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Reviews
Killer's Moon (1978)
You people are all crazy. Killer's Moon is a genre classic
Now come on. Killer's Moon occupies a special spot in my heart for a number of reasons. Firstly, I was ten years old when it came out, and being mad for the horror flick, I remember wishing I was just that little bit bigger: big enough to blag my way into an "X" so I could see for myself what all this lurid stuff was really about! Happily, being a glandular freak, it wasn't too much longer before I was able to enjoy an illicit euroslash treat down the local fleapit whilst supposedly going to see "Empire Strikes Back". Hah! So years later I've caught up with Killer's Moon (around about 1985 as it goes) and y'know what? It has never disappointed me since. It's got its charming little flaws: so what? So it's not a highly polished, taught, edge-of-the-seat number: so what? The Hollywood machine, in the years since 1978, has learned to squeeze out dozens of highly polished, taught, edge-of-the-seat numbers - most of which are excrement. You tell me in all honesty that "The Ring 2" or "Cursed" are better efforts than Killer's Moon and I'll eat the dog's remaining legs.
What Killer's Moon does for me is takes me back to reading 2000ad, watching "Crown Court" and catching trailers for "Food of the Gods/Squirm (from Friday)" and wishing I was grown up enough to see them. Now I am grown up enough to see them, they are every bit as good as I expected.
So, away with your effete whining. Honestly, some of you moan it's sick, others moan it's not graphic enough, others moan that it's inept. What it's got is a lot of heart and soul (and half naked ladies). Killer's Moon is the "Eddie the Eagle" of genre cinema: you kind of know it's rubbish, but it leaves you with a warm glow, cheering it on.
Killer's Moon will always make my top five, and I'm never wrong about anything, so put that in your collective pipes and smoke it!
The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael (2005)
quietly magnificent
Have you seen "The Brown Bunny"? Or "Romance"? Or "Baise-Moi"? Or "Irreversible", "Les Idiots", "In the cut" or any one of a number of movies which have, for good or ill, been damned to remembrance by a single scene? Well here's another one.
And if you're one of those Daily Mail people who bang on at enormous length about how "Straw Dogs" was "disgraceful!!" just because rape is, like, bad, then never ever EVER consider watching this film.
However, if you are willing or able to consider this film holistically, you will find a thoughtful, sparse, elegant, disturbing, beautifully paced and above all brave piece of work with considerably more to say for itself than "hold her legs apart".
There were a few comments at the EIFF screening to the effect that the film lacked any back story which explains the moral ambivalence of the main characters. I found this refreshing: the characters are not all simply broken and abused hoodie-wearing beasts. Robert Carmichael himself is the product of a comfortable (yet fractured) middle-class upbringing, and a musical prodigy. His appears to be a life of opportunity and choice, yet he chooses to be a druggie rapist/murderer. Why? I'm glad the film didn't spew out some lazy cod abuse explanation. Isn't it more disturbing to realise that we could all make the choices Robert makes if, it appears, we are bored enough.
And that's where the true horror of this film lies. The final denouement is a real eye-scraper. Visceral and ghastly, the audience cannot sit through it comfortably. But what I found more disturbing was the fact Clay clearly gives his "hero" a moment of clarity: a moment in which to consider the gravity of what he is about to do. And still Robert makes his choice in an offhand, toss-of-the coin type of way.
I'll hear no criticism of Clay and his excellent cast too. They manage to convey a grimy, confused hopelessness from start to finish. I suspect this is more by design than slovenly accident, which has been insinuated elsewhere.
So, here we are weeks later and I'm still furiously discussing this film with my friends. And setting the alarm at night!
Ginger Snaps (2000)
Mmmmm: bite me!
Now, I've liked horror movies for years, and recently I've been distressed at the plaudits given to the spate of "post-modern, self-knowing, ironic comedy-horror" nuggets such as Scream, I know what you did etc. etc. If you ask me, these movies cop out with laughs because they don't have the balls to make you shake, scream or jump.
Imagine my pleasure and surprise then to come across "Ginger Snaps", which manages to be creepy, scary, sexy and wry without drowning in self-depracation or CGI. I think that this is a classic monster movie in the "American Werewolf" mould, with a neat teen post-feminist twist (well, everything's got to be post-something these days).
Excellent performances from all cast, and a raft of subtexts to suit all palates. I particularly like the fact that this movie manages to be an OVERT gothic wet-dream without having to resort to crass teen tittilation. Wolf-girls rule the world!
Highly recommended and I hope it does a bomb at the box office.