A pair of horror flicks.

Based on a five blood drop scale.

BITTER FEAST

Horror’s seen a return to the graphic violence that permeated the post-Vietnam years thanks in part to the inexplicable birth of torture porn; gutbucket splatter; gorno. Wolf Creek is probably the apotheosis of the genre, with Eli Roth’s Hostel being at the low end of the rotting totem pole.

To have all the elements of a gorno movie you need:

1. Nihilistic central character(s)

2. The drawn-out torture of a helpless victim

3. A secluded environment cut off from all forms of communication

4. Gory, misanthropic imagery

5. A dehumanizing, nasty and/or misogynist plotline

Let’s review BITTER FEAST, the cruel tale of a swanky food critic, a crabby celebrity chef and a tucked-away chateau:

Numero twa: Sure Chef Cranky Pants ignores a few established laws when he kidnaps an antagonistic food critic and forces him to cook for his life, but his contemptuous social ramblings are frivolous and foggy.

Dos: Ebert’s culinary equivalent is knocked around a bit, but the torture sequences are rather conservative by today’s standards.

Three: Chef Crabby Britches takes his critical nemesis to an estate deep in the woods, but it’s easily discovered by both a PI and the critic’s wife.

Four: See dos.

Five: Lifeless, uninspired story occupied by static, flat characters.

Overall: BITTER FEAST is like a Tuscan Shrimp with Penne minus the pasta. It’s Chicken Cacciatore minus the sauce. It’s Rigatoni Primavera minus the vegetables.

I only hope director Joe Maggio doesn’t body snatch me and force me to load three mags of 35mm for my unfavorable comments.

BLOOD CREEK

So you thought Michael Fassbender was a tough guy in Eden Lake? Well excuse me while I top off your Caramel Macchiato. You were benumbed by Fassbender’s manliness in 300? Pardon me while I find you the next showtime for The Sound of Music. You were narcotized by Micheal F’s brawniness in Centurion? Well, actually your reaction would be justified; he was pretty bad ass in Centurion.

In BLOOD CREEK, the tale of man seeking revenge against a satanic nazi zombie who entombed him for the purpose of consuming his blood, Fassbender portrays an awesome vampiric villain.

To say director Joel Schumacher has, ahem, Batman & Robin, churned out a few, er, St. Elmo’s Fire, lumps of excrement throughout his career would be an understatement. However, as is customary for fans of horror, I have an extremely selective memory. I lack the sense of mental vision to see beyond that 1986 gem, THE LOST BOYS. BLOOD CREEK’s story is a bit silly and the movie is hampered by poor CGI, yet I found myself really diggin’ it. The stark, black and white cinematography used to depict the West Virginia farmhouse circa 1936 is unexpected in a film titled BLOOD CREEK. Beams of light and clouds of dust navigate their way through floor beams and canopies to chilling effect.

Though the makeup donned by Fassbender’s undead minion veers toward camp, it ultimately fills viewers with fear. Likewise, the mythology surrounding the character is a bit hokey, yet is fun enough to propel the film beyond spam-in-a-cabin status.

Win Win

Wrestling is one of our earliest sports. It requires not only physical strength, but also emotional and mental toughness. As an individual sport, it affords no room for excuses while providing an opportunity for supreme satisfaction. Plus, it is the purest, most primitive means of settling a score. Educational merit and social status mean little as long as I can kick your ass.


Which brings us to WIN WIN, a sickly sweet treat of a film about the exploits of a hapless attorney (Mike played by Paul Giamatti) who moonlights as a high school wrestling coach. In a desperate attempt to keep his practice, he agrees to take on the guardianship of an elderly client. But when the feeble ol’ chap’s drug-addicted daughter and athletically-gifted grandson knock at the door, Mike’s life is thrown into disarray.


Giamatti locks a full nelson around the role and delivers a sensational performance. We’re not asked to judge his character, who is equal parts generosity and licentiousness, but rather to impartially observe his comically painful situation.


