So I’m in Bottrop Germany attending the ninth Weekend of Horrors with fellow cineastes, bloggers and genre movie critics Fred and Joachim. I’d was spending a small fortune on various special editions of Lucio Fulci’s epic Zombi 1979, when we keep seeing people walking around with these really neat retro style exploitation poster t-shirts of a naked woman with a horses head. That’s enough to catch my attention. Then we see flyers pinned up all over the place of a chubby fella with a pig’s head and 3D glasses… Yeah, when we see that there’s a free screening of said movie, it’s wasn’t a hard decision when we decided that dinner could wait, as we had a chance to see a movie not yet released. Especially a movie which few images seen triggered our imagination into places unexpected.
Stepping into a dimly lit room where some geezers where are fiddling about with the projector to get the correct aspect ratio – one who I’d later realize was director Chandon – I started to feel that this may just have been the best damned move this entire weekend, because moments later a bloke had an axe planted in his face and the gore-fest started.
To set this up, here’s a mandatory quick fix for you: It all starts off with a movie within a movie. Let’s call it the initial attack to use terminology that you know I like to toss around. A prologue that ends in a violent showcase of impressive effects and fucking nails the mood of the movie.Cut to modern time, and the introduction of the ordinary world.Kate and Jeff take a minivan from London up North. The obligatory place to take the piss out of, the place where all mongrels live and are kicked in the bollocks in everything from Guy Richie’sLock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, to Danny Boyle’s28 Days Later, it’s Great Britain’s Deliverance country. Now I'm from the North, and I have no problem taking the piss out of the fact of being a Northerner, and see no reason why anyone else shouldn't. For me it makes Inbred just fell a whole lot more close to home.
Anyway, that’s where they take a bunch of outcasts for a weekend of recreation and self-esteem building. Characters are established some likeable, some not. Small details work their way into the narrative and will return later on in completely different context, such as Tim [James Burrows] the rather empathetic arsonist. Yeah, I know he’s an arsonist from the way he reacts to stuff he sees around the old cottage they are supposed to spend the weekend at. This works for several of the other main characters too, and predictions lead to the unexpected as Inbred manages to avoid a lot of way to common pitfalls along the way.
So in their ordinary world, Chandon sets the characters in motion, tweaking and enhancing the minor traits we learned on the drive up, before the obligatory step into the unnatural realm is presented. Quickly fixing up the few rooms that they are going to live in during their stay, the kids are rewarded with a trip down to local boozer “The Dirty Hole”, where they encounter the inbred. From here on we know that the city folks are facing their worst nightmares as cultures clash and the scratching’s fond inbred ignite the hunt that will make up the rest of the movies drive forth.
Now from that you might feel that you know exactly where and what Inbred will be like… but you are wrong. This movie takes a familiar pattern of discourse and flips it head over heels. Conventions lead me astray on several occasions, which gave the viewing experience an interesting touch, as this doesn’t happen to often. The first question in the Q&A after the screening was not surprisingly “Is this movie out yet, because I have to have it!” That’s the kind of movie Inbred is.
Imagine all the dark comedy of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen pumped up on steroids, laced with the nihilistic horror of the new French extremity of recent years – Frontier(s), Haute tension, Belgian Calvaire which undoubtedly is in the same niche and British “fish out of water” – aka city twats taking to the countryside - shockers like Eden Lakeand The Cottage. Then spice that with a dash of Jean Rollin, classic Italian gore and a backwoods Emmerdale Farm and you will start to get an idea of how fucking wild and brilliant Inbred really is.
There’s a couple of hilarious referents to stuff like An American Werewolf in London’s The Slaughtered Lamb – you know, the pub they walk into only to find Brian Glover and a young Rik Mayall blurting out that they “don’t like your kind ‘round ‘ere!” – the granddaddy of them all, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, iconic Monty Python images, and fucked up vaudevillian acts from hell.
In many ways the movie blows stuff like The Cottage, Severance and Doghouse right off the map. Inbred plays for keeps, it builds up slow and presents the characters in likeable ways, especially the social workers, Jake [James Doherty], who is such a complete twat, but still tries his hardest to make it work, and Kate [Jo Hartley – a Shane Meadows regular] who manages to work with the kids on their own turf. It’s no surprise that she takes on a heroine character as the survival horror aspect shoots through the ceiling.
