Quick Review: Madness (2010)

I'm going to have to go ahead and guess that Madness is Sweden's answer to Wrong Turn.
Set in Minnesota (which is apparently populated with nothing but Swede's), the story revolves around Swiss Miss and Britta (I forgot their names) who are Cheerleaders on the way to a Cheerleading competition. I'm not sure what kind of Cheerleading competition involves 30-year-old chicks, but I digress.

They pull off the road for gas, pop a few handstands, and catch the attention of, dig these names, Chad Fox and Oliver Ransom. LOL.

Who do they Cheer for, AARP?

Now at this point, I'm thinking that these characters have very odd accents and totally un-American sounding names. When the creepy hillbilly maniacs start talking, I happened to notice that they were speaking Swedish. Then it all made sense! I suppose that the 3 directors (yes, this movie has 3 directors) figured no one would notice that this is a Swedish movie if they set it in the seedy backwoods of Minnesota... although they're a little far north in the U.S. to be playing the inbred hick card. Mostly.

The rest of the plot doesn't really matter, as it's basically a Swedish homage to the inbred family, Backwoods Horror flicks that the U.S. seems to churn out so regularly; unsuspecting travelers are lost in the wilderness, and are set upon by murderous locals and are tortured. That's the gist of it all.

Now that's a scene that could have gone in an interesting direction...

It's a shame that the movie was so odd and lackluster, because it had a promising opening scene in which a girl escapes her captor, is chased through the woods and I think- seriously, I couldn't tell for sure- that when caught, the hillbilly kicks her tummy and a baby shoots out. I'm not being a smart ass here, I'm pretty sure that really happened. The last scene was disturbing as well, as was the gay rape that took place somewhere in the middle, so this one at least has shock value working for it. They even crushed a rat. The gore at least delivered.

Romance.

The thing that makes this a movie we don't want, is the same old boring story, the uneven feel and tone of it all, the cheesy acting, and the myriad of boring scenes that we really wanted to fast forward through. Maybe having three directors making three different movies at the same time isn't such a great idea. You can see some salvageable parts here and there, but it really feels more like a collage of crazy in the end.

There's nothing funny about it, girls. Not at all.

The whole Swedish movie pretending to be set in the U.S. and doing a horrible job of it really threw us off. Then again, so did random awfulness like our cheerleader breaking into some cheerleader moves while waiting to fill the car up with gas. A lot of it was just WTF material.

We don't necessarily hate it, but we still don't want anything to do with it ever again, and we certainly can't recommend that you watch it either. Unless you like movies that suck. Then, you will love this one.

This movie might not have been good, but Swedish chicks are always good... usually.

Review: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)

"If this movie isn't on your to see list, you'd better check it twice..."
Much like Vikaren, or maybe even The Monster Squad, Rare Exports is a family-friendly "Horror" flick that is definitely geared towards a younger crowd.

Deep in the snowy mountains of Finland, life is simple: for the most part, people herd reindeer and grimace at each other a lot. That's pretty much it. So imagine how exciting it is for little Pietari to discover that a nearby mining company has unearthed the frozen grave of... Santer Klaus! Is that what they call him in Finland? Sinterklass? Father Christmas? Joulupukki? I don't know, I'm just trying to talk about Santa here.

Santa isn't fat and jolly in Finland; no, he's wizened and gangly, and above all else, he's really creepy. He gets off on punishing the naughty children, and I'm pretty sure he's into eating them too. That said, it makes perfect sense for a group of local villagers to throw him in a cage and poke him with sticks, threatening to sell him into prostitution to pay for their dead reindeer... which he apparently ate. Also, the children of the town are disappearing, and only little Pietari seems to notice...

From here on out the movie gets all sorts of crazy, culminating in some daring helicopter acrobatics and a showdown with Santa's Elves. Don't ask, just sit back and enjoy the fun of it all, would you? 

Oh, Joulupukki is not happy at all right now.

Rare Exports is a fun and fresh ride, and is definitely a movie that caters towards the younger Horror fans out there; it's not totally a kids movie, but rather is enough of one in tone and content that it's not only safe for them to watch, but they should love the hell out of it when they do. Imagine if the Monster Squad and The Thing had a baby, and it was adopted and raised by The Goonies and Vikaren. That's this movie in a nutshell. The best news is, it's a great watch for adult Horror fans too.

