OG- 'Reviews' You Up

Sympathy for Lady Vengence sounds very interesting, I will have to give that one a shot. Great work on the reviews, as usual.

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Have to say, I actually slightly enjoyed Hostel but i went in with lowest expectations. Sure it wasn't actaully scary, gory, tense or exploitational as made out but as a film i thought it worked quite well in that it succeeded in going from start to end, despite the amount of stupidity during. To be honest though, the only thing i like about Hostel is the characters and the fact I could relate to wanting to get stoned and laid, so good character motivations. Tarantino flopping his penis on every promotional aspect of Hostel peed me off a bit, i get the impression he just wants to market his name as much as possible in the hope of fooling people into thinking he does actually make some films much like this man, Takashi Miike- bringing on the best bit of Hostel, his cameo (this is the only actual reason i wanted to watch it).

One of my flatmates as actually been backpacking around Eastern Europe and been to the place Hostel was set so that was another reason i somewhat enjoyed it.

For a free download, can't complain, except quality was a bit iffy so couldn't really see everything.

[edit]The little enjoyment i've had from this film is slowly being destroyed by my retarded friends saying how it's either scary, directed by Tarantino and worst of all, saying it's good. I now pretty much hate this film for ruining these people[edit]

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I feel dirty copying a review I wrote for my site and just pasting it here, but it belongs in this thread.

Directed by Fabrice Du Welz, 2004



I’m at a loss for words when it comes to properly describing the Belgian gem of filmmaking that is The Ordeal. Though the term is so generic these days, the best way to put it is simply to call it ‘art house horror’. Welz’s film is a remarkably surreal experience to watch, with hypnotic cinematography, refrained yet surprisingly brisk pacing and truly phantasmagorical moments.

It begins with Marc, an amateur singer leaving to perform at a Christmas show somewhere in the ’south’. Naturally, his van breaks down in the middle of nowhere. While trying to sort out the situation, he comes across Boris, an out-of-his-head local who is wandering the pitch black forest (in the middle of a rain storm, no less) looking for his lost dog. Boris leads Marc to a nearby Inn where he can stay for the night. Bartel, the Inn’s lone owner, takes an immediate liking to Marc since he used to be something of an artist himself.

The first 30 minutes are structurally familiar to the genre as the man Marc is dependent upon goes through the motions of trying to contact a mechanic, but to no avail. Things take an abrupt left turn towards insanity when Marc happens upon a group of locals in a barn. Welz never lets you get a good enough look at what exactly is happening, but suffice to say the locals are intimately breaking the species boundary. And so Marc’s unfortunate descent into the ordeal begins.

Everything is as the viewer suspected. Bartel never called the mechanic. After a psychological break, Bartel is convinced that Marc is really his wife who abandoned him years earlier. He knocks him out, puts him in a dress, partially shaves his head and goes about his life like nothing is out of the ordinary. And that, my friends, is only a sampling of the truly bizarre events that are about to unfold.

I’m not going to call The Ordeal a masterpiece, but it is a tremendous piece of filmmaking. It is visionary. The visuals are rich and inspired, while the sound design is wholly unsettling (the squeals of swine and men become almost indecipherable by its closure). It’s the kind of film where, whether or not you actually are enjoying the style, you just know it is exactly what the director wanted. Regardless of how out of place some scenes may appear - and there is an hilariously awkward scene in which a tavern full of grungy men dance together to a hectic piece of piano music - it still all works. All of the constantly spinning gears of this ethereal machine interlock seamlessly.

The end of the film is so surreal that for the last 25 minutes or so I was sitting upright with a degree of perfect posture I didn’t know I was capable of. I was devouring all of its brazen style and oddball tactics with a frenzy. I can get into movies, but it is rare that they command my attention as deftly as Welz did with the end of The Ordeal.

Saying that this film isn’t your typical horror movie or that it isn’t for everyone is a cruel understatement. It isn’t psychological horror in the same sense as something like The Dark Hours. This movie is psychologically damaging, for both its unfortunate victim and the viewer (is there a difference?). It’s a truly unique experience that would be more at home if it were being projected onto the wall of the Hirschhorn than on your local Indie theater's screen.