Some fine details that made this an intelligent movie in my book: reoccurring readers will know the most annoying cock up in my eye are those fucking cell phones. Be clever, don’t insult me with the bloody “Oh I have no coverage” bollocks because that’s just lazy. The last movie that did that ended up being tossed out the window and into the park outside my flat, because it was shat out 54minutes into a 90minute film. Chandon handles it brilliantly; as Jeff takes the phones off the kids, sticks them in a plastic bag and shoves them in his backpack. Now that an original way to solve that problem, and just like the character traits, this comes back with a twist later on.
Subplots. Ron [Mark Rathbone], who isn’t allowed into the show, somewhat of a village outsider who even the inbred call a weird sicko. You know that there’s something really freaky in his backstory that makes him really intriguing, and interference with the village performances is hinted at. He’s an interesting character and is used perfectly.
Special effects that had me wondering how the fuck did they pull that off? A lot of movies try to put animals on screen and it most often looks terribly fake. There’s a horse scene, and a lamb scene in Inbred that are stunning, and then there’s some of the best bloody gore scenes I’ve seen since I started watching these kind of movies almost three decades ago. This one goes all he way to eleven on Chas Balun’s old gore score.
Political incorrectness. To show just how far out there the inbred are, Jim [Seamus O’Neil] puts on a full black and white minstrel makeup, and considering that even the old Robertson’s gollywog is erased from popular culture, it’s a grand way to show that the villagers go about business in any way the like without caring about wrong or right.
Unpredictability is an important part of Inbred, as there’s several times you think you know exactly where it’s going and then Chandon, pulls a 180 on the audience and takes it all in a complete different direction. This was refreshing and definitely created a vibe in the room and definitely created tension in scenes focusing on the empathetic characters of the piece… not saying that we all laughed
Acting is top notch. The villagers do exactly what you expect of them and it rarely feels overacted, when it does it works for the character. Seamus O’Neilanother Shane Meadows regular, which you will find several in the movie, as the evil antagonist ringleader is hilarious as patriarch Jim, and Gris [Neil Leiper] is someone to keep your eyes open for more of. Protagonists James Doherty, James Burrows and especially Jo Hartley all give fantastic performances, and watching them fight for their lives was an enjoyable struggle, as it all stays very believable. You know that making it believable is crucial to me when watching genre movies.
Needless to say the rest of Friday night was spent discussing Chandon’sInbred, and comically all three of us later spontaneously drifted into separate corners of our hotel room to start writing our reviews of this spectacular movie. It recently played in Sitges, and received a honourable mention at the Fantastic Film Festival in Lund – although if I’d had been in the jury, this one would have been sent to fight for the Méllès d’Or in Sitges, not Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block 2011, which I also thought was a great trip.
So grab a fountain pen and scratch Inbred onto your arm, because this one is going to be a classic, and you definitely don’t want to miss out on this gem.
Return of the Living Dead 3 Directed by: Brian Yuzna USA, 1993 Horror, 97min
A sequel, two notches away from the original source, shouldn’t really become a cult classic should it? Especially as the second installment only added insult to injury – despite finding it’s own place in zombie filmography and horror fans collections. Taking a daring step away from the black comedy splatter fest that Dan O’Bannon and John Russo’s original movie once was, and even further from the tepid not really that fun, and not really scary, failure of Ken Wiederhorn’sReturn of the Living Dead II 1988, splatter-flick pioneer Brian Yuzna dug deep into the origins of the living dead to bring one of the franchises greatest moments; Return of the Living Dead 3.
Teenagers Curt [J. Trevor Edmond] and Julie [Mindy Clarke] are deep in love. Nothing can tear them apart… not even Curt’s stern military dad, top-secret research facilities or even death it’s self. After trying to impress his girlfriend by snitching his dad’s security pass card and sneaking into his research facility, and instead seeing a man being brought back to life, and then shot in the head, the couple take off scared and panicked with what they have seen. After another domestic conflict with his father at home Curt adolescently storms out of the house, most likely intent on running away with Julie. But fate has other plans for them and a freak accident leaves Julie dead. With the knowledge of what goes on in his fathers secret laboratory Curt has a second chance at love. But playing God has a price.
The first and foremost thing to pop out of the screen at me this time around was something that’s been attributed to other directors than the one who perhaps deserves the recognition. When critics, myself among them, started praising Marc Price’sColin 2008 and even George A. Romero’sLand of the Dead 2005, and Survival of the Dead 2009, for introducing zombies as active characters making conscious decisions, one tends to forget about Julie Walker.
