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I just bought this DVD and it has to be the freakiest experience I've ever had watching a horror movie on tv - the ultimate in home invasion.
Buy or rent it now - you'll soon find out what I mean!
'The Last Horror Movie' is not so much a horror movie as a film about horror movies - a meta-horror whose charmingly bland (and thoroughly sociopathic) narrator provides his own integrated director's commentary for the events on screen. Drawing in viewers with the familiar clichés of an eighties-style slasher, before disrupting the proceedings with some altogether more mundane murders (and a jauntily confronting voice-over), the film reveals a relationship between director, killer, accomplice, victim and viewer that is a little too close for comfort. "We're trying to make an intelligent movie about murder while actually doing the murders" says Max, in an attempt to get an "interesting" reaction from one of his unwilling subjects - her only reaction, of course, is to die, but by then turning to camera and asking "Would you have sold your TV to save that woman's life?", Max reveals that he is far more interested in interrogating OUR reaction and exposing OUR collusion in his dark deeds - or as he later puts it "Now did you want to see that or not, and if not, why are you still watching?"
Slasher films have always exploited that strange, conflicted desire in the viewer to see the killer succeed, and 'The Last Horror Movie' takes this further by focussing almost entirely on the character of Max himself, and by not letting us know or care about any of his victims. There is nobody besides Max with whom the viewer can identify, and the sheer banality of his views and behaviour (apart from all the murders) makes such identification surprisingly easy - but there is a sting in this film's tail that reminds the viewer all too unpleasantly of what it is like to be a victim.
'The Last Horror Movie' gets away with its low-budget look by masquerading as a home video, while the diabolically professional central performance by Kevin Howarth dispels any notion that the film is at all amateurish. Like a combination of 'Funny Games' (1997), 'The Vanishing' (1988), and especially 'Man Bites Dog' (1992), Julian Richards' film is all about discomfiting the ready complicity of the viewer - by turns disturbing, funny, and grim, it cuts much deeper than your average slasher.
Buy or rent it now - you'll soon find out what I mean!
'The Last Horror Movie' is not so much a horror movie as a film about horror movies - a meta-horror whose charmingly bland (and thoroughly sociopathic) narrator provides his own integrated director's commentary for the events on screen. Drawing in viewers with the familiar clichés of an eighties-style slasher, before disrupting the proceedings with some altogether more mundane murders (and a jauntily confronting voice-over), the film reveals a relationship between director, killer, accomplice, victim and viewer that is a little too close for comfort. "We're trying to make an intelligent movie about murder while actually doing the murders" says Max, in an attempt to get an "interesting" reaction from one of his unwilling subjects - her only reaction, of course, is to die, but by then turning to camera and asking "Would you have sold your TV to save that woman's life?", Max reveals that he is far more interested in interrogating OUR reaction and exposing OUR collusion in his dark deeds - or as he later puts it "Now did you want to see that or not, and if not, why are you still watching?"
Slasher films have always exploited that strange, conflicted desire in the viewer to see the killer succeed, and 'The Last Horror Movie' takes this further by focussing almost entirely on the character of Max himself, and by not letting us know or care about any of his victims. There is nobody besides Max with whom the viewer can identify, and the sheer banality of his views and behaviour (apart from all the murders) makes such identification surprisingly easy - but there is a sting in this film's tail that reminds the viewer all too unpleasantly of what it is like to be a victim.
'The Last Horror Movie' gets away with its low-budget look by masquerading as a home video, while the diabolically professional central performance by Kevin Howarth dispels any notion that the film is at all amateurish. Like a combination of 'Funny Games' (1997), 'The Vanishing' (1988), and especially 'Man Bites Dog' (1992), Julian Richards' film is all about discomfiting the ready complicity of the viewer - by turns disturbing, funny, and grim, it cuts much deeper than your average slasher.
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Taticus, where did you get Evil Dead for £2.97? I've been looking for a cheap version of that for God knows how long.
This week I got Mallrats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Chasing Amy and I've ordered Clerks from Amazon.
This week I got Mallrats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Chasing Amy and I've ordered Clerks from Amazon.
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pulp/ 'pelp/ n. 1. A soft, moist, shapeless mass of matter. 2. A magazine or book containing lurid subject matter and being characteristically printed of rough, unfinished paper.
pulp/ 'pelp/ n. 1. A soft, moist, shapeless mass of matter. 2. A magazine or book containing lurid subject matter and being characteristically printed of rough, unfinished paper.
Originally Posted by Reservoir_Dog
Taticus, where did you get Evil Dead for £2.97?
Didn't realise they sold used DVDs as well.
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Election (d. Alexander Payne, 1999)
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School of Rock (d. Richard Linklater, 2003)
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Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King Extended Edition Box w/ The Sculpture
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Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King Extended Edition Box w/ The Sculpture
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The Reaping 7/10
Transformers 8.5/10
Flight of the Living Dead 6/10
The Invisible 6/10
Return to House on Haunted Hill 1/10
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James Sparrow's Rented Reviews!
The Reaping 7/10
Transformers 8.5/10
Flight of the Living Dead 6/10
The Invisible 6/10
Return to House on Haunted Hill 1/10
Planet Terror 8/10
A Mighty Heart 7/10
Last edited by James_Sparrow; 01-08-05 at 08:21 PM.
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