Though directorial partnership Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury show a knack for palpable tension and some impressive, albeit derivative, compositions, their horror film Inside is so thoroughly bankrupt of a soul - or even fleeting sense of sympathy - that any technical achievement on their part is nullified. Despite its critical acclaim (like the horribly off-the-mark Total Film quote and rating prominent on the DVD cover), there's a degree of difficulty to concluding what the overall appeal to this over-the-top nastiness is beyond an excessive employment of gore. The story's intriguing and loaded with potential - a heavily-pregnant widower (Alysson Paradis) is visited and subsequently attacked by an unhinged stranger (Beatrice Dalle) bent on performing a caesarean section and making off with her baby - yet Bustillo and Maury are so blunt in their method that Inside eventually goes beyond the realm of a wasted opportunity. Fascinated seemingly exlusively by gruesome violence, the filmmakers leave nothing to the imagination, scarcely pausing for thought as bodies pile up or - in one instance - reanimate in the style of Dawn of the Dead for no other apparent reason than to be brutalized further. Naturally with a film so boorishly motivated, nonsense piles up - from the what-the-fuck sight of watching Paradis threaten to injure herself and her unborn to an obnoxious history lesson that links the pair of women together in the most trite fashion. Where Wolf Creek had a sense of profound loss and believable human streak, and the undervalued Hostel: Part II had a rejuvenating wit, this horrid piece of shit has neither. Throw it in with Martyrs as one of the year's two misanthropic French bombs.
Inside (2007)
Though directorial partnership Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury show a knack for palpable tension and some impressive, albeit derivative, compositions, their horror film Inside is so thoroughly bankrupt of a soul - or even fleeting sense of sympathy - that any technical achievement on their part is nullified. Despite its critical acclaim (like the horribly off-the-mark Total Film quote and rating prominent on the DVD cover), there's a degree of difficulty to concluding what the overall appeal to this over-the-top nastiness is beyond an excessive employment of gore. The story's intriguing and loaded with potential - a heavily-pregnant widower (Alysson Paradis) is visited and subsequently attacked by an unhinged stranger (Beatrice Dalle) bent on performing a caesarean section and making off with her baby - yet Bustillo and Maury are so blunt in their method that Inside eventually goes beyond the realm of a wasted opportunity. Fascinated seemingly exlusively by gruesome violence, the filmmakers leave nothing to the imagination, scarcely pausing for thought as bodies pile up or - in one instance - reanimate in the style of Dawn of the Dead for no other apparent reason than to be brutalized further. Naturally with a film so boorishly motivated, nonsense piles up - from the what-the-fuck sight of watching Paradis threaten to injure herself and her unborn to an obnoxious history lesson that links the pair of women together in the most trite fashion. Where Wolf Creek had a sense of profound loss and believable human streak, and the undervalued Hostel: Part II had a rejuvenating wit, this horrid piece of shit has neither. Throw it in with Martyrs as one of the year's two misanthropic French bombs.
Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
Far more bland than a slasher movie boasting a santa-costumed villain should be, the sub-Halloween Silent Night, Deadly Night barely takes advantage of its Christmas setting, preferring instead to generally keep to the status quo of mediocre '80s slashers. Yet unlike with other forgettable hacks and slashes of the time (Graduation Day, Friday the 13th), Silent Night doesn't really have anybody worth rooting for, instead focusing in on the mostly dull character history of its killer of choice, here a mentally-scarred nutjob essentially reenacting his past experiences (where his parents were ruthlessly offed by a Santa-costumed criminal, so now is he donning the red-and-white while going absolutely batshit). Most memorable in Silent Night, Deadly Night are sequences that bizarrely play like Christmas-themed cartoons and a kill sequence in which a mounted buck's head is used to grim effect. Back-and-forthing between maniac Billy's (Robert Brian Wilson) childhood in an oppressive orphanage where one Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin) reigned supreme and the present-day exploits, it's pretty uneven fluff, made little better by Wilson's borderline-diabolical leading performance. And yet, there's no motivation to feel the kind of spite for Silent Night that's ordinarily reserved for the lowliest Friday the 13th flicks - in brief, sporadic spurts, this one's sometimes kind of fun.(Silent Night, Deadly Night is re-released on UK DVD November 23)
Clips, Trailers, Metric Units of Mass and Weight
More reviews on FilmNet are going to be appearing over the coming weeks (hopefully including one for the excellent Trick 'r Treat), but until then I've only a few features for It's Just Movies and a brief review posted on WikPik to share. Of these look-ahead features, the most promising film in discussion looks to be Ti West's The House of the Devil, a film suggesting a welcome break from the tired remake/sequel fare we're becoming increasingly accustomed to seeing. The review linked to is - joyously enough - a negative one for a film that's otherwise critically popular.21 Grams (WikPik)
A Clip from 'House of the Devil' (It's Just Movies)
Trailer Talk: 'Shake Hands With the Devil' (It's Just Movies)
Trailer Talk: 'Triage' (It's Just Movies)
Prom Nights Bad and Good (And Happy Halloween!)