The idea that Santa Claus is a creepy, evil, twisted monster that really only exists to punish the wicked is a hell of a concept, and Rare Exports makes the most out of the premise, and does so in a really fun way. There's a twist that comes a bit more towards the end of the film that I didn't see coming, and it "changed" the movie for me a bit, but it worked well. Despite it being a bit different than I had expected, I have to say that the ending made me cheer a little, as a kid basically steps up and saves everyone's asses for them, because the adults just can't seem to get their shit together.

Good for you, Pietari. You're a good kid. 

Finland's biggest hero. *Shout out to Teemu Selanne, who is pretty heroic in Finland too.

If there's a negative aspect about the movie, for me at least, it's that I would have liked to have seen a bit more bloody carnage from ole' Santy Claus and his Elves. I like how it all played out, but I guess I was expecting more of a murderous killer Santa rampage kind of thing, rather than what I got. I'm not really complaining, I'm just sayin'.

Rare Exports is a fun, interesting take on the legend of Santa Claus, and you should definitely give it a chance. Be warned though, you'll have to endure subtitles to watch this one, so no whining about "man, I don't want to have to read my movies!" Just suck it up and push through, would ya?

A

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

 So, um, I guess he's not all that Holly or Jolly in person?

Review: Chain Letter (2010)

HUGE SPOILERS are contained herein, especially about the ending, so beware!  

Chain Letter is a story about a bunch of mid-20's High School Students who receive a creepy chain letter via text, stating that they have to pass it on to five more people within 24 hours, or they will die.

Sure enough, they scoff at the text and ignore it (but pass it on anyhow), and one by one they start to die in grisly ways... killed by a hulking figure dressed all in black, who seems to be able to sneak around this upscale suburb escaping any and all notice.

Not only that, but he can access homes and Schools at will, abduct people, set up elaborate torture schemes, and slowly kill them... all as if no one else in town is awake through all of this.

"What is this Lemon Party?"

Now, it's odd to me that amidst all of these "teenagers" dying off that we never see much of the Parents getting involved, nor do the Police seem to be all that frenzied to find out what's going on. The town in which the movie takes place is the "multimedia capital of the world" or some such shit, so wouldn't you think at least the Police would be on the cusp of technology? Maybe there are web-cams everywhere that might catch something odd? Or, better yet, would anyone in town use a smart phone, which seem to be conveniently non-existent in the movie?

Nice hat.

Chain Letter sat on the shelf for a few years, so I'm guessing that the filmmakers have no clue that phone and computer technology changes about 50 times over that span of time. The frigging movie is about TECHNOLOGY! How can they get that aspect of things wrong? Nikki Reid (as our Final Girl), takes about a year and a half to figure out that "something just isn't right here," and she's the smartest of the bunch. She deduces that there's something about a cult that hates electronics so much that they feel the need to torture innocent (if not annoying) kids to death to prove their point... which is what? Technology is the Devil?

I'll chain her letter...

This movie is so loose and haphazard that it's hard to even rip on it. The plot meanders and winds in so many different directions, that it never really makes up its mind about what it's supposed to be. We get no answers about much of anything that happens, like who, why, and even how. We never find out who the killer is; sure, we have a creepy teacher, a creepy profiler, and a mongoloid bumpkin that does the killing, but what the hell is going on? What just happened? The script is such a mess that it really makes no sense to talk about the movie and try to understand what went wrong.

Some of the kill scenes were bloody and fun, but really, they were so elaborate and Saw-like that they just seemed ridiculous and out of place. And the genre favorites who star in this movie, like Brad Dourif, Betsy Russell and Keith David? Wasted here on sub-par material. Hell, Bai Ling is supposed to be in this, but she wasn't? Whatever.

Wel felt like this during the movie; alone and cold.

And the ending? The scene that the whole movie seemed to exist to build up to? A joke.

So the hulking "Chain Man" is able to sneak into a house, drag a kid to the garage, chain her up to two cars... that are outside of the garage and facing the street, mind you... without the parents noticing this at all? A town on edge with kids dying left and right, and the parents are oblivious to what's going on in their own home? Before they leave the house, they're watching a news report about the kids being killed, and they don't have any instinct to go check on their own kid? Sure they have no reason to suspect that she's gone, but piece of mind is a Parent's thing, you know? They don't even notice two chains coming from under the not-closed garage, that are attached to their cars? And how clever, they both pull out of the driveway at the same exact time, and go in different directions... fuck it, I'm just stopping here. 

Right.

