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An error has ocurred. Please try againI don’t include Documentaries on this list but if I did then Woodstock: 3 days of peace and music would be near the top.
Well a new year is upon us, and since we haven’t totally succumbed to our self-destructive ways regarding war, drugs or the ever present dangers of IA, I thought I’d go ahead and start working on my list of movies to watch and review in 2024. So without further ado, let’s get started.
As is now common practice I’ll be adding titles and reviews to this list all throughout the year.
Hope you enjoy.
I won’t be including out and out horror (so no Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, I’m afraid) It’s going to be mostly procedurals and character studies.
Hope you enjoy and find an interesting title you hadn’t heard of before.
The order of the entries are entirely random (all are great)
I won’t be including films like “Road House” “Stone Cold” or “Commando”, granted those movies might be OTT. and more than a little ridiculous but they are also way too competently made to feature on this list. This is a salute to amazing grade A trash only.
Reviews
Road House (1989)
Road House from a red laundry basket.
I remember my dad and me going to the local video store and picking this specific tape (my mom liked Patrick Swayze due to Dirty Dancing and my father liked action. This film seemed like a match made in heaven)
As I was tucked in and nestled in my bed when my parents bore witness to this undeniable masterpiece, but I wasn't gonna let myself get cheated out of this cinematic (home video) experience)
I got up at 5am and walked towards the living room, got my mom's orange washing basket and laid in it, Jammies and all (don't ask) popped the tape in the VSR and watched...And watch I did. I saw Sam Elliott being the meanest yet most soulful MF ever on screen. Ben Gazzara as an amazing baddie and Kelly Lynch as the perfect hardbodied 80s dream girl. And last but certainly not least Swayze, the most
bona fide bad ass ever. In my adult years I revisit the film every now and again, but I'll never forgetting the little boy mesmerized at home in orange plastic.
What Josiah Saw (2021)
Sins Payed in Full
A savage slice of southern gothic is an expertly concocted slow-burn, brimming with unease and dread.
It's true that the film is more noir like drama than straight up horror, which sadly means that the jumpscare crowd will probably downvote it excessively. I truly can't comprehend how horrorfans don't seem more open to embrace the various subgenres the films of fright has to offer - jumpscares, gore, slow-burn or whatever - as long as the product is competently made, what the difference. Try reading a few reviews first to get a feel for the material and maybe you won't feel so cheated.
Grim, bleak and utterly captivating, topped off by a pitchblack ending.
Hell I loved this film.
The Batman (2022)
The Dark Knight + Se7en = The Batman.
A sadistic serial killer is on the loose. A detective duo is on the case, trying to discipher the many riddles and clues he has left behind.
If that plot synopsis sounds familiar it's because it's the exact plot of Se7en mixed with a bit of Zodiac. Matt Reeves must be a big Fincher fan.
But here is the kicker. So I'm I. Se7en is my all time favorite movie and Batman is my all time favorite character (well him and Michael Myers) and to see this amalgamation of character and world left me shaken.
This is a fantastic film. Incredible directed, brilliant acted accompanied by a beautifully score.
The film is rain drenched neon illuminated nightmare... Don't bring the kids.
Dirty Weekend (1993)
Completely irresistible exploitation.
Bella is fed up and quite frankly it's not hard to see why, giving that every man she ever met in her life has tried to rape and or maim her. So she goes to a shaman, who advices her to start killing these fools and just like that, bell's on the warpath, slaughtering everyone with a Y chromosome.
Oh sleaze glorious sleaze as only Michael Winner is able to concoct. I thought it impossible for another of his films to reach the heights of hilarity that is Death Wish 3 and Scream for Help but I stand corrected as a Dirty Weekend more than qualifies to stand proudly alongside these majestic pillars of pure unadulterated guilty pleasures.
Bravo. Winner, quite the hattrick of delicious debauchery.
The Mutation (2021)
The Rat who became a Werewolf... Then a (giant) Rat again.