Seems that Brian Yuzna and writer John Penney, already went down that road almost twenty years ago with Return of the Living Dead3. Well aware of the lifecycle of the zombies – being bitten, dying and transforming into living dead flesh eater, Julie takes to self-mutilation to stay in touch with her humanity. That artwork and subplot wasn’t only a smart way of getting some great special effects and tapping into subcultures of the time, it was also a brilliant piece of character development. And it’s a rare to take the position of monster trying to stay human even in the modern zombie flicks of today. It’s pretty much still a metaphor for showing how man and man still bicker and fight amongst each other even when rotting flesh-eaters are banging on their front door.
Another interesting detail with the movie is the timeframe it’s set in. Not only a modern take on William Shakespeare’sRomeo and Juliet, but it also reflects modern deadly love affairs from pop culture such as Sid and Nancy and undoubtedly, Kurt and Courtney. Yes it's very nineties with several referents to the music scene of the time. Curt even holds a plan to take off to Seattle and join a band as a drummer... It's very much Grunge Nineties. But at the core of it all there’s the love story, and I can’t really think of a zombie movie that centers on a romance-fight for survival themed story before RotLD3, which again makes it rather unique at the time.
You need to pay attention to how characters are introduced in The Return of the Living Dead 3. The audiences’ first encounter with Julie sees her testing her endurance as she holds her hand over a flame – this will return throughout the movie and kinda sets a trait for her character. Curt arrives with the magic keycard and they both take off in what they think will be a mission to rescue animals from military experiments. We know from these few scenes that these are two typical young kids, trying out limits, seeking their place in life and engaged in the stuff that kids that age are, rock music, making out and rebelling against anyone and everything.
The power of politics are presented right off the bat. Where an initial attack would have been customary, Yuzna choses to present the real antagonists of the piece straight up front. The army via Colonel John Reynolds [Kent McCord] who’s all for the freeze-thaw-refreeze project and Colonel Sinclair [Sarah Douglas] Exoskeleton, a steel frame to control the zombies and use them in war… Which undoubtedly comes off as a comment on USA military and their way of exploiting anything they can. A lot of exposition and info about the secret military base is presented, amongst other things the shoddy security due to budgetary restraints… that will come in handy for Curt and Julie when they enter the facility somewhat later. This first scene establishes a rift within the corridors of power. John and Sinclair obviously come from two separate corners when it comes to the Zombies, which too is established in their very first scene.
The second military scene brings some delightful backstory into the piece and connects this installment with the previous two. A few lines of dialogue and a brilliant shot of a zombie in the classic barrels we have seen before. And as always, there’s never a scientific experiment that doesn’t go wrong. Where John’s rather humane approach seems to have been a success, it obviously fails, and the Sinclair’s exoskeleton project is propelled forth. Being a part three, one would have expected that viewers already would have known the genesis of the zombie. But as Yuzna and Penney have boosted their zombies – not even the common bullet to the brain works here, hence the Freezing experiments – and therefore we even get that little “this is how it works” scene.
Needless to say the movie thrives on the experience of Julie, and how she fights against her own body turning into a zombie. Poking her self with nails, twisting iron coils into her skin and fording shards of glass under her skin to tight off the hunger – and keep Curt’s love, are still in someway noble acts that do create empathy. After all, this is the character that changes the most through the movie. Possibly tame by todays standards, but at the time I recall the S&M motifs of Julie to be really captivating. Subplots like the Chinese shopkeeper – who drives a whole series of spectacular effects via his character, and the Latino gang out to get Julie and Curt, are set in motion pretty rapidly. Then they venture into the sewers, into the realm of Riverman [Basil Wallace]. With all this going on, the two fractions of the army chasing Curt and Julie – as they want her for research –is like spinning the volume up to eleven. There’s really no way you can’t enjoy this movie, as there’s never a slow moment. And just wait until Julie feasts on the brains of the poor man who just received a gun blast to the head!
A piece of fun trivia concerning that semi nude bodysuit that Clarke wears: as legend has it, special effects wizard Steve Johnson molded the suit off the body of his at the time girlfriend. None other than scream queen Linnea Quigley, star of the original installment.