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Horror's Not Dead
Latest Movie Review(s): Too lazy to keep this up to date. New reviews every week.

Cool, Tartan just thought released this, have to be looking at buying it seems.

Thanks for the review OG-

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

I appreciate the dillegence, but you really don't need to thank me every time I post a review...

Yeah, now The Ordeal has settled into my psych a bit it's definitely a great modern horror. Far better than Haute Tension and the more i think about the abrupt ending, the more i like it. Planning to watch it again soon.

Cheers for the review

Damn you for your reviews!


(with intermittant holidays in heaven, and then more damnation)

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

That's more like it.

I never thank you for your reviews, but I do read them. Honestly, I do.

Thanks, OG-.

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TOP 100 | "Don't let the bastards grind you down!"

Thanks, I should get around to it more often.

Slasher, directed by John Landis, 2004



A documentary from comedic great John Landis about a secret weapon, The Slasher, who is called in by used car dealerships across the country whenever they need to sell as many cars as possible? I'm sold.

A guy named Michael Bennett is the Slasher, one of those people who works a used car lot like a Vegas show, running around 'slashing' the prices and working up the crowd. And he isn't just some stereotypical used car salesman, he is a legend. I think one of the records he touts in the movie is selling 60 cars in two hours, and something like 400 cars in a weekend. Whenever he gets called in on a job he brings his own DJ and another mercenary salesman from Washington. He's like some lone gunslinger who gets hired to go take care of business when a town can't handle it on their own.

And the Slasher is hilarious. He's an alcoholic with a voice that'd imply he smokes two packs a day. And even though he is a used car salesman on top of that, an occupation that's almost unanimously labels you as the scum of the earth, he's actually a pretty decent guy. He loves his family and he's apparently a great and loving father, but his job has him in all different parts of the country every other week, which introduces a very bitter aspect of his life into the documentary.

John Landis follows Bennett and his crew as they fly out to Memphis for a weekend gig. It's pretty interesting to see how a used car lot operates from behind the camera. It's actually fairly depressing, especially since the area the lot is in is in an economic rut and no one is buying cars.

The documentary does a good job of contrasting Bennett's unfavorable lifestyle (one great quote as he's leaving his wife to go to the airport, "Okay, honey, I'll try to drink more orange juice instead of beer in the morning.") with his diehard dedication to the job once he kicks into Slasher mode. You're really pulling for him and the rest of the salesmen to knock it out of the park, but as reality sets in the documentary becomes a lot more somber, mixing the bitter with the sweet.

It's a really fun watch just to see the inner workings of some guy who is paid to be flown around the country to yell car prices at people. And yell he does. And smoke. And drink. A lot. The portrait here is of a sad man who has a very love/hate relationship with his work (a lot more so than your average work, and for damned good reason) and it's very nicely painted. Very funny, very bitter and very endearing all at the same time.

Thanks for the review sounds like I should add it to my Fetch movies list.

Probably not, I do appreciate the time you take to write them, and besides that, I am a polite person

great review Peter. Hostel had mediocre written all over it. i too was disappointed. even more baffeling is the amount of people i know and actually respect movie-wise, who fell in love with this movie.

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letterboxd

X3, directed by Brett Ratner, 2006

Brett Ratner, master of subtlety. Imagine everything that was good about X-Men and X2. Savor it, because every atom of those qualities is absent in X3.

To illustrate how accepting I am of cheesy, over-the-top movies, I always point out that my favorite film of all time was Starship Troopers for years. So my disliking X3 has nothing to do with higher standards or critical snobbery, it's just a complete throw-away of a film.

Every nuance of the prior two installments has been violently raped until no longer recognizeable. This isn't about the characters, it's about the powers. Multiple characters exist for the sole purpose of having minor pay-off moments during the film's climax. There are no character archs. Hell, there isn't even a story arch. The film is just losely plotted lines of dialogue and action that were included for the sole purpose of contributing to the wow factor of the Alcatraz battle at the end.