We all know uncork'd' feature output is more or less synonymous with VOD stinkers, but I have seldom seen one as charming, in spite of its utter ineptitude, than The Mutation.
A research scientist has altered a lab rats genom (don't do it kids!) creating what can only be discribed as a poor man's lycanthrope, who, perhaps understandingly, starts gnawing on anything with a pulse.
For some reason the people responsible for this trainwreck chose to set this "story" in America but very obviously shot it in the UK. Something you'll no doubt noticed when hearing the dilettante that act as stand in for actual actors, trying (and failing spectacularly) to read their lines. Seriously, it sounds like they've been equipped with gagballs, so much so that some can't even pronounce their own characters names.
So the film is objectively speaking pure garbage but there is a certain fuzzy (pun intended) warm likable quality to the incompetence on display.
Plus the Wererat or ratwolf if you will, is pretty fun.
With a few friends and a lot of beer, I could see this being a winner, for all the wrong reasons.
Malignant (2021)
A Neo-Giallo that's delightfully Over-The-Top.
Maybe the more casual movie fans out there will have a difficult time processing/decoding what this feature is truly supposed to represent but if you're an avid fan of Italian genre films from the 70s though the 90s and some of the american copycats, you should immediately get a familiar sensation in regards to the material and as a result have a grand old time with James Wans latest film.
Its got embellish characters and dialog, nasty gore and a fantastic and appropriately ludicrous twist at the end.
I had a great time with this film.
Hope you enjoy it.
The Suicide Squad (2021)
The Squad + A Huge Starfish = We All Win.
Remember the abysmal 2016 s**tshow that was Suicide Squad.
Well imagine its absolute antithesis and you got this silly, foul-mouthed, ultraviolent yet somehow heartfelt do-over down to a tee. The Suicide Squad 2021 is just that f*****g good!
Everything here just works a treat. Great characters, wacky dialog, beautiful choreographed carnage, telepathic rat(s), a simpleminded sharkman and big colorful monstrous Starfish. Mix it all together through the mindset of one James Gunn and you have the best film of the year (so far) and the finest blockbuster in eons.
Girl Next (2021)
Utterly Bizarre.
Holy s$!t!!! Where did this little mind twister come from?
What starts as a pretty trite #MeToo like narrative, quickly dissolve into glorious surrealism and ultimately madness.
Seriously, it's like watching one of those creatively drug fueled exploitation films from the 70s only it's right here smackdab in the middle of the PC. Center that is the 21th century.
If you like it messy, go watch this ASAP.
Plac zabaw (2016)
The most brutal, sicking movie ever made!
As a connoisseur of all things sick and twisted, I feel confident in proclaiming this film the most vile and horrifying I've ever seen. It's also absolutely brilliant, which makes it all the more devastating.
You really need to do a little research before you jump in, because this isn't A Serbian Film or Human Centipede II exploitation, it's social realism, heart of Darkness type stuff and it kicks like a steroid injected mule.
I've never felt as empty or lost watching a film as I did watching this one.
You have been warned.
Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
Loud, dumb and thoroughly enjoyable
There seems to exist a sort of unwritten contract between filmmakers and the audience, when it comes to this kind of cinematic fare.
It goes: we'll give you spectacular creature effects and glorious smackdowns, if you're willing to endure horrid expositional dialogue and an around crap narrative involving their homo sapien counterparts.
So if you're able to accept this unspoken agreement, you should be all set to enjoy what is about to follow.
It is, after all, all about the monsters and they - and their destructive ways - don't disappoint.
Kong and Godzilla tear into each other like nobody's business.
Still I have a sneaking suspension that the executives at WB might not entirely trust their brand and as a result went and Disneyfied (that's a real word) the hell out off it.
The film starts out simple enough but soon morphs into a peculiar hybrid of Star Wars/The Avengers/Indiana Jones.
Case in point.
