More pics from The Children (2009)

Review: Sauna (2009)

Wow, another good horror flick from Scandinavia...

Cast Members of Note- The show-stealing Ville Virtanen and Tommi Eronen.

Two brothers head off into the deep recesses of 1500's Finland to draw a map with some Russians. Apparently, Finland was once a part of Sweden, but the Russians wanted it so they fought a war... I don't know. Don't ask me about Nordic History.

Brotherly love and/or hate.

The two brothers (one a happy-go-lucky solider that loves to kill, the other a map making wuss), kill a farmer and nearly rape his teen daughter, but decide to lock her in a root cellar instead. For the record, root cellars back in the 1500's were basically holes in the ground. Sounds nice, doesn't it? They just move along, leaving her to fend for herself, because they have a border to define. Men!

"She's either gonna get raped, or left behind to die. Not sure yet."

While trying to fairly divvy up the land that will become Finland one day, they come upon a creepy village with a bunch of old people and an even older building which we find out is a "Sauna." Things start to get really weird here, as one of the brothers becomes haunted by the girl they left behind, and the other by a girl who looks like a boy, whom he may want to rape.

I won't spoil anymore of what happens here, but suffice it to say that no one gets raped, but men do bathe each other gently. Twice.

"Sauna? It looks like a rape shack. I'll wait out here."

Brilliantly directed, and even more brilliantly acted, Sauna is a really damn good movie. Ville Virtanen steals the show as the tormented and war-ravaged older brother, giving a hell of a performance that leaves me wanting more from him.

It's visually breathtaking, moody and dark, and very sparse. Antti-Jussi Annila has a bright future ahead of him in directing, and I hope he does more genre work. I can't say that this movie "scared" me very much, but it did manage to keep me on the edge of my seat and made me yell things like "Don't go in there!," "Run!," and "Don't go in there, just run!" Very atmospheric and effective.

Great shot, great actor.

Not one, but two scenes of naked men bathing each other... say what?!? Things must have been rough and tumble in 1595 Sweden.

Especially for dogs.

What was with the ending? I'm a fairly smart individual (I think), and I'm still not sure what ended up happening.

?!?

Most of Sauna was blood-free, but when we did get the gore, it was pretty messy. The last 10 minutes or so is the big gore payoff.

Eye violence is never enjoyable.

Plenty of man ass and peen, but nothing of the female variety.

"To protect her. From you" or "All you had to do was come back."

Don't rape, kill, or abandon anyone. Ever.

If you do, you'll pay.

A wonderfully acted and produced film, Sauna is subtle yet effective in what it sets out to do. It's basically a morality play fused with elements of dread and head-scratching Horror. See it if you like to feel appreciated as an audience member, because this film will treat you well.

B+

Sauna is available now on DVD.

She's in this.

March- Week 4; The week in "Do Not Want!"

We've seen them, we don't want to waste time reviewing them, we advise you to skip them.

Dark Reel- Ugh. Cool looking killer, shit movie. Does Edward Furlong ever not suck?  
The Nightmare at the End of the Hall- Made for TV dreck... Lifetime Network style.
The Legend Trip- No. No, no, no.
While She Was Out- Kim Basinger in torture porn? Yay.  
The Devil's Ground- Is this a made for Sci-Fi movie? Lame twist warning!  
Baseline Killer- Another Uli Lommel gem... is he Uwe Boll's cousin?  
Bled- Not a bad effort, it just did absolutely nothing for me.

Nana says, "These movies make my goiter itch!"

DVD Review: Dead Snow (2009)

Sub-Genre- Zombie
Cast Members of Note- Jenny Skavlan, Lasse Valdal, and a bunch of other Norway people.

A bunch of Nord college kids on Easter Break head into the mountains for some tubing, sex, drinking, and whatever else you do for fun in Norway. On their first night in the death cabin that they've rented, a creepy old dude comes along and tell them that the mountains are crawling with the evil essence of dead Nazi soldiers, and they laugh at him. In return, he tells them their coffee sucks, and he goes camping.

He does not have a good camping trip.

Soon enough, Nazi Zombies show up and start wreaking havoc on the poor students, forcing them to fight back, run, or die... and in some cases, all three. They are forced to split up for various reasons, and have to resort to some pretty drastic measures to survive; bashing birds to death against trees, sewing their own neck wounds shut, using a snowmobile as a face-sander, and even using the ancient art of Gymkata to beat back the Nazi undead.

Gymkata!

I won't spoil any more for you here, because things get pretty crazy, but suffice it to say that the Nazi's want more than just human flesh, and we may just have a Final Guy on our hands instead of a Final Girl for a change. The Norwegians are quite progressive like that.

Does Jackie Earle Haley live? He just might!

I love this f'ing movie, and I can't remember having this much fun watching a Horror flick in a long time. Its tongue-in-cheek nature is reminiscent of other Horror Comedies such as Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, or Shaun of the Dead in a way, because it mixes humor and Horror so well. Everything here is over the top; from the foot-stomping at the edge of the cliff, to the Zombie wake up call scene, this movie is almost melodramatic in its mechanics, but it still works well without insulting our intelligence. A machine gun mounted on a snowmobile? Count me in!

It's not a perfect movie, but what it does well, it does really well. The story and concept were great, I liked the characters, the setting was gorgeous, the Zombies were bad-ass, the humor was well placed and effective, the gore was over the top and plentiful... aside from the always ill-advised use of CGI in some places, i don't actually have much to bitch about here.

You just can't keep a good bad Reich down.

Outhouse sex. I'm all for watching some crazy aardvarking in a movie, but right after you drop a deuce in the latrine? I mean the guy just wiped, and here comes the hot chick bursting in, straddling him, licking his fingers (WTF?!?), and going to town... did she not notice the smell?

"Can you smell my love?"

I'm not a big fan of CGI in Horror movies at all; it always makes me cringe a bit when I see digital blood being sprayed everywhere, because a vast majority of the time it looks completely fake, and takes us right out of the movie. Maybe I'm nitpicking here, but I'll take Karo Syrup and red food coloring any day of the week.

Everything else made up for the CGI blood though.

This movie reminded me a lot of Dead Alive in the gore department; because once it started, it was insanely over the top. Great stuff.

No, but we do get Jenny Skavlan in a bra, and that was pretty damn nice.

We almost got to see those...

"Ok." In context, that line made me laugh out loud.

Norwegians speak English very well, and rather clearly. Also, Zombies are very materialistic.

I ain't sayin' that they gold diggers...

This movie frigging rocked, and it's destined to become a Cult Classic in years to come, if it isn't already. Tommy Wirkola has given us a movie that is fun, bloody, interesting, visually breathtaking, fun, and bloody. And fun. And bloody. See this one as soon as you can, because we can not stress enough just how bloody and fun it truly is!

A

Dead Snow is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

Norwegian chicks are hot.