Unfortunately the movie didn’t really make much of a splash at the box-office due to the MMPA and poor marketing from Tristar – despite a golden opportunity when the movie was Banned in South Africa for grounds of being immoral. With the poor theatrical reception in hindsight, the few page treatment that Brian Yuzna wrote about Hell Mary (about an underground Goth club where kids romanticize the story of Curt and Julie, and one special girl, Hell Mary has learned to cope with the pains and huger of being a living dead girl - never got made. I would love for Yuzna to dig it out of his archives and try to get it made, because there needs to be a change in the zombie movies made today as they all are more or less the same damned movie made over and over again… seeing men fight amongst each others in the face of the apocalypse is getting tired all over again.
Filled with some great special effect scenes, full throttle action from square one and characters that I actually give a damn about, Return of the Living Dead 3 is a lost classic of the 90's. This is a movie well worth re-discovering, it still delivers, has some very time-typical effects and it will certainly evoke that gothic punk rock chick fetish that you outgrew two decades ago all over again.
The most romantic zombie flick of them all, and this time love won’t tear them apart!
The woman above is none other than Solveig Andersson. The stunning, intriguing and mesmerising Solveig Andersson. Now take a few minutes to look upon that face. Let it sink in. Absorb it if you will. Christina Lindberg and Marie Liljedahl in all respects, but for me the only real star of the Swedish Sin movies is Solveig Andersson.
I haven’t really read that much, and heard even less, about Solveig more than the few times she’s mentioned in interviews given by others about the genre.
Andersson dreamed of breaking through and becoming the next big Swedish star, which god knows she could have, but at the tender age of twenty-two she found herself cast in Torgny Wickman’sEva – Den Utstötta 1969. This part led to other parts and if I where to list the quite frankly moderate list of movies she starred in you will see that Solveig starred in Bo A. VibeniusThriller – en grym film (Thriller - a cruel picture)1974, Arne Mattsson's Smutsiga Fingrar (Dirty Fingers)1973 and Torgny Wickman'sKyrkoheden 1970, Eva - den utstötta (Eva, Everything but legal), Ur Kärlekens Språk (Swedish Marriage Manual), both 1969, and my all time favourite Swedish exploitation flick, Skräcken har 1000 Ögon (Sensuous Sorceress) 1970, which I still demand an uncut version of by the way, and frequently panicky regret ever loosing that uncut vhs I had two decades ago.
If you know stuff about Swedish genre, then you will know that several of those titles above easily qualify as entries on some kind of top ten list.
Andersson left the movie business after finding faith in the lord. Now normally I would laugh that off, but in Solveig’s case, it’s so damned fitting. The main ingredient that draws me towards her movies and characters is that I find them and her to be the same person. I don’t really think there was that much difference between the woman and the characters she portrayed. There’s sadness and a frustration in all her characters. It’s almost as one can see the desperation in those blue eyes. As said, Solveig really dreamt of being a star, but sadly – probably due to her starring in the movies that she did – never really made it.
Despite never breaking out into the mainstream and becoming that shining star she dreamt of, there is some poetic justice in the fact that she apparently found her way in life and the few movies she did leave behind, have become cult classics on their own. So in some weird way, Solveig Andersson did become a star, and in my book the brightest shining star of them all.
Now get thy self off thy ass, and grab this smoking compilation of music from the movies you know and love as The Swedish Sin!
Now I’m not going to waste your time telling you about these smutty little movies or divulging into some pseudo analysis of narrative and characters, because that’s not gonna happen, despite how interesting it might have been. Instead, I’d like to tell you about these smutty little movies and why they should be part of your collection.
Naked Scandinavians, funky soundtracks, pristine restored prints, come on it’s fun!
If you like movies in the Swedish Sin fold, then these will be right up your street. Not only is Ta mig i dalen (Girl on Her Knees) 1977 the last of Swedish sexploitation king, Torgny Wickman’s movies - his importance is so understated in the annals of Swedish history - but it’s also a movie that shows the break between kinky soft sexploitation and the start of the deep end. One frisky take on the ways of life on a farm. Think Emmerdale with a healthy lashing of shagging, Yes Emmerdale and shagging, because Chris Chittell, who plays Eric Pollard in British countryside institution Emmerdale Farm since 1984 to now, starred in Ta mig i dalen as Richard.
