Thirty One Days of Horror Days 6-9: Dead Snow, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Audtition, I Saw The Devil

Day 6: Dead Snow

This is a movie that knows EXACTLY what it is and what it wants to do an delivers perfectly. We've got Nazi Zombies, attractive people in a cabin, makeshift weapons, self amputation, and some of the best brush off lines I've seen in a while. The creators on this have made a love letter to Zombie horror and if you're a fan of the sub-genre then check it out. Definitely Recommended.

Day 7: Don't be Afraid of the Dark

Guillermo Del Torro loves two things: Faeries and putting eyes where they don't belong. As he was only a writer and producer on this movie he couldn't force creepy eyes into it but if you're looking faeries then this is the place for you. We've also got all the stock characters for a child against evil movie, from the oblivious dad to the gruff older man who's really looking out for the child, to the mother figure, in this case a girlfriend, who eventually believes the child's story after some research and a trip to the most awesome library ever.

I couldn't find a picture of it so this will have to do.

Despite being a bit paint by numbers it was nicely moody and did everything well. It was a quality film with an unexpected part at the end. I'd recommend it.

Day 8: Audition

This is one fucked up movie. I mean really, really fucked up. It starts pretty innocently with a man whose son thinks he should get remarried. The only problem is that he's not sure how to go about finding his new bride to be. His buddy offers a suggestion: Hold and audition. He'll dig out an old script and they'll audition actresses for the lead, he can try and date the one he likes and hell, if they get financing they can even make the movie. So far it sounds like the set up for a Kate Hudson/Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy. He starts dating her and, spoiler alert, she's insanely fucked up. I mean this woman is the gold medal winner in the what the fuck Olympics.  She was tortured by her dance instructor as a child and now goes around mutilating and killing men. Except for the one she keeps in a bag in her apartment. I don't even want to think about how she feeds him but it does help her keep her figure. The end of the movie cuts between hallucinations and a torture scene in which the widower has his feet cut off. Why his feet? Hell if I know. I don't know if I can recommend this one. I expect you already know if its for you or not.

Day 9: I Saw The Devil

I was torn over wither or not I should include this movie because dispite having a serial rapist/killer, cannibals, torture, and a man hunting another man it never felt like a horror movie to me. But it seems to fit broadly so I decided it counted. Oh, and I god damned loved it. This movie is fantastic. Now I'm the first to admit that I'm a sucker for a good revenge flick and South Korea seems to put out the best of them for a while now. The plot is fairly simple. A man's wife is killed and he hunts down the killer who did it. The killer is played by the fantastic Min-Sik Choi, who you might remember from Oldboy. The man is just built to be abused. No one suffers quite as well as he does or has that perfect look of manic glee when he retaliates. The hunter is played by Byung-Hun Lee. He's nearly emotionless for most of the film, deadened inside by the death of his wife. He's the picture of intensity. I can't recommend this movie enough. 

Thirty Days of Horror Days 3-5: Don't Look Back, High Tension and I Spit On Your Grave

Day 3: Don't Look Back

I don't feel that I gave this movie the proper attention. From where I was sitting it was a series of random events that ended in a midget stabbing Donald Sutherland in the neck. Its well regarded enough that I'm fairly certain that its a problem with how I watched the film and not with the movie itself. I'm going to re-watch it in the next few days and give it a proper shake.

Day 4: High Tension

French lesbians in a slasher flick! How could it go wrong? With a shitty twist ending! In general I'm not a big fan of the twist ending that changes everything.

But this is one of my favorite movies ever.

Most of the time it comes off to me as "Oh, look how smart I am, you didn't know what was happening! Ha!" while not actually working. For example the killer girl wasn't ever depicted as particularly strong in the movie, except for when she was the killer, then she was kicking furniture so hard it could sever a head. Having said that without the twist I'd have been fine with the movie. Its a solid home invasion/slasher flick. Nothing revolutionary but well done.

Day 5: I Spit On Your Grave.

This movie has a twenty five minute rape scene. Twenty five minutes. Its only 101 minutes long. A quarter of this movie is dedicated to raping this woman. Its fucking terrible. I'm the first to admit that I'm a little more messed up than most people, and that I've got a pretty dark sense of humor, but even I couldn't stand watching the TWENTY FIVE MINUTES OF RAPE. You can't argue that we needed that long a scene for any good reason other than to make the audience sick. The movie also featured the lynching of a character that was at least regarded as being handicapped by the other characters, even if he didn't come off quite that way. It was more like watching a snuff film. There's no entertainment here. Go somewhere else.