There is no logic to any of the characters actions. I am little more than a passive fan of the X-Men, and even I was able to notice glaring flaws in the power usage (or lack there of) of several mutants. There are just too many people on screen, who are all doing too little action.

The digital work in the fight scenes is serviceable, but the green screens that get overused in many, many other scenes are pretty pathetic for a summer blockbuster with a bloated budget.

I hope this movie tanks and tanks hard, but I know it won't. I know it'll make an ungodly sum of money, and that's a shame. Studios shouldn't be rewarded for such ugly and simple trash. I was neutral before, but damn do I now hope that Superman CRUSHES X3 at the boxoffice, in DVD sales, and in critical acclaim - otherwise studios won't have any reason to reward good work, when universally half-assed presentations like this make the bank.

Nice to read another point of view

hey OG, can we expect a review of Wolf Creek Im eager to see what you thought about it...simply because I find myself agreeing with your opinions of all the movies youve reviewed, that Ive seen...nice job

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I actually wrote a review of Wolf Creek for my site the other day. I stick all my horror reviews there, but since I haven't written a review here in a long time, I'll just go ahead and repost it.

Wolf Creek, Directed by Greg McLean, 2005



I’ve been in a horror rut recently, hence the lack of reviews. There’s nothing coming out that I want to see theatrically. I’m a big supporter of direct-to-DVD stuff, but there’s little to offer there as well. I never particularly had a good feeling about Wolf Creek, but given the buzz surrounding it when it was released months back, I thought maybe, just maybe, this would be something that could lift me out of the rut.

It was not.

Wolf Creek is shot exactly like an episode of "Laguna Beach", and it’s about as intense as one as well. The title cards say the movie is based on real events, but that’s just bull****. Just because people go missing from time to time doesn’t mean you can make **** up about what happens to them when they go missing. That’s called lying. And when you are lying about the movie being based on reality, don’t have your closing title cards explain what happened to your made up characters after the film ended. Who cares?

Irregardless if you know the film’s "real events" are completely fictitious or not, it’s not scary, nor is it intense. It’s just another generic indie film about 3 tourists who get kidnapped in the middle of nowhere. I don’t care that the film starts off slow, but if you want to us to think you’re building up your characters for 45 minutes of a 90 minute movie, you better give us a reason to care in those last 45 minutes. At that point you really need to push the limit of what happens to these characters. Instead, Greg McLean’s script just gets drunk off its own ideas and takes a nap.

Also, just a quick little rule. Guns are scary machines in real life, they are not scary plot devices. The only reason guns should exist in horror movies is so they can give the victim a glimmer of hope. They represent the ultimate in power and should only be used to give the dying an advantage over their executioner. The executioner should be a power so unstoppable that a gun in their hands would just look like a toy. If you make a gun their primary source of control, they’re no longer menacing - they’re just one of millions of people who own a gun. But if you are going to have your villain use a gun, I expect to see it displayed on screen like a knife. Drag the barrel across someone’s jawline. Ram it in their mouth. Don’t shoot them in the back from 20 feet away.

I’ll give credit to John Jarratt for giving a pretty steady performance as the psychotic kidnapper, I only wish he was given more to do. He knows how to carry himself on screen, the script just doesn’t know how to carry him. The rest of the cast deliver above their pay grade, but at the same time they’re also not given any truly memorable scenes.

Greg McLean’s direction is just plagued with pitfalls. He doesn’t know how to work a scene’s full potential at all, but the most grating, to me, was the constant misrepresentation of time and continuity. It’s pitch black for what the script has described as hours, then there’s a shot of the sun setting. Then it’s black again, but another shot of an illuminated sky. Back to black. Then sunrise, followed quickly by a full lunar eclipse, and yet no change in the area lighting. I understand that on the tiny budget that Wolf Creek had you can’t afford to alter the lighting of an entire landscape, which is fine, but if you can’t, just remove the shots that imply you need to. They’re pointless and anachronistic.

I said it in my review of Silent Hill, and I’ll say it here. Hell, maybe I’ll make it a catch phrase for bland movies: I’ve felt more fear on the toilet than during any moment of Wolf Creek.

Me too