Kong and his human companies travel to the core of the earth (there is lava there, so don't worry about authenticity) There Kong takes on the role of Dr. Jones (all he's missing is a kingsize fedora and bull whip) solving puzzles Until he's granted the ultimate MacGuffin, a giant atomic (I'm guessing here) axe. All the while the humans fly around colorful spaceships.
Then Kong and Godzilla fight again, this time in Hong Kong (they have already done battle on the ocean) And in doing so more or less manages to kill the entire population, the city is most certainly distroyed (you thought Covid was bad? Try letting these two behemoths loose in your glitzy neonsoaked metropolitan.
Who wins? Well you'll just have to watch to find out.
Getting back to my opinion of the film.
It's by far the most lighthearted entry in the monsterverse.
It is also supremely silly (making it impossible to take even one iota of it serious) but then again it's a humongous lizard and monkey punching eachother repeatedly for our amusement.
But most importantly, the battle scenes are the best and most impressive of the series They brought a smile on my face (and they are the heart and soul of this type of fare)
If you are a fan of the previous films in the Monsterverse, you really shouldn't be missing out.
Hope you enjoy it.
Death Ranch (2020)
A Blaxploitation bloodbath
Three African American siblings do battle with a gang of cannibalistic KKK members. Things gets super gory. The end.
There really isn't a whole hell of a lot to this little indie, but that's the beauty, there needn't be. Sometimes it absolutely OK to consume the empty calories of pop culture and as a result be perfectly content.
The film is very well directed, adequately acted by the cast and the bloodshed expertly handled. About the only thing that bothered me was the use of modern rock music in the action scenes, but that's a minor quip.
So, if you like excessive gore, and old exploitation movies I'm sure you will find something to like here.
Hope you enjoy it.
Castle Freak (2020)
Lurid remake offers glorious gore
I truly don't understand why this remake is currently so undervalued here on IMDb.
Sure the acting is so so at best and there's a massive exposition dump involving the Necronomicon and a dweeb called the Professor. However - and this represents a good thing in my humble optics - the film is also excessively sleazy, filled to the brim with the kind of nudity and bloodshed we as horrorfans took for granted in the noughts, but which sadly have become less and less frequent in todays genre offerings.
So if you like the rough stuff, topped off by a insane, go for broke Lovecraftian climax, I wouldn't hesitate a second to recommend this nasty little throwback to a bygone era.
Hope you enjoy it.
The Believer (2021)
Low budget gem
I really appreciated this dark and surreal little chamber piece.
It might not get too many points for originality - it's basically a mashup of Zulawski' Possession, Von Trier' Antichrist and Polanski' Rosemary's Baby, with a little Misery sprinkle on top, for good measure - but it has a certain brutal, steely resolve about it, that I very much adhere to.
It's a very competent slice of microbudget horror, which I hope will find its audience in the future.
Hope you enjoy it.
Benny Loves You (2019)
Benny: Portrait of a killer teddy
35 year old, living with his parents, manchild Jack is about to shake up his life and achieve the kind of success that up until now has eluded him. This involves, in part, getting rid of childhood memorabilia, particularly his beloved felt teddy Benny.
But Benny isn't about to go quietly into the night and inturn starts to massacre anyone who comes into contact with Jack.
What will this ultimately mean for his blossoming career and love life.
What a truly enjoyable watch this was.
It was funny, quirky and more than a little silly.
Also worth mentioning was the primitive moveset of Benny as it truly added to the my appreciation and enjoyment of the film.
Plus Benny' vocal performance brought to mind the fat, cross-eyed, uber hyper gremlin from the New Batch (always a plus)
If this sounds like your kind of movie (then it probably is)
Hope you enjoy it.
Se7en (1995)
The second part
This is the greatest film ever made.
The downbeat rain-soaked hell that is the world we live in is represented here expertly.
If you haven't seen it. Why the hell not?
And if you have, go watch it again.
Just remember, This isn't going to have a happy ending.
I Blame Society (2020)
I'm just realizing myself.
