Well over one century ago (1897 to be exact) in the dingy back streets of Montmartre, Paris, an eccentric ex-secretary to a Police commissioner named Oscar Metenier, opened the Theatre du Grand Guignol. For 65 years, groups of performers staged one-act plays that depicted graphic scenes of murder, mutilation and torture. Famous works by authors such as Charles Dickens and James Hadley Chase were adapted for Grand Guignol and made into, some might say, horrific gore-laden masterpieces. Audience's morbid curiosities kept the shows ever popular, all the way up until when Germany invaded France during World War II. Perhaps because the French population was experiencing true horrors of their own, the urge to see such events portrayed on stage, quite obviously became a lot less alluring. The theatre never recovered, and it finally closed its doors for the last time in 1962.
Norbert Georges Moutier, as publisher of a popular horror fanzine in Paris and owner of a video store, was obviously well aware of France's links with gore-laden horror and being an avid enthusiast, he decided to bring Grand Guignol back to French screens with his own low budget shocker. Inspired heavily by the popular titles of the time such as The Burning and Halloween, Moutier's extremely rare slasher is an interesting feature.
It tells the tale of Ogroff, a wooden-hut dwelling maniac, whose soul ambition in life seems to be to murder anyone who trespasses across the small patch of woodland that he calls home. As the story unfolds, it takes a slightly different angle to most conventional slasher flicks as Ogroff learns that he is not the only bogeyman in that secluded piece of woodland.
Unlike the majority of archetypal genre entries, Ogroff is an extremely intriguing beast. I studied French at school and have visited the country many times, but French is not one of the languages that I speak fluently. It wouldn't matter if I were stone deaf however as the feature has only 5 lines of dialogue, which makes it the closest that we have to a 'silent slasher film' It's easy to see that Ogroff is a film made for horror fans by a horror fan. It plays like a myriad of clichés jumbled together and thrown into a juxtaposition that although not over-long, can often feel like a check-list of ingredients that have no apparent structure.
The film is not afraid of its magpie nature and openly imitates titles such as Friday the 13th Part II, The Burning, Burial Ground and even some of the cannibal flicks that were popular during that period. You can almost picture NG Moutier working in his video shop, much as a certain Quentin Tarantino did a few years later, and writing his ideas into a notepad whilst an omnibus of horror classics played on in the background.
Although Ogroff tries its damnedest to shock with its brazen approach and no holds barred gratuitous imagery, by far the scariest sight in the feature is that of a Citroen 2CV. Yes, one of those terrifying France-produced yoghurt-pot-on-wheels, which bizarrely became far more popular than they had any right to after World War II.. Fortunately, Ogroff does his nation proud by dismantling it completely with his trusty axe!
Is the movie gory? Yes; but the effects are so tacky that they don't quite sit in line with the level of the video nasties of that era. Short, cheap and hokey are more apt descriptions. There are limbs and heads flying by the bucket-load and a multitude of gore-laden scenarios, but the effects never impress as would a Maniac or The Prowler. Ogroff himself is as wacky as the plot structure, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the director's eagerness to make him as gratuitously evil as possible leaves him looking far more comedic than he is scary. His motives are twisted and he dons an excellent mask, but he lacks the fear factor that led his peers to cult classic status.
The feature sticks closely to the slasher rulebook and the masked axe-wielding killer as a central character makes no mistake as to where the movie's inspirations lie. With that said, things aren't strictly conventional and towards the conclusion we are treated to an invasion of the living dead and the climax of the feature enters authentic territory as our bogeyman wages battle against the hordes of zombies that have invaded his killing zone. From here on out the plot becomes more interesting...
NG Moutier would go on to direct a few more direct-to-video titles, which would unfortunately fail to provide him with the cult status that he so desperately aspired to achieve. Ogroff on the other hand remains interesting mainly because it's so amazingly obscure. Event though I could never comfortably recommend this feature to anybody, if you enjoyed the work of Nathan Schiff, you'll lap up Ogroff greedily. Everyone else however should keep a guarded distance.
Norbert Georges Moutier, as publisher of a popular horror fanzine in Paris and owner of a video store, was obviously well aware of France's links with gore-laden horror and being an avid enthusiast, he decided to bring Grand Guignol back to French screens with his own low budget shocker. Inspired heavily by the popular titles of the time such as The Burning and Halloween, Moutier's extremely rare slasher is an interesting feature.
It tells the tale of Ogroff, a wooden-hut dwelling maniac, whose soul ambition in life seems to be to murder anyone who trespasses across the small patch of woodland that he calls home. As the story unfolds, it takes a slightly different angle to most conventional slasher flicks as Ogroff learns that he is not the only bogeyman in that secluded piece of woodland.
Unlike the majority of archetypal genre entries, Ogroff is an extremely intriguing beast. I studied French at school and have visited the country many times, but French is not one of the languages that I speak fluently. It wouldn't matter if I were stone deaf however as the feature has only 5 lines of dialogue, which makes it the closest that we have to a 'silent slasher film' It's easy to see that Ogroff is a film made for horror fans by a horror fan. It plays like a myriad of clichés jumbled together and thrown into a juxtaposition that although not over-long, can often feel like a check-list of ingredients that have no apparent structure.
The film is not afraid of its magpie nature and openly imitates titles such as Friday the 13th Part II, The Burning, Burial Ground and even some of the cannibal flicks that were popular during that period. You can almost picture NG Moutier working in his video shop, much as a certain Quentin Tarantino did a few years later, and writing his ideas into a notepad whilst an omnibus of horror classics played on in the background.
Although Ogroff tries its damnedest to shock with its brazen approach and no holds barred gratuitous imagery, by far the scariest sight in the feature is that of a Citroen 2CV. Yes, one of those terrifying France-produced yoghurt-pot-on-wheels, which bizarrely became far more popular than they had any right to after World War II.. Fortunately, Ogroff does his nation proud by dismantling it completely with his trusty axe!
Is the movie gory? Yes; but the effects are so tacky that they don't quite sit in line with the level of the video nasties of that era. Short, cheap and hokey are more apt descriptions. There are limbs and heads flying by the bucket-load and a multitude of gore-laden scenarios, but the effects never impress as would a Maniac or The Prowler. Ogroff himself is as wacky as the plot structure, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the director's eagerness to make him as gratuitously evil as possible leaves him looking far more comedic than he is scary. His motives are twisted and he dons an excellent mask, but he lacks the fear factor that led his peers to cult classic status.
The feature sticks closely to the slasher rulebook and the masked axe-wielding killer as a central character makes no mistake as to where the movie's inspirations lie. With that said, things aren't strictly conventional and towards the conclusion we are treated to an invasion of the living dead and the climax of the feature enters authentic territory as our bogeyman wages battle against the hordes of zombies that have invaded his killing zone. From here on out the plot becomes more interesting...
NG Moutier would go on to direct a few more direct-to-video titles, which would unfortunately fail to provide him with the cult status that he so desperately aspired to achieve. Ogroff on the other hand remains interesting mainly because it's so amazingly obscure. Event though I could never comfortably recommend this feature to anybody, if you enjoyed the work of Nathan Schiff, you'll lap up Ogroff greedily. Everyone else however should keep a guarded distance.