filmmaker on the side when he shot Ogroff. Most people are aware that Quentin Tarantino was at one time himself a video store clerk, but not everyone who works at Home Depot is qualified to build your house for you. We should remember that.

THE PLOT~ Ogroff lives in his flimsy shack in the woods, where his right to mutilate is utterly unchallenged by any form of resistance, and where people constantly intrude with no apparent knowledge of danger, only to be mutilated, by Ogroff. He loves it!

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He’s a pretty happy guy, all things considered!

Most of the people in this film are such horrible actors that they stare Ogroff, actively in the process of killing them, dead in the face with no expression whatsoever, as though partial facial paralysis was a mandatory requirement to audition for a role in the movie. They wander about, completely unresponsive to their surroundings or the situation. It’s like a nearby android manufacturing plant suffered storm damage and now all the droids have escaped and are wandering about the countryside without their brains plugged in. Basically, Ogroff is all about gore laden games of cat and mouse, but with the element of suspense completely absent from the equation entirely.

Until it changes it’s mind about what it wants to be. For a while, Ogroff is effectively, a slasher. HOWEVER… at some point in the film (Maybe around the nine hour mark? Ogroff drags on for days) Ogroff chooses to spare one of his victims, so that he might enjoy her companionship. She actually doesn’t seem too put off by this, and sort of jumps into the backwoods murderer lifestyle relatively easily, until, that is, curiosity gets the better of her and she decides to investigate what Ogroff has in his cellar.

Apparently, and for reasons that are never explained in any way, Casa De Ogroff is like, crammed to the gills with zombies. Ogroff apparently collects them. Many are kept in the cellar, under a flimsy, unsecured hatch, which apparently did the job in keeping them all rounded up just fine until whatshername peeks down there, and then all hell breaks loose. Not only does her intrusion rile up the Undead Basement Bunch, it seemingly activates all zombies, worldwide, because from this point forward this is no longer a slasher, but instead a zombie film, and Ogroff’s Creep Pad is swarming with ghouls in seconds. They literally come out of the walls, but it’s not just Ogroff’s place, the forest surrounding the shack is completely infested as well, and now we mostly leave Ogroff and instead follow our nameless female as she tries to escape from her startlingly more supernatural nightmare, which includes zombies, a Motorcycle riding Ogroff (awesome,) spooky ghost eyes, a vampire priest, and some sort of strange sewer ghoul. Ogroff’s role becomes greatly minimized, and in the last thirty minutes the movie changes it’s mind about what it wants to be wildly, like a child losing interest. The result is both confusing and somewhat delightful, and it sort of puts Ogroff over the top and into psychotronic legend. It is by going that extra mile to suck even harder that this movie reaches it’s brass ring.

I do not believe that Ogroff ever had a script, but if it did, and that script was taken to a scriptwriting workshop for peer review, there would be absolutely no aspect of the work that was salvageable. It’s not about what Ogroff does wrong- you see, nothing works. There is no single idea or concept in this work that is worth saving, from an academic perspective, the only way to have improved this while it was still in the script phase would have been to simply destroy it completely and start fresh.

That’s not to say that you can’t enjoy Ogroff– on the contrary, I had a pretty good time. It’s just that you really, really have to accept that the film completely fails to adhere to any form of logic at all. I don’t feel the “mad genius” vibe on here that you might see from Lynch or Jodorowsky, this just feels shabby and poorly executed. When wading through the muck of the psychotronic film genre, sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between what is stupid, and what is insane. I am not sure where Ogroff lands on that plane… That’s for God to decide.

One particularly unforgivable sequence takes place with some French youths who have set up a chess game out in the middle of nowhere. They sit, essentially motionless, for two hundred years, in silence. The scene drags on like I can’t express, it is incredible. I should also mention that there is almost no dialogue in the entire movie. How did Mount think this was okay? The film’s long list of problems would have been a lot easier to overlook had we not also been torpedoed with this excruciating sequence of inaction. Seriously, there’s a girl hanging out with them who moves around a little, but other than that, nothing happens, they just sit and listen to awful synth music on their radio and wait to die. And if that’s what it’s like to be young in France, I would welcome the coming mutilation. Ogroff would be like an angel of mercy if he were taking me out of that horrid purgatory. The scene really is the worst thing the film does, and it’s pretty hard to pardon it.

But Ogroff is still pretty fun… There’s just something about it. Ogroff, the character, is actually pretty likable, he’s just a man doing what he really loves, and that’s always nice to see. Actually, in a very direct way, Ogroff is the main character in this movie; since none of his victims are around long enough, or have anywhere near enough characterization to steal the show away from him, and because all of his mutilatees are already so lifeless and empty to start with, his reign of axe swinging terror doesn’t even feel like a bad thing. The only emotion we ever see in this film is sheer glee, and it comes from Ogroff himself, while he chops madly at strangers. I wish my job made me that happy.

It’s probably worth addressing Ogroff’s reputation for ultra violence; I think it’s undeserved. While it’s absolutely decently gory, especially for a French film, it isn’t going to blow your mind, and if you’ve seen Violent Shit or have spent any time with Italian splatter films or video nasties, you’ve already seen worse. I think maybe it feels more graphic than it is, in part, because it’s so low budget, but also because the violence is done in such a labored, ritualistic fashion, and because the gore effects are actually decent when compared to how piss poor the rest of the production is. Ogroff almost feels like the home movie of a murderous French hillbilly sometimes, so the blood has more weight to it than in films that are clearly more anchored in fantasy. I only bring it up to clarify that if you get your hands on a copy thinking you and your friends are about to take it to the next level, you might be let down.

So, Ogroff is an oddity. Equally terrible and wacky but a lot of fun for people who are accustomed to this kind of movie experience. I recommend it.

B-