Though it prefers not to apply the superficiality and trivialization to its central subject as did its unwarranted, unbearable 2008 revamp, 1980's Prom Night still doesn't make the grade as a worthwhile slasher venture (yes - even by such generally modest standards). Not only is this post-Halloween Jamie Lee Curtis slasher lacking any particularly memorable murder sequences, the plot and film craft on display here is pretty much without a pulse. Aesthetically lacklustre where its remake was obnoxiously glossy and devoid of crimson, the original is the other kind of disposable slash-a-thon. Watching it on TV this Halloween, I was struck by how without reward this all was since slashers of the '80s do in general have at least (and usually just) one novel trick up their sleeve. Here, there's no shock or surprise - not in the revelation of who the horridly-outfitted do-badder is nor the level of performance from cast or crew. It runs lugubriously on the wheels that Carpenter's Halloween (with Psycho and Black Christmas) practically invented.
But again, it's miles better than this.
There's surely more, but this one's the first worthwhile movie revolving around a prom night that I can think of:
And Away We Go
Reviews:
Cabin Fever (FilmNet)
Features:
A Clip from 'Bunny and the Bull' (It's Just Movies)
Poster Peek: 'Harry Brown' (It's Just Movies)
Two Scenes from 'Ong Bak 2: The Beginning' (It's Just Movies)
Two Clips from 'Gentlemen Broncos' (It's Just Movies)
Book Review:
Snark, by David Denby (Amazon Vine)
Who Am I Here?
THE STEPFATHER: Movie Trailer - The best bloopers are a click away
Apparently, that buzzsaw scene isn't included in the actual film - just in case you were still wondering whether there's any reason to see a Stepfather without Terry O'Quinn.
Oh, and this blog's changing direction, less one-film reviews. More later.
Coraline (Henry Selick, 2009)
By Tom Elce
Viewers taking a chance on seeing the overrated Up in cinemas would serve themselves better with Henry Selick's more imaginative and lively animated Coraline. An onslaught of out-there animated scenarios play out as the eponymous character (voiced by Dakota Fanning) discovers a new world on the other side of a small door in the home she shares with her eternally busy parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman). Meeting her button-eyed Other Mother and Other Father, who dote on the enchanted Coraline, giving her all the attention she's been craving, from a dedicated piano tune to a pristine meal. There's just one catch if Coraline wishes to stay in this seemingly better world: she has to trade in her eyes for black buttons. Rapidly, the facade of this alternate reality unravels for Coraline, Selick (notably of the masterful Nightmare Before Christmas) subsequently making the film all about nightmarish imagery and an increasingly scraggly transformation of its lead villain, the treacherous other mother.
Based on the Neil Gaiman concept, Selick's film doesn't rest on the simple fact that its image of grinning, button-eyed parents being outwardly creepy to get through. Rather, the ante is upped in the potentially lethal game Coraline starts with Other Mother, the girl battling to free the monster's previous victims as well as her parents, for whom her ongoing experience has given Coraline a newfound appreciation of. With its endearing melancholic mood giving way to an altogether more threatening tone, Coraline achieves a seamless combination of styles that Up could not, writer-director Selick giving the movie it's aesthetic and visceral charm while pushing a novel subtext on being grateful for one's lot in life. Coraline's a superlatively animated (the tunnel entrances and exits to the Other World notable standouts) and wonderfully told motion picture, for which the only major setback is the lack of a Monster House-like ending - when we anticipate a grand face-off/destruction ending, the movie allows itself to come to a steady conclusion, albeit one in which hunched-over sidekick Wybie Lovat (Robert Bailey Jr.) finally gets something to do.
(Note: This review cannot comment on the effectiveness of Coraline's 3-D use, since attempts to view this format at home were frustrating at best. Storyline-wise, the film's strong enough to not need the extra dimension.)