Antisocial killers that murder on camera surly isn't a new trope (Hi Michael powell' Peeping Tom)
Here we get a young perky millennial named Gillian (a very game Gillian Wallace Horvath who also co-wrote the script) doing the dastardly deed and the result is, quite frankly, a nifty little feature, as far as I'm concerned.
I just wanted to do a quick writeup to hopefully convince any doubters, due to it low accumulated rating (4.2) that this is actually a pretty enjoyable and stinging comedy (in a dark and depraved sort of way)
Hope you like it.
The Butcher (2007)
Incredible Brutal
I personally don't go for the faux snuff garbage that seems to have the gore-hounds frothing at the mouth.
Films (and use than therme loosely) like "August Underground" "American Guinea Pig" "Atroz" "the Brown Bunny" etc. Just leaves me shrugging my shoulders at the incompetent and stupidity of it all.
This film however, really got to me. It's professionally made, sick as all hell and left me shaken and that is exactly what I want, not to be expected to revel in the carnage but to fell distressed and sickened by the atrocities on screen. This film did the job expertly and therefore it will be the benchmark I hold other films of its kind to going forward.
As a watch it represents one of utter brutally. I love it.
Hope you "enjoy" it.
A Young Man with High Potential (2018)
What a revolting little gem.
Wow, where did this little nasty come from?
Sometimes it truly pays off cruising the web for little seen/alternative titles and this beauty came through in spades.
Mashing genre trops such as horror, drama, thriller and tar-black comedy to near perfection, this impressive feature manages to be a stand out as both sad, horrifying and moving with utmost competance.
I simply can't recommend this indie enough (if you have the stomach for it, that is)
Hope you enjoy it.
Triggered (2020)
Just plain enjoyable.
Don't know where all the nonsense about incompetent camera work is coming from.
This is a somewhat ridiculous albeit gory as hell who-done-it and it is incredible successful as such.
Hope you enjoy it.
The Barrens (2012)
The Jersey Devil says Fugetaboutit.
What a bland derivative turdshow this film turned out to be.
The plot, such as it is, revolves around a family on a camping trip in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
Dad loses his s..t almost immediately and as he escalets into Jack Torrance mode, people start dying.
Oh and the Jersey Devil might be involved somehow but you'll be long past the point of caring by the time this illformed plot device rears it's ugly head.
This is simply a bad film that should have been aborted at the script stage. The director Darren Lynn Bousman of various Saw sequels, goes for atmospheric slowburn but fails spectacularly and instead delivers the sort of plodding mess where the end credits can't come fast enough.
Seriously give this one a miss, you'll be better off.
Possessor (2020)
Best Film of 2020.
An utterly extreme, mean-spirited little indie that takes you for a wild ride and leaves you gasping by delivering a supremely nihilistic mikedrop, that's truly one for the ages.
Dark, twisted and mercilessly brutal.
Cronenberg Jr. ultimately proves that the apple didn't fall far from the tree.
Hunter Hunter (2020)
Beware the Woods
There are all sorts of predators in the forest of this here film, ranging from a family of trappers to an increasing emboldened wolf to something much, much worse.
An intense and dread inducing 80 min. of quality slow-burn ultimately give way to a catherdic showstopper of an ending that pure grand-guignol grotesquely. A fantastic little cold-blooded indie film to cap of 2020.
My top three list of films for the year now goes like this.
1. Possessor
2. The Dark and the Wicked
3. Hunter Hunter
If you liked the aforementioned titles, I'm positive you'll love Hunter Hunter.
Hope you enjoy it.
Stake Land (2010)
Enter Stakeland.
As the world finds itself on the brink of destruction, due to the outbreak of a hellish pandemic that has swept across the globe and its continents with irrepressible speed, turning most of the population into ferocious beast-like vampires, it seems the institution of man is doomed to rot away among the already shattered monuments of past glories.
In the midst of the crumbling civilization of the new world, we meet Mister (Nick Damici), a rough n' ready death dealer to the bloodsuckers and his partner in crime, the young boy Martin (Connor Paolo), as they travel through the ravaged states and locked down communities of this fallen America. Their goal is to make it up north to Canada or more specifically the renowned safe-haven, New Eden, which is rumored to be one of the last bastions remaining for the human race.