This movie is a sad state of affairs for the Horror genre. It got a Theatrical Release while a movie like Trick r' Treat goes straight to DVD. And yes, I always go back to Tr'T in these cases, because it really is an excellent example of exactly how Hollywood shits the bed with most American Horror releases. Unless your Horror bar is set really, really low, avoid this suck-fest at all possible costs.

At least the eye candy was decent in this one.

Review: Amer (2010)

*Limited and Foreign lease in 2009/2010, American DVD 2011.

I think it's fair to say that Amer is a divisive film. On one hand, lovers of film will bask in its stylish glory, because this movie oozes visual pleasure like few others I've seen. Giallo lovers will also be like a cat in heat with Amer, as it absolutely takes Horror fans back to the Gialli favorites of decades gone by, with its music, pacing, color pallet, and not so subtle nuance. Some of it even reminded me of old school Argento.

On the other hand, I can absolutely see how the average film-goer will take issue with its meandering and metaphor-riddled plot, the utter lack of dialogue throughout most of its running time, and the nagging feeling that they just watched a pretentious Art House movie that really didn't accomplish anything. So which is it? Brilliant or pretentious? Well, it's both.

Brilliantly pretentious.

Put simply, Amer is the story of girl/teen/woman named Ana, which is divided into three parts; the first shows Ana as a child, the second shows her as a teen, and the final section shows her as an adult.

 In the first part of the movie, Ana is a little girl living in a big creepy mansion with her parents and grandparents. Her grandfather dies, her mom is a bit of a bitch, and her dad just wants to get laid. The best part of this section of the film is the shadowy figure in black. Graziella, whom I'm guessing is her grandmother; she lives in the room next door to Ana and appears to be a witch. She peeps through keyholes at Ana, put salt under her bed, and follows her around the house, shrouded in black lace, and basically terrifying the living shit out of her. Ana is obviously a disturbed little kid, with a creepy family. 

Don't go up there. You know what Mommy and Daddy are doing...

In the second part of the film, a teenage Ana and her mom walk to the store. Everyone stares at them either like they're a couple of whores, or like they're making rape plans for both of them in their minds.

In the final part of the movie, Ana is a grown woman, returning to her childhood home, which now stands dilapidated and abandoned. A shadowy figure is waiting for her... in the shadows... to follow her around like her own shadow. Shadow, shadow shadow... it had to be done. Things get bloody as Ana does her best to evade her tormentor, but is forced to confront them in a stunning climax of... well, there really wasn't much of a climax.

Methinks Ana's shadowy assailant want to unbutton that shirt.

Amer is a gorgeous film. It's a visual and aural work of art in many ways. In spots, it's tense and creepy. In other spots, it's erotic and dreamlike. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the whole erotic thing... Amer is basically a movie about a woman coming to terms with sexuality, at three different stages of her life. As a child, she learns to associate fear with sex. As a teen, she learns the power she has over men, and isn't sure if she likes it or it terrifies her. As an adult, I'm pretty sure she's a whore, but they never really make that clear.  

Those are not the lips of an innocent girl!

Amer is also slowly paced and it meanders an awful lot. The "plot" doesn't ever really go anywhere, rather it just kind of happens and gives you glimpses of different things. There's very little dialogue throughout the entire movie, which some may love and some may hate. Amer also suffers from a bit of style over substance, which is fine, but in the end it left me feeling a little bit confused and empty. Wanton even.

Green is the color of sex?

It also bears mentioning that this movie has about 537 closeup shots of eyes; you know that we do a monthly feature here at THC about Eyes from Horror flicks, so we loved it, but damn... there were a TON! It has some good blood and gore, but very little of it and almost near the end. It's creepy, but really only in the first part, and somewhat in the final section. It delivers a strong message about sexuality and how events in our life can shape our lust and desire, at least that's what I took away from it.

To me, the whole thing felt more like an exercise in visual bliss more so than a narrative driven film.

Never a good idea.

For lovers of Film, not people that like movies, Amer may be a little slice of Heaven. For people who prefer their movies to have straight-forward narratives -or any narrative at all, for that matter- this may be an exercise in frustration. I say see it anyway, because it was at the very least, interesting and different, and maybe it will make you feel deep nd artsy for a little while.

B+

With Amer, the eyes definitely have it.

Review: After.Life (2010)

"Not.Bad"

Sub-Genre- Supernatural... or is it Serial Killer?
Cast Members of Note- Liam Neeson, Christina Ricci and Justin Long.