Tomorrow I'm watching something fun.

Flavor Wins of Theros #3: Witches' Eye and Fleetfeather Sandals

We're doing another double dip on Flavor Wins of Theros this time because both the Witches' Eye and Fleetfeather Sandals are from the myth of Perseus!

Sweet kicks ya got there, lemme get a closer look.

So Perseus, one of Zeus' many, many, many, I can't stress this enough, many bastard children, is most famous for killing Medusa the Gorgon and staring in terrible movies along side Liam Neeson.

He looks like he's trying to remember if he left
the stove on.

But these mythical equipment didn't make the films.

But this guy did And Perseus still looks confused.

First we have the Witches's Eye. In Greek Mythology there were three witches called the Graeae. Among the three of them they shared one eye and one tooth. Just stop for a moment and thing about how you won't let someone else drink out of your water bottle. The three of them were instrumental in Perseus' quest to kill Medusa since like most Greek Heroes he had no god damned idea how to go about it. But unlike out friend Hercules he was more clever than most and when seeing that the Witches shared an eye between them he slipped his way into the rotation and held it hostage until they told him what he needed to know. Nothing like extorting information from the elderly to get your story going! But knowing is only half the battle, next he needed to actually get the gear. Thankfully this proved easier than you'd think. At one point Hermes and Athena got bored of watching him wander ancient Greece and just dropped by and armed up their half brother. Hermes gave him his winged sandals, made by Hephaestus (Purphoros?) himself and granting him the ability to fly and move extremely fast. As for what Athena gave him? I'm not going to go into it today because I expect we'll see something for it before the end of the block. Thanks for reading folks and I'll see you next time.

Thirty One Days of Horror: Day One and Two

Once again I've decided to take part in 31 Days/Nights of Horror, where I watch a horror movie that I've never seen before every day in October. Now I attempted this last year but due to work being horrible I had to drop out about a third of the way in. Thats not going to be a problem this time. So lets get into it!

Day One: Funny Games (1997)

Michael Henke wanted to make a statement with this one, I'm just not sure what it was. He made a home invasion film, normally one of the more indulgent sub-genres of horror, then didn't show any violence. He didn't show any exploitation. When one character is killed we focused on a man making a sandwich. He also peppered it with fourth wall breaking commentary as one of the invaders continuously spoke to the audience about what they were watching.

Seen here, literally winking at the camera.

And overall I don't think that it worked. The audience for a movie like this is looking for the visceral thrills found in the movie, from the violence that we don't see to the satisfaction of seeing evil punished at the end, which doesn't happen at all in this. I think that Cabin in the Woods did a better job of exploring peoples fascination with brutality and making statements about the emptiness of it, and it still functions extremely well as a horror movie. This sets up all sorts of audience expectations then leaves them laying on the floor and tells us we're bad people for it too. It doesn't function as a horror movie, it doesn't function as a drama. It seems to come up short in every direction.

I will say that the ten minute long single take scene in the movie is fantastic. As is the performance by Susanne Lothar. If there's any reason to watch this movie it's to see her perfect rendition of pain and loss.

Day Two: The Possesion

This one is a little more by the numbers. A little girl gets a wooden box at a yard sale and it turns out its got a demon in it. Hijinks ensue. There's a moment in this movie where you can tell the writers decided to say "Fuck it" to subtlety. We change gears immediately from the girl acting a bit off to blood pouring from one of her teachers eyeballs till she throws herself out of a window. Now I know exactly how hard the transition from acting odd to demonically possessed is thanks to my work on Lucifer's Unholy Desire. Part of me wishes that we had just said fuck it instead of trying to play it straight. Here once they jump that hurdle they do give us some great special effects. The fingers escaping the throat shot was awesome, as well as the moths entering the girl under the streetlight.

On a side note I mainly watched this one for Jeffery Dean Morgan

Also known as pudgy Robert Downey Jr.

I'm sure you've got them. Actors that you enjoy but never seem to break through, or even be in a movie that's best descriptor is fun? Jeffery Dean Morgan is one of those for me. If he shows up I've got a solid +10% interest in the movie but I know they're not going to knock anything out of the park.