Director Tom McCarthy slaps a tight cradle around a story that is quirky, compassionate and inspirational – the type of movie that forces you to leave the theater with a smile on your face.


It’s a pinning achievement; a technical fall of a picture; a slam dunk. Sorry, wrong sport. But still, the first great film of 2011.

top 10 horror 2010 (Part 2)

MACHETE
What happens when a 90’s action star/martial artist/reserve deputy sheriff (Steven Segal) kills the family of a Federale dubbed Machete and attempts to set him on fire? Said Federale disappears for ten years only to resurface just in time to be hired by the recently resurrected Jeff Fahey to kill Congressional candidate Robert De Niro and squelch his anti-alien
aka anti-interloper
aka anti-foreigner
aka anti-refugee rantings. What’s Machete been doing for ten years? Your guess is as good as mine.

An amusing pastiche of an exploitation picture, MACHETE is every bit as violent, gory and gratuitous as you’d hope it to be. An entertaining achievement for Robert Rodriguez whose pictures have waxed and waned throughout his career.

Kudos to Maya Leal for pulling a phone from her holiest of holies and to Jessica Alba for spouting the line, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.”

The opposite of kudos (jeers?) to Lindsay Lohan for using stand-in boobies in her nude scenes and to Alba for her customarily prudish starboard shower shot.

MONSTERS
Affection showin’, intercourse havin’ aliens take over the world in Gareth Edwards low-budget sci-fi thriller MONSTERS starring Scoot McNairy as a cynical journalist who reluctantly agrees to escort his boss’ daughter through alien-riddled Mexico and runs into beings from outer space.

Edwards deserves props for creating an apocalyptic world on a miniscule budget. Though not devoid of flaws, the familiar narrative and stylistic photography make MONSTERS an impactful effort and an efficient entry in our DIY filmmaking culture.

RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS STORY
Ho ho ho! Santa Clause is coming to town and he’s bringing with him an insatiable appetite for young children. This Finish fantasy film about bloodthirsty Kris Kringles taking over a Korvatunturi town is a trippy adventure that is at points absurd but always entertaining.

Director, Jalmari Helander, executes with grim humor and a terrific visual flare. A darkly fun lump of coal for your stocking in the tradition of Gremlins, RARE EXPORTS provides a macabre analysis of the symbolic figures behind our most popular holiday.

THE ECLIPSE
Q: When do ghosts usually appear ?
A: Just before someone screams !

Actually, in recent widower Michael Farr’s (Ciaran Hinds) world ghosts appear anytime, even before their soul is dead.

Not to be confused with the latest installment in the Twilight series, which I assume is scream worthy for totally different reasons, THE ECLIPSE is a character piece about the often tiresome routines of life. The ghosts are creepy when they pop up, but the true focus of the film is the romance between Michael and that chick that dumped John Cusack in High Fidelity and how she helps him to cope with the loss of his wife. The culminating scene is truly harrowing.

BLACK SWAN
So Queen Amidala hopes to land the role of the duplicitous swan queen in her company’s latest production while duh, winning the affection of her cuckoo mommy and remaining F’ worthy in the eyes of the boys. Only she keeps getting distracted by that hot chick from That 70s Show – no not that one, the one that dated Macaulay Culkin for like eight years.

The movie is at points overly dramatic and a bit too self-important but it is surreal and visually effective and Natalie Portman does give a pretty brave performance. Director Darren Aronofsky draws you into to his character’s neurosis early on with distressing images of distorted faces on train platforms. But by the time her mother’s surrealist paintings begin coming to life, things get a bit goofy.

And the Wrestler comparisons are warranted – both films feature performers consumed by their art and culminate with the hero leaping to their death. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing though.


NOTE: There are a number of films that I have seen that are currently playing the festival circuit and have popped up on other lists of this type. I’ll save those titles for next year’s list – when they are more widely available.

I did not see Let Me In – I didn’t see the point.