But the dangers of the new world order are ubiquitously present and as the union ventures forth, they become entangled with a brutal "legion" known as the Brotherhood, a right-wing militant group who perceives the feral bloodsuckers and the eruption that spawn them as the work of God, which they in turn have been chosen to uphold and regulate as his sworn servants and new-found earthly rulers. As conflicts between the two factions turns to out and out warfare, the confines of New Eden conversely, comes to represent a dream that slowly but surely slips further and further away.
Stake Land is the second feature from the writer, star and director team of Jim Mickle and Nick Damici and after the very promising debut that was the New York based rat virus disaster film, Mulberry Street (2006), the boys really hits it out of the park with this, their sophomore effort.
Stake Land should down a trait for those with a preference for films such as George A. Romero's various zombie entries, 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002), 28 Weeks Later (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo 2007) and all the apocalyptic features available out there but perhaps most palpably the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road (John Hillcoat, 2009).
Stake Land, at its core however, feels more like an old school western than anything else, albeit one that is jam-packed by ferocious blood sucking monsters. Our heroes are roaming through the desolated landscape, making stops at random checkpoints along their route, for whiskey, women and the occasional haircut. They are men of the land, drifters that travel by day and spend their nights sitting passively by the scarcely illuminating campfire hoping most of all to catch a few hours of sleep, before once again venturing out into the world to do battle with any and all in it. A fantastic approach to the narrative that pays off immeasurably in regards to creating a somber atmosphere and effective and appealing characters.
And speaking of characters or rather the actors portraying them, I'm quite pleased to report that by and large, their efforts are exceedingly rewarding. Nick Damici shines overall however, as his representation of the gruff bad to the bone vampire hunter Mister, embodies everything that a mean, hard-core alpha-male needs to be in order to work effectively on screen. Mister is the sort of disestablished loner that John Carpenter perfected in crafting, at the early stages of his career and to experience that kind of character without having the filmmakers out and compromising his anti-heroic antics at the altar of bland, crowed-pleasing "entertainment", constitutes a great deal of admiration, not to mention enjoyment in yours truly. The youngster Martin, played by Connor Paolo, is likewise handled with great expertise and manages to invoke sympathy rather than annoyance (as so many child- and teenage characters seem to do) and furthermore plays wonderful alongside the reticent Mister, instilling in him a vague sense of compassion and humanity.
The rest of the characters are well-defined and inspire empathy and even though their efforts aren't always the greatest, they mostly work in the context of the scenes they are present in. Particularly impressive is Kelly McGillis (who is far removed from her image as a 80s sexpot) as the anonymous nun who come to function as a sort of surrogate mother for Martin, and also Danielle Harris as a young barmaid with a crippling component, growing inside of her.
The film's main antagonists, the vampires, are all brutal growling undomesticated beasts as far removed from the velvet draped, sickly romanticized counterpart as humanly possible (and all the better for it, I might add).
Director Jim Mickle and producer Larry Fessenden have managed to achieve an incredible effective vision of a world gone up in flames on a relatively minuscule budget (rumored to be around $4 million) and technically the film shines high above most of its genre equivalents. The cinematography by Ryan Samul, shot on the very popular Red One camera, places great importance on capturing the environments and the terrific works of the art department in particular, and both are brilliantly executed.
This is wide-screen cinema at its finest which begs to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Furthermore it has to be said that the decision to shoot in the economically dejected environment of Pottstown, Pennsylvania aids the production team immensely in capturing an area that positively reeks of poverty and despair, a location that don't seem to need that much in the way of set dressing, to pull off that all pervasive air of the post-apocalyptic landscape. From abandoned corrosive railways to industrialized coal towns, this film accomplishes the look and feel of a society that's crumbling away, which expertly amplifies the film's, admittedly less than subtle subtext concerning America's, and the world's for that matter, ostensibly downfall, with reverberations of financial ruin and religious fanaticism banging away in the background. And as a fellow left-winger I can help but punch the air, when sampling a genre film which has the balls to amalgamate its story with social and/or political conscience/agendas.