Chittell appears under the stage name Charles Canyon that he used on all three of the Swedish blue movies he starred in. Ta mig i dalen was the second for Wickman - the first being The Intruder (Swedish Sex Games) against eminent stars such as Stellan Skarsgård in 1975, and Mac Ahlberg’sMolly (Sex in Sweden) 1977 against Marie Forså and Eva Axén… yes the same Eva Axén who get stabbed in the gut in the start of Dario Argento’sSuspiria 1977. See the Swedish Sin is our version of Six degrees of Kevin Bacon, everything in Sweden connects back to the Sin flicks.
Fans of doe eyed starlet, Christina Lindberg, might want to give Swedish/Danish co-production Nyckelhålet (The Keyhole)1974 a gander, as the leading lady of that movie, Marie Ekorre, is definitely a worthy competitor for the title of queen of Swedish Sin, and here in her first leading role. You may have seen her in bit parts in Arne Mattsson’s still missing from a decent release masterpiece, Smutsiga Fingrar (Dirty Fingers) 1973, or Mac Ahlberg’s Jorden runt med Fanny Hill (Around the World with Fanny Hill) 1974, in which she co-starred as a fashion model with none other than Ms. Lindberg.
I’m happy to see distributor KlubbSuper8 return from a lengthy hiatus, as they are an important part of preserving Swedish cinematic heritage – come on, there’s so much more to Swedish cinema than Ingmar Bergman, and if you are a frequent reader you will know that I hold no grudge to Bergman and the fantastic legacy he left us with, but I do have issues with the shadows he casts upon the rest of Swedish cinematic history.
But where the spotlight really should be directed on these current releases is that the new titles – unlike the previous releases – all have English subtitles so that fans of Swedish Sin outside of Sweden can enjoy the dialogue too! But that’s not all, because if you take the time to go through the extra features, you will find, rare press materials, production documents, short movies, tons of trailers, and deleted scenes! Who the hell seeks out deleted scenes from an old skin flick? Yes, the dedicated troops of KlubbSuper8, and that's the kind of enthusiasm that I can admire!
The release of Ta Mig I Dalen is something of a treasure trove of lost material as they have also assembled the remaining material of Wickman’s never completed 1975 film Drömdoktorn (The Dream Doctor). After finding Wickman’s original shooting script and the uncut original negative, KS8, have reassembled the movie, which was discarded when the camera broke after 70% of the movie was in the can. This painstaking feat took two years of hard work to reassemble, and bring to life. Think about that the next time you rush through the special features on your discs, there’s someone who’s dedicated hours of hard work to get that on there. But it doesn’t stop there, because there’s also three tracks composed by George Riedell and Janne Schaffer.
Nyckelhålet also has its share of extras, not only a remastered version but also enclosed is a shoddy dodgy American grindhouse version complete with trashy film grain and shoddy tracking distortions. But keep in mind friends this is the real deal, no contemporary digital effects tampering, but authentic trashy grindhouse quality. And to make your acquaintance with Ms. Ekorre more pleasurable, there’s the gallery of her gentlemen magazine photographs for you.
Among the last batch of releases you can also find Blåjackor (Sailors) an Arne Mattsson musical from 1964, Bengt Blomgren’s moral dilemma drama Hällebäcks Gård 1961 (with the recently deceased Sif Ruud) where modern technology and lost love cause serious problems on the farm… without people shagging each other.
Finally the last release of this batch is another lost movie salvaged by KlubSuper8, Arne Ragneborn’s presumed lost forever anti-drinking propaganda movie Paradiset from 1955. On the bonus features here’ you’ll find interviews with colleagues, friends and co-workers who discuss just what a badass Ragneborn really was. Of the five movies he directed the most of them ended up being banned as they all dealt with topics like violence, criminality and the ever-popular Swedish pastime alcoholism… you have seen Luigi Scattini’s 1968 documentary Svezia, inferno e paradise (Sweden: Heaven and Hell)haven’t you?
Now for overseas or, “utanför tullarna” readers, I can see that this might be a tad on the narrow side even for you (not the skin flicks of course), but if you do live in Sweden then you should be picking these up anyways because these movies all have a part to play in our cinematic heritage, and if nothing else we should support KlubSuper8 as they have some really interesting titles hidden away for future releases, and we don’t want them vanish before the Dante movie or those fantastic Calvin Floyd movies are released now do we?
I’d suggest that you pop over to KlubbSuper8 and roam their web shop for some great movies filled with superb extras! Go get some!