Vanishing on 7th Street

If Brad Anderson's assured debut, Session 9, was spine-tingling
entertainment, then his latest effort, Vanishing on 7th Street, is
uninspired drudgery. As an admirer of his earlier works, I'm struggling to
find a single redeeming quality. Let's review:

WRITING:
INT. MOVIE THEATER -- NIGHT
Mid-aged film projectionist Paul (John Leguizamo) approaches the 19-year-old Venus working the concession stand. A dialogue ensues regarding the theater's current film lineup that ends with:

PAUL
Nothing you'd like.

VENUS
How would you know what I like? Maybe you should find out sometime. WINK WINK.

An exalted Paul retreats to his cubbyhole.

CUT TO:

Detroit is plunged into darkness and a disparate group of people
(including Paul and physical therapist Rosemary) find themselves all
alone.

PAUL
Do you think I have a shot?

Rosemary emits a puzzled look.

PAUL (cont'd.)
Not with you. I mean with anyone?

HOW ABOUT THE SEX GODDESS THAT EYE-RAPED YOU 10 MINUTES AGO. Did you forget about her? Is the audience supposed to have forgotten about her? What the F' is going on right?


PERFORMANCES:
Firstly, aside from the abovementioned dish, the only female in the picture is a disheveled ex-addict with bats in the belfry. There’s no sexy white female with whom Hayden Christensen can risk vanishing into the darkness to do the wild monkey dance.

Victims of the darkness leave behind piles of empty clothes. The unoccupied articles of dress feature more dynamic personalities than the survivors. Example:

Luke (Christensen) enters a lighted bar to find James (Jacob Latimore who receives the distinctive “and introducing” title in the opening credits). James opens fire on Luke with a shotgun. Luke responds by suggesting that the bar is not safe for either of them and that they should both flee ASAP. How does he determine this? He hasn’t explored the place. If he knew it was unsafe prior to entering then why did he enter? This is immediately followed by a comedic routine in which Luke threatens to leave James alone while tiptoeing to the door. They then proceed to remain at the bar for the remainder of the picture.

I think the name James is uttered at least one-hundred-fifty times throughout the movie.

Paul is so annoying I found myself rooting for his demise. When he was finally and anticlimactically dispatched, I felt my man-part twitch just a little.


DIRECTION:
The movie is devoid of style or flare. There is so little camera movement you’d swear you were watching a play. Anderson’s mastery of film language in Session 9 and The Machinist stimulated the nerve endings of viewers. His ineptitude here is truly unbelievable.

I guess the movie is a parable about the disintegration of Detroit and the effect of the city’s drug culture, but it doesn't work. It ends with the preposterous image of *SPOILER ALERT* two young children leaving the Motor City on horseback for, you guessed it, Chicago.

Cedar Rapids

Tim Lippe is in his mid-thirties. He’s having an affair with his ex-elementary school teacher who is now in her mid-sixties. He dreams of one day erecting a small green house in his backyard. He’s fervidly devoted to his employer (Brown Stone Insurance), and is stoked to represent them at Cedar Rapids’s annual insurance convention. Enter Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly) and Ronald "The Ronimal" Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), conference veterans eager to break Tim from his conservative shell.

Cedar Rapids features infidelity, prostitution, drug use, alcohol use, bribery use, foul language use, crude humor use and is overwhelmingly charming. It is that rare type of movie that feels genuine while never forcing itself to conform to the conventions of modern cinema.

Ed Helms is brilliant as the fish-out-of-water Tim Lippe – a role not too distant from the dainty character he portrays on The Office. The supporting players seldom put a wrong foot, hurling comedy like it were vomit all over the screen. No one plays a middle-age child like John C. Reilly. His performance as the obnoxious Ziegler is irredeemably funny.

Kudos to Whitlock for his convincing impersonation of Omar from the HBO program The Wire. Strong Praise to Reilly for his R2-D2 imitation.

Barney's Version

Barney Panofsky loves hockey. He loves cigars, scotch and opiates. He's politically incorrect, belligerent and unreserved in speech. He loathes weight reduction plans, cosmetic therapy and the affluent. He loves his Jewish father. He's been accused of murdering his best friend. He's been married three times to three beautiful women and he's managed to exasperate them all.