Lastly I want to place great emphasis on the beautiful score by Jeff Grace as it truly is one of the very best I've ever heard in regards to establishing mood and overall ambiance.
With great emphasis on the importance of three dimensional characters and the necessity and value of atmosphere to go along with the depiction of the landscapes they travel through, the film, very skillfully manages to accomplish that rare quality of making the viewer connect and therefore care for the outcome of the story and the faith of its characters.
If I were to nitpick I'd say that the voice-over can get a little banal at times and the revelation regarding the identity of the final foe is both disappointing and contradictory to the established narrative (a shame, since it is very well set up).
But a few minor flaws can't diminish from what is arguably an absolutely flawlessly executed film, which fortunately insist on taking itself serious and doesn't pander to the one-liner craving horror-comedy crowd (more please). Ultimately Stake Land is as tense and brutal a film, as it is a humanistic and moving one, yes, this reviewer felt the tears pressing as the end credits started to roll. A rare example of a vampire movie that doesn't suck (pun intended).
Reviewed here is the region free Blu-ray from Metrodome, released in the UK. The feature is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and the quality of the image is absolutely flawless, which is also the case regarding the disc's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack - truly a demo-disc to be sure.
As for the extras, you get a whole helluva lot, starting with two very entertaining and informative audio commentary tracks. The first with Jim Mickle, Nick Damici, Connor Paolo, Larry Fessenden, and Brent Kunkle, and the second with Jim Mickle, Peter Phok, Adam Falk, Ryan Samul, Graham Reznick, and Jeff Grace.
'Going for the Throat: The Making of Stake Land' is next and as the title insinuates, it's an hour long Making-of that presents an overwhelming amount of behind-the-scenes footage, spiced up by interviews with the director, producer, and stars. It's a fantastic watch for fans of the film and for people interested in the filmmaking process.
Then there are the director's pre-production diaries where we get even more behind-the-scenes material, broken into sections of Pre-production, Storyboards, Visual FX, Post-production, the Toronto Film Festival premiere and Q&A. The entire thing clocks in at around 50 minutes and is well worth seeing.
Then there's a featurette entitled 'WFX Breakdown' (3 minutes) which shows you the specifics pertaining to the digital effects. Lastly you get seven short films, or webisodes, that explore the backgrounds of several of the main characters and the film's theatrical trailer. This constitutes a fantastic package for a truly wonderful film.
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011)
Centipede Redux.
Ahh... The Human Centipede: First Sequence (2010)
Tom Six's debut went straight for the jugular and as a result seemed to spark the level of controversy and dismissive hyperbole most commonly reserved for people mutilating small furry animals.
Three years after its initial release it seems I belong to the minority, who believed that Tom Six's original stab at the centipede was a work of pure brilliance, as a result I was more than a little excited, not to mention anxious to see where he might take the story next.
So without further ado, let's take a closer look at the second chapter, shall we?
Martin (Laurence R. Harvey) is an obese reclusive loner, who lives with his nagging mother (Vivien Bridson) in a ramshackle apartment building in a bleak and poverty striking London neighbourhood. He works as a night watchman at a parking garage, a job that affords him plenty of time to indulge his obsession with Tom Six's film The Human Centipede which he watches on a continues loop on his laptop while tending to his scrapbook, filled with pictures and memorabilia from the movie, including an painstakingly detailed operation chart depicting the ass-to-mouth surgery, performed by the movies mad scientist Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser)
Pushed to the brink of his already frail sense of sanity by noisy and intrusive neighbours and his perpetually exasperating mother, Martin hatches a plan to outdo his fictional idol by creating his own centipede. Soon a wide assortment of unwilling participants lie naked and battered on the concrete floor of a dilapidated warehouse as Martin commence with his fiendish plan.