Christina Ricci plays Anna; and mopey Emo chick who mopes around doing nothing to hide the fact that shes vaguely dissatisfied with her life and her boyfriend, Paul. She even mopes during the middle of tender lovemaking sessions. Worse still than her incessant moping, is the fact that she's kind of a bitch too. One night, while being a bitch and storming out on Paul because she's a woman and they don't listen to reason, she gets into a car accident and wakes up dead...

See what you get for copping an attitude?

Can you really wake up dead? I don't know, but that's certainly what happens. She wakes up in a funeral parlor, dead and being gawked at by a creepy Mortician, who just so happens to look a lot like Liam Neeson. He can talk to spirits you see, which adds even more creepiness to the fact that he likes touching dead bodies for a living, and it's up to him to convince Anna that she's indeed dead. Because she doesn't believe that she's dead. So he has to convince her that she is. Oh, you get the point.

"You're dead, that's why you're moving around!"

The more she fights the idea that she's really dead, the more Liam Neeson tries to convince her that she is, because he wants to help her cross over or something... by the way, she's naked during all of this. Oh yeah. Got your attention now, don't we? Naked and maybe dead, Anna starts to see and experience all sorts of odd and creepy things. Creepy Liam Neeson seems to be doing his best to help her get ready to cross over (what in the hell does that mean, anyway?), but is he up to something more sinister than he'd like her to believe?

"What say you come down in this open grave and we can hug... wait... your parents don't know you're here, do they?"

Throw in a frantic boyfriend that beats up little kids, a creepy little kid that kinda deserves a smack to begin with, and a rapey Cop who almost bones Christina Ricci's dead body, and we have a good old fashioned mystery on our hands? Sure. 

Bea Arthur returns from the grave in After.Life.

Let's be clear about one thing here: this movie is all about Christina Ricci being naked for a majority of its running time. It's a decent enough movie on its own I suppose, though it is bogged down by a few issues, but its biggest selling point it has is a scantily clad/naked Ricci. How great is that!

The movie has enough tension and intrigue to keep most people engaged throughout, though it did feel at times like a paint-by-number Thriller. Is Anna alive or dead? Is Liam Neeson a sadistic killer or a tender Ghost Whisperer? I bought into it all, and I'm not upset that I did.

Liam Neeson is always awesome to watch on screen, and he does a good job here of playing both creepy and sweet at the same time. He keeps you guessing. Ricci is a perennial cutie, and one that apparently has little issue with being naked. Fine by us. This isn't her best work, but then again there's not much depth here for her to explore.

The best thing I can say about After.Life is that I wasn't pissed off after watching it. Now, that might not sound like much of a compliment, but trust me, if a movie is truly bad, I tend to feel violated after watching it, and I usually want revenge. This one was a decent little "Ghost" story though, and I'm still not mad at it.

Lower, please.

What was with the creepy Cop getting off on molesting a corpse? I'm all for kink, but a dead body? Come on man, what is hot about a cold, stiff, beginning-to-rot body, no matter how good it looked when it was alive? Issues man. People have some twisted issues.

Stab him. Stab everyone!

So, what exactly did go on in this movie? Was Anna truly dead and fighting her "cross over" into the afterlife, or was she the prisoner of a sick serial killer, and alive the whole time? I know what I think, though I wont say anything about it here lest it spoil things for you, but there are certainly clues supporting both cases throughout the movie. I just wish I didn't get confused so easily.

Armed with only a knife, her wit, and some rock-hard nipples, Anna vows to discover the truth and/or, cut/poke something.

Lots of corpse gore in this one, but not the graphically excessive type; mostly embalming, injecting and the sewing of things. You know, like normal Funeral Home type stuff. There's some blood, but it all felt very clinical to us.

Christina Ricci is naked in this movie more than she was in Black Snake Moan, and she played a dirty, naked, slut on a chain in that one. Sure, she's a corpse here, but she still looks good sans clothes, even when she's a bit gray...

Might be worth a cold pack.

Never trust Morticians; even if they are decent people, they are fairly creepy and maladjusted. They just have to be, at least to some small extent, don't they?

I guess it's not necrophilia if they ask for it?

Despite all of our instincts telling us not to like this movie, we couldn't help but like After.Life for what it was. It was a bit obvious and nearly cliche in many spots, but it was intriguing and engaging none the less. Also, Christina Ricci being scantily clad or naked for most of the movie's running time only serves to help things. If you like a good Horror Thriller that keeps you guessing until the very end, then this one might be right up your alley. Also, you might like it if you love boobs.

C+

Christina Ricci is a little Hottie, even if she still looks like Wednesday Adams most of the time...