Paul Giamatti grabs hold of the character with every part of himself. The anecdotal story is full of witty commentary and humorous observation. It paints a very sweet, very candid picture of romanticism. Even Dustin Hoffman, whom I often find highly annoying, is endearing. Look for cameos by directors Adam Egoyan and David Cronenberg.

Though highly successful on the festival circuit at the end of 2010, Barney's Version only recently received a limited release. Had I the opportunity to see it a bit earlier, it may have broke onto my top ten list for last year. It's that good people.

top 10 horror 2010 (Part 1)

I'd like to get vile for just a moment if you don't mind and discuss the best horror flicks of 2010. Many of you gore enthusiasts have been waiting with bated bad breath for months for me to release this head-spinning, eye-gouging, throat-slitting, paint-the-walls-red list. Well, with less
first-run selections and fewer straight-to-dvd releases, compiling said list proved a difficult task. However, my preoccupation with criticizing other people's art compelled me to push on. And so, without further rambling, I give you, well, a few ramblings on the best frightfully shocking pics of 2010. Hope you enjoy.

THE LAST EXORCISM: Ever since Linda Blair spewed split pea soup all over Father Merrin people have been familiar with the process of evicting demons from small children. In The Last Exorcism, Reverend Cotton Marcus has been doing the head-spinning, Latin spewing dog and pony show since before he could say Hail Mary. He’s decided to bring us along to rural Louisiana to witness his final exorcism in the hopes of debunking the religious practice. It seems sweet Nell’s been offing Daddy’s livestock during the night and is in need of a cleansing. Of course, Satan’s not one to go easily.

The faux documentary has lost its impact in the years following Heather Donahue’s on-camera snotting in The Blair Witch Project. The Last Exorcism, however, utilizes the conventions of the genre to shocking effect. The picture sustains suspense via strong characterization and an acceptable story. Though the final moments are a bit hokey, the movie is edge-of-your-seat frightening throughout.



VALHALLA RISING: So you’re a tough-as-nails warrior with one eye and an undefeated record in the ring but since you can’t speak nobody knows your name and refers to you only as One Eye. All you want to do is walk the Earth like Kane in Kung Fu but Norse tribes and Christian Vikings keep enlisting you to do their bidding.

Director Nicolas Winding Refn resists the typical conventions of cinema with the same level of force used by his protagonist to off his adversaries – limbs are severed, torsos are flayed, brain matter is flung at the screen with aesthetic delight . Deliberately paced and uncompromisingly violent, the movie will linger in your mind days after viewing.



BURIED: US contractor Paul Conroy leaves his wife and young son in the country of the people, by the people, for the people and gets himself buried alive in Iraq. A triumphant exercise, Buried manages to be both suspenseful and entertaining despite taking place entirely within the
confines of a coffin. Director Rodrigo Cortes employs a number of useful tricks to establish interesting compositions and Ryan Reynolds earns his chops in a role that dismisses from the minds of genre fans the vampire detective with an aversion to sleeves he played in Blade: Trinity.



ZOMBIE GIRL: THE MOVIE: You know Emily. She’s the cute twelve-year-old with the porcelain skin, sweet voice and unhealthy obsession for all things zombie.

Okay, so it’s a documentary about a girl making a horror movie and not an actual horror flick but Zombie Girl is one of the most inspirational, funny, entertaining and (insert superlative indentifier here), movies of the year. Anyone who’s ever experienced the terror that goes into making a movie will get a kick out of the very real troubles that plague Emily’s amateur set.



SEVEN DAYS: I can’t imagine how many maniacs I’ve observed doing their thing during my lifetime. I can say though that Dr. Hamel is unlike any I’ve seen. He’s clean cut, soft-spoken, polite and severely meticulous when torturing the man who raped and murdered his daughter.

Slick direction and an important message propel 7 Days beyond the torture porn genre. The decisions of its characters will work on the conscience of even casual horror fans. The movie touches on the same moral matters as its counterparts, however, features characters that, even at their most dismal, remain humane.