Armed with duct tape, household tools, a staple gun, razor wire and a large supply of laxative, Martin is determent to fabricated the most majestic of beings; A twelve part centipede.
Part dux in the ongoing centipede-saga takes the Meta approach, which some reviews have sniffed at as a smug and pretentious move away from the established narrative, a matter of opinion I guess, personally I found the entire notion of breaking the fourth wall refreshing and quite bold for a genre film as sleazy and detestable as this one, when quite frankly the easiest thing to do would have been to simply continue onwards with the established and expected, given that it worked a charm the first time round. It clearly shows that there's some sort of intellect and out of the box mentality (albeit a highly depraved of sorts) present in driving the series forward, which ultimately leaves me all the more curious as to where the planned third chapter might take us.
As is most common, the main reason people tend to tread these murky roads of discomfort seems to be that they offer the viewer a chance to test their boundaries while they emerge themselves in the pervasive exploits of utter degradation that these types of films have to offer. Well, let me tell you (if you haven't already been brought up to speed) that The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence fully lives up to and dare I say might even surpass the expectation of even the most hardened/tested gore-hounds out there.
The film offers up a glorious parade of atrocities including rape, mutilation, a messy delivery of a newborn and more fecal matter then even De Sade would care to be associated with (check out the sly dig at Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, no points for guessing what element have been colour corrected here)
For short it's a smeared love letter to the art-form of Grand Guignol and if you should find yourself wishing for an even more offensive and cruel piece of moviemaking, then might I suggest a little thing called psychotherapy instead?
Anecdote time: I opted to give this film a viewing on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. That's right. In the midst of holiday carolling and a parade of plumb sugary treats, my brother-in-law (a fellow deviant) and I snug down to one of the unoccupied bedrooms in my parents abode to try and counterbalance all the" too-all-a-good-night" sentimentality with a wee dose of unbridled perversion. An hour and a half later we were positively craving the warmth and cuddly fell of yuletide ambience.
Unfortunately we weren't the only ones affected by the visuals of Six's film as my unsuspecting Father caught a glimpse of the atrocities while passing the window and was left utterly mortified.
Let me tell you... It's more than a little difficult defending film as an art form when the centipede is the subject of discussion.
Technical speaking, the film represent an immaculate standard, outside A Serbian Film (Srpski Film, Srdjan Spasojevic, 2010) I can't remember a film this extreme looking so professional.
The Cinematography is expertly done by David Meadows whose black and white imagery brings to mind the nightmarish qualities of David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977).
Much like Dieter Laser in the first film, Laurence R. Harvey represents a real find as the blubbery, perspirering mass that is Martin, a tragic and largely pathetic creature that's perfectly in sync with the film's freak-show antics and while he never utters a word, his bulging eyes and childlike demeanour is never-the-less wholeheartedly effective.
Last but certainly not least, I want to mention the spectacular job done by the make-up effects team, unpleasantries seldom looked as convincing or dear I say good as this.
It's quite clear that the filmmakers didn't intended for the film to be taken all that seriously but this approach also renders it fairly inconsequential, which begs the question; why should the audience even get involved?
Ultimately it's pure unbridled exploitation which means it deliberately shallow and primarily designed to titillated. Whether or not you want it as rough as this is primarily a matter of taste (or lack off).
Isolation (2005)
Fantastic bleak horror Moooooovie.
Every once in a while, I like to cruise the web and seek out strange and scarcely known genre films. Of course, the outcome of this ham-handed approach, more often than not, results in a vast plethora of so-so viewing experiences, which are neither terribly appealing nor particularly noteworthy in hindsight.
But periodically, albeit much too seldom, a film turns up that manages to completely knock my socks off. Isolation is such a film. A slow burning gem of a creature feature, that's brimming with the sort of dread and despair, fans of the seminal Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) and The Thing (John Carpenter, 1981) should lap up like buttermilk.