You know that I‘ve been waiting for this one. Eagerly looking forward to what has been predicted as this year’s major provocation. So getting the chance to review this one for my monthly genre column was like a treat for the soul as we start to move into cold, depressing late autumn darkness here in Scandinavia. Was it all I hoped it would be after all this time of yearning? Well not really as I was expecting something different. I thought this would be more brutal and more visual, especially if the reactions of certain festival visitors are to be taken into consideration.
But with that said, I have to point out that The Woman is in no way a lesser movie. In fact I’d say that this is one of the most intelligent and frightening movies since something like Pascal Laugier’sMartyrs2008. This movie got into my head in an unexpected way and I really love movies that break through that otherwise impenetrable shield built from years of watching genre movies. This one did and that made it one of the best viewing experiences of the year.
Chris Cleek [Sean Bridges], the father of a seemingly normal family, lives on a ranch outside of some unknown city. One day after an early morning start, where his wife Belle [Angela Bettis] hand rolls his smokes, he goes hunting and captures a wild woman [Pollyanna McIntosh]. He brings her home, shackles her to the floor and roof of their garden shed and presents her to his family as their “Project”. To the gasping family he explains his plan to civilize the wild beast. Bang! That’s it, the set up is established, from here on it can only get worse. And it does, in a fascinating way that you probably never expected.
A couple of years ago Jack Ketchum said during an interview with Constructing Horror“If I didn’t offend someone then I wouldn’t be doing my job… this is about violence right?” Well that is a statement that should be taken into consideration when watching The Woman. I’m quite certain that quite a lot of genre fans will watch this movie and then walk away disappointed. Because there is a rather restrained approach to the violence, it’s there, but not as predominant as I had expected. But I feel this to be a good thing. It works for the movie and lifts the film above the average torture flick, which in all honesty, we’ve seen way to many already.
Here the violence is found in the subtext. The things not said, which comes rumbling in with a devastating rush of insight as the climax approaches. A genius approach by McKee and Ketchum, as this is where the mind fuck aspect of the movie comes into play. The feeling that something is wrong, that odd mood which has been fermenting throughout the movie, stingingly slaps you in the face like a cold towel whipped by that bully jock in the school showers. The suspicions that have brewing where correct, this almost weirdly religious cultish family vibe that ha been simmering was correct. This is a family who do live in fear of their patriarch, Chris. Their children are tormented by repressed anger. This is a family on the verge of implosion and we join them just as the pressure cooker is about to burst open. The tension has its most intense grip on the Cleek family.
In a sublime way the introduction of “the woman” into the Cleek world acts as a catalyst for the rise of woman. Her presence on the farm is the cause of wife Belle’s revolt. She takes her first steps towards revolution; Belle also dares speak up against Chris, the women of the farm become active and step up for a first time. Yes, they pay a price, but in the long run you have to ask yourself what would be worse?
There’s a nasty little theme of voyeurism and objectification going on in The Woman too. The first time it’s almost as a gag, Chris spots the woman in his rifle sight and watches her with a sinister leer on his face for a while before realizing his plan. This is later reflected when his son Brian [Zach Rand], who has prepared the door to the basement with a peephole, watches his father rape the woman. It comes as no surprise that Brain too is soon stood in that basement touching and tormenting the constrained woman. The voyeurism and objectification of The Woman is mirrored in Chris heritage to Brian. We know that Brian will grow up to be exactly like his father, and when the façade finally cracks at the finale, Chris view on women is finally exposed. The charming charmer front falls away to reveal a depraved Joseph Fritzl kind of man who really hates all women, hence his need to captivate, objectify and oppress them. He does it to his wife, to his daughter Peggy [Lauren Ashley Carter], to the captive woman, to the school teacher, and then there’s that surprise in the dog pound…
I usually discuss the ordinary world in genre films, as I find it a vital part for setting a tone, and also important tool to help me into the imaginary world portrayed by the filmmakers. It would be easy to say that the ordinary world of The Woman is the family, the farm they live on and the everyday activities of their life… but I don’t think that’s where the ordinary world of The Woman is… In my book, the ordinary world is presented during the scenes of the woman in her natural habitat before the title screen. It’ is this world where the woman hunts, breeds and lives, at one with nature. She lives in a hole, she is raising her infant child there, she has wolves as babysitters. This is her ordinary world, where everything is in order. It’s when she is moved into the world of the Cleek’s that the balance is shifted. Her ordinary world becomes her nightmare world.