On a lonely desolated spot in rural Ireland, the lonely broken down farmer Dan (John Lynch) is desperately trying to keep his dilapidated estate up and running despite severe financial strains. As a way of means, he has agreed to rent out his livestock to a scientist named John (Marcel Iures) from the Bovine Genetics Technology, for him to experiment on as he's currently researching genetic modifications of cattle to increase their fertility.
All the while Jamie (Sean Harris) and Mary (Ruth Negga), a young couple on the lam arrives at the barrier of the farmhouse hoping to lay low for a while and distance themselves from Mary's rancorous family. But peace is the last thing they'll encounter, since everyone involved in the biological debacle are about to have their view on basic existential matters, violently shattered, as something has indeed gone wrong with the experiments pertaining to the farm animals.
During the night, when one of the cows are calving, Dan discovers that there is a problem as the calf appears to be stuck, Dan asks the young couple, Jamie and Mary who are staying in a trailer in front of his farm's entrance, to help him in the delivery. When the offspring is born, it viciously bites Dan, causing him to lose parts of his fingers. When veterinarian and John's assistant Orla (Essie Davis) arrives at the scene and realizes that the calf embodies an unforeseen genetic anomaly, she puts it down in order to investigate the phenomenon further, but during the autopsy of the animal, she discovers, much to her horror, that the young calf is pregnant, carrying a bunch of small hideously mutated offspring but before she can manage to destroy the freak hybrids, one of them escapes only to live on in the murky waters of the somewhat flooded vicinity of the farmhouse, feasting on the herd of cows and growing ever larger with each attack.
When the scientist, John, arrives at the farm, he soon discovers that there is a serious risk that the mutation can cross over and infected human beings, and he therefore decides to quarantine the spot. As the rain keeps pouring down from the murky black skies, the escalating events of peril and bloodshed brings about a desperate fight for survival among the group, as chances of an escape slips ever further away.
If you check out director Billy O'Brien's IMDb page, you'll see that he's hardly made any ripples in the pond that is the moviemaking industry, both prior to and after completing Isolation, is somewhat of a shame, given the brilliance of that particular stand alone feature.
This is a film where everything and I do mean everything, works. From the beautiful widescreen visuals by cinematographer Robbie Ryan to the rundown rural location, the acting talents of the cast members and last but certainly not least, the minimalist but savagely effective string based score courtesy of composer Adrian Johnston.
Props must also go to the basic design and practical effects of the creature, which comes off as a mixture of wildly disproportional bone spurs held together by sporadically placed pieces of daggling flesh. It equals a true monstrosity and is a highly original concept of terror.
But ultimately it is the effectiveness of the overall story, about the dangers of tampering with Mother Nature combined with the aforementioned elements that renders this picture so ripe for potential re-plays. The premise might not be of great originality seeing as everyone from Victor Frankenstein to Herbert West and a thousand in between have already been there and done that, in regards to tampering with the established in the name of science.
But that simple fact shouldn't damper the excitement of bearing witness to yet another piece of extremely well constructed genre filmmaking. Just don't go in expecting a franticly paced storyline or crackling one-liners, as Isolation instead offers up a much more cerebral experience driven by the characters and an atmosphere with an all impending sense of dread and despair.
So, should you get the craving for a really extraordinary creature feature, yet have already tested the seminal works of Mr. Scott and Carpenter then there's really no reason you should deprive yourself a screening of this lesser known, but still magnificent beast of a film.
Reviewed here is the region 2 UK DVD released by Lionsgate Home Entertainment. The main feature is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and the quality of the image is superb without any presence of pixilation, ghosting or frame enhancement.
The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is every bit as good as the image quality.
As for the extras you get an 18 minute featurette entitled "Interviews and insights from the cast and crew", which is a nice addition presenting a lot of behind-the-scenes material, but the talking are a wee bit cliché.
Furthermore there's a 10 minute featurette about the production design and effects which is also worth a look. Lastly you get a trailer for the film.
Hope you enjoyed this review and the film if you choose to give it a watch.