Approaching the movie like this and keeping Andrew van den Houten’sThe Offspring 2009 in mind – both movies with screenplays written by Jack Ketchum and featuring Pollyanna McIntosh as a savage woman, and on a geekier trivia note, both produced by Van den Houten, something of a prequel to The Woman – the final scenes see balance reinstated in to the world of the woman. She can return to her ordinary world, back to nature. And in a happy turn of events a family richer.
No matter what you think about this kind of movie, or the horror genre’s gender roles in large, McKee is first and foremost a feminist horror director. His movies have all had a strong female protagonist, which can be seen in May 2002, his episode of Masters of Horror: Sick Girl and The Woods both 2006. The Woman is no exception, and can be read as a critique towards the patriarch system that Chris runs his family. The nuclear family holds dark secrets and it’s the woman who unhinges the door into that dark void. Note that the woman never really shows any fear or pain. She is just a strong, unstoppable force waiting for the exact right moment to pounce and as soon as it comes, she pounces hard.
It’s a delight to see the gorgeous Angela Bettis reunited with McKee, and Pollyanna McIntosh has certainly brought a new iconic face to the genre scene. Those shots of her animal face staring into the camera are massive and really break right though the fourth wall. It’s into the soul of the audience she is starring and you know she’s’ a fighter. Someone needs to present McIntosh with an award for her portrayal here, as a beautiful woman who undergoes that transformation for her character, certainly needs to be praised. It’s a great moment that goes against genre conventions, as the victims are more than often picture perfect stereotypes. McIntosh is a dirty, tattered goddess of violence and she really brings a powerful presence to every scene she’s in.
Lucky McKee and Jack Ketchum have created a haunting and disturbing movie that stuck with me for a long time. The Woman is one of this year’s best genre movies. An intelligent disturbing story, pushing a powerful narrative and some outstanding moments of insightful horror. I don’t know what the fuck happened on Red (2008), but McKee is back with a vengeance. The Woman yanked the carpet from under my feet and floored me completely.
Thank god I have the UK BluRay on preorder so that I can go back and watch this splendid movie all over again in a fortnights time.
Prey Original Title: Proie Directed by: Antoine Blossier France, 2010 Horror, 85min
For a guy who doesn’t really like monster animal attack movies, I managed to hit the jackpot as I surprisingly saw two giant wild pig flicks in the same weekend.
One of them, James Isaac’sPig Hunt (2008), was definitely worth the watch and took a not too original humoristic approach to the material, spicing up the narrative with not only monster boar’s but also stereotype Deliverance hillbilly’s… Antoine Blossier’sProie (Prey) on the other hand is all about being serious. There’s no room for gags, nods or ironic dialogue, this is all dark, brooding and terrifyingly grim in it’s horror come social commentary bout with the gigantic boar.
Nathan [Gregory Colin] and his pregnant wife Claire [Bérénice Bejo] have just spent a weekend in the countryside at her family home. On the morning of their planned departure, something attacks deer’s in the woods and Claire’s father Nicolas [François Levantal] arrives with some urgent distressing news. The men of the family, Nicolas, his brother David [Joseph Malerba] and their father Eric [Fred Ulysee] all pack up to chase after the wild boar that is stalking their lands, and Nathan reluctantly get’s dragged along. But what starts out as a seemingly easy pig hunt, will soon shift from a hunt to a fight for survival… and the boar’s are not the worst enemies in the woods.
As said earlier, I’m not much of a fan of animal attack movies, but sometimes I do get round to watch them and sometimes they are worth writing a few lines about. I primarily picked up Prey as it was a French flick, and I’m really enjoying the French genre films, and this is very much their take on the wild animal genre, but with that sinister dark European tonality to it all.
The movie starts with an initial attack to set the mood frame. The mystery of the woods is presented when a pack of deer have died as they tried to escape over the electric fence surrounding the Leman land. The huge boar tooth that David finds gives him logic reason to brag about his hunting skills and talk about the size of the boar hiding somewhere out there. It get’s the movie off the ground before the subplot is presented.
There’s an interesting life and death theme running through the movie, especially reflected in the pregnancy of Claire and how both she and her father react to the news when then need Clair to go back into the chemical plant and sort things out. The life of her unborn child is not as important as her loyalty to her father. This is something that her father points out to Nathan several times whilst they are in the woods, and as the movie climaxes it becomes painfully obvious that he was right.
Part of the trick to making me enjoy this movie was in the fantastic subtext. Making everyone around Nathan a complete bastard, yes, even his beloved pregnant wife, the audience obviously empathize with Nathan. He’s the one who reacts to the fact that their unborn child will die if Claire goes back into the chemical plant.
The relationship between Nathan and Claire’s dad, Nicolas, is ingenious, and an important ingredient to making this movie much more than just a “monster in the woods” flick. The tension between the two men is indicated early on when Claire and Nathan talk about their unborn child and when they should tell Nicolas. Nathan makes a small joke about his father in law now officially finding out that he’s been sleeping with his daughter, and there’s unease in the air. This tension is apparent whilst Nicolas reluctantly brings Nathan with him into the woods on the pig hunt, and is amplified when Nathan confronts Nicolas about Claire’s pregnancy and the effects working in the chemical plant will have on it. The two men more than dislike each other and setting them together in a stressed situation with loaded weapons is fascinating as it creates a threatening atmosphere the audience awaits snapping.
You could actually say that Prey more or less is a French version of Spielberg’sJaws, but set in a forest with a wild boar instead of at sea with a huge shark. Thematically there’s the “misplaced man” trait Chief Brody [Roy Schneider] and Nathan are the same kind of character, both forced into a situation that they have no control over.Brody is terrified of the sea and all that goes with it; Nathan doesn’t like the woods and can hardly handle the hunting rifle he’s handed. They are both in a threatening location, beyond their control. In both movies, a large beast is killed, an uncomfortably large beast but still not the one they are searching for. The big one is still out there.
Both movies keep the monster off screen as much as possible. Sure, Jaws may have been the result of a faulty machine, but keeping it off the screen makes the threat so much more intimidating. Just like the big wild boar in Prey, the less the audience see of the monster, the more their imagination will fill in the blanks and obviously come up with the most terrifying wild pig ever…
The special effects are rather impressive. Not only the recurrent gore, but also the animal effects are really effective and never once do I catch myself thinking “that’s only a puppet”, not even when the band of hunters come upon the rotting carcasses that are found strewn around the lake which is obviously contaminated.
Yes, there is a subtle message in here too. A message to take care of our planet, and not to pollute the fuck out of it. The referents to Jean Rollin’sLes Raisins de la Morte (Grapes of Death)1978 are not to far away; both movies use the same basic idea, don’t fuck around with nature, and take care of mother earth. Don’t pollute her, because if you do, she will fuck you up bad.
The very sad news on the passing of the patron saint of Turkish cult Cinema enthusiast Vassilis “Bill” Barounis just reached me a few hours ago. I’m still trying to compute it, despite subconsciously understanding that this moment was rapidly crawling its way closer, I was really hoping for a last minute miracle. Bill was a man I associate with miracles, given the many tales of last minute escapes and haunting curses he believed where laid upon him.
Years ago, when I was a young man… yeah like twenty years ago or so in the decade we called the nineties, I used to work at an underground shop that specialized in distributing uncut videotapes. The old letter and a few quid for a catalogue of ex-rentals to Greece was one of the cornerstones of that business. Three men made it possible, Cordas, Alex and Vassilis. I never made the connection that Bill was the same Vassilis until late last year after several years of talking to Bill and his Onar Empire, buying a lot of movies and constructing several advertisements. I questioned his email as it had a similarity to one of the old Greek tape distributors used to have, and the connection was made all over again.
I will always remember Bill with a smile, no matter how down he was, no matter what fate tossed in his face and no matter how beat he seemed, he always came back with an even bigger smile and even more enthusiasm. He'd take a beating, but he never let it break him.
I’ve mentioned before that Bill even offered to go visit my father earlier this year after he took ill during holiday in Athens. This is the way I will remember Bill. The guy who swallowed the hard times and pushed on through, and could offer friendship to people he didn’t even know. If you liked movies, then Bill was your friend, and today I feel that I lost a really good friend.
The world is one eager enthusiast poorer. A re-animator of curiosities we otherwise never would have seen, a warrior of lost cinema, a Pantheon of Yesilcam knowledge. Cineaste heaven just got a whole lot richer, and their movie nights will be so much better now.
