Fantastic Fest 2010 – The Man From Nowhere/Re-Animator/Never Let Me Go/Machete Maidens Unleashed!/Hatchet 2
I saw a rat carry a kitten off!
THE MAN FROM NOWHERE (aka, THIS MAN, 2010)
Directed by: Jeong-beom Lee
Written by: Jeong-beom Lee
According to Fantastic Fest, Man From Nowhere star Won Bin has been a pretty-boy star in Korea for a while and this is him trying to break away from that. I trust them and all, but he was also in Tae Guk Gi (a gritty war film) and Mother (a crime film by Bong Joon-ho, directory of The Host). I think he’s already broken free from that image.
This time, though, it seems that he is stomping on it until it finally dies. Here, he plays Cha Tae-sik, a pawnshop owner with a mysterious past. When a little neighbor girl and her mom are kidnapped by drug dealers, he goes on a rampage of bloody revenge to find them.
Keep in mind that there’s American bloody (think maybe Payback or Kill Bill) and then there’s Korean bloody. The film notes on the Festival website said that this hearkens back to the 70s grindhouse pictures. Honestly, I don’t even know if some of them were quite as bloody as this. (Especially since they consider the Lee Marvin films an inspiration for this one…his movies weren’t that bloody at all.)
But the blood is nothing. What’s really disturbing is the constant peril that the kids are in. The little girl that he is after is definitely of the “cute as a button” variety, and seeing her in danger of having her organs harvested is not something that we see everyday in America…although, it probably happens.
The story isn’t really anything new. It’s a bloody revenge/”give me back my neighbor little girl” film. Of that genre, though, it’s absolutely one of the best I’ve seen in a long time. I heard a guy on the way out of the theatre saying that, with a little push, it could be the next Taken. I haven’t seen that movie yet, so I can’t say whether it’s better or not. But I have a feeling that American audiences will rebel against this one, not just because it’s subtitled (and, unless it’s about Jesus, subtitles still don’t do so well), but because it’s pretty fuckin’ dark and violent. Most of America won’t be down for it, I don’t think.
If you can stomach it, see it. I recommend it whole-heartedly.
Directed by: Stuart Gordon
Written by: Dennis Paoli/William Norris/Stuart Gordon
Based on short story by: HP Lovecraft
The 80s were a pretty amazing time for horror. Somehow it seemed like filmmakers could get away with just about anything. There was blood and boobs all over the screens and hardly anyone was saying shit about it. Some of the strangest horror films every made were released in the 80s. I mean, when else would Basket Case have been released? But Re-Animator really changed it all.
Re-Animator. The grand-daddy of splatter. Without this film, there would be no Evil Dead 2. No Hostel. Hell, probably no Saving Private Ryan. It’s the one that started it all. Anytime you see blood and guts splatter all over the room, you can thank Stuart Gordon and this crazy little movie.
The story, in case you don’t know, is of Herbert West (Jeffery Combs, Gordon’s version of Bruce Campbell…or Robert DeNiro), a young med student who wants to reanimate dead bodies. He worked on it in Switzerland, but was thrown out of the country. Now he’s at Miskitonic University and at it again.
West meets up with Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), a promising student who is engaged to the daughter of the dean (Barbara Crampton). When he and West start working together, things get a little…crazy.
The importance of this movie can’t be overstated. Sure, it’s no Oscar winner, by any means. But that doesn’t matter. It changed the face of film, for better or worse. (I certainly think for better.) If you are into horror at all (and especially gore), you need to see this. But, then again, if you’re into horror and you’ve never seen this movie…then you’re not into horror.
Directed by: Mark Romanek
Written by: Alex Gurland
Based on book by: Kazuo Ishiguro
In an alternate universe, just after WWII biological science took a HUGE leap forward. We were able to extend life expectancy to at least 100 and basically abolish disease.
This was done by cloning people and basically harvesting organs from the clones as they grew up. (An emerging theme for today, eh?) The clones are sequestered at schools around the world. The kids live as orphans at these boarding schools without ever knowing that they are, in fact, clones.
Three of these kids become very close friends, even falling in love. Kathy (Carrie Mulligan) is an extremely caring young lady who falls for Tommy (Andrew Garfield), a volatile young man who doesn’t seem to have the imagination of some of the other kids. When he isn’t picked for sports teams, he tends to go apeshit on the field. Kathy’s best friend, Ruth (Keira Knightly), sees her friend falling for this boy and does what any young bitch in training would do: she kisses Tommy and becomes his girlfriend.
Then they find out what they really are. They do nothing except grow up and have a slightly different outlook on life. That’s fine, but I wish that the rest of the movie had intrigued me as much as this first part. (This part that takes place at the school is acted by three very good young actors: Izzy Meikle-Small, Charlie Rowe and Ella Purnell.)
The kids turn into teenagers (and the actors we know) and the story is only slightly less engaging. Ruth and Tommy are still together and exploring their sexuality. Kathy is still on the sidelines, pining over the boy who may actually still love her.
Then they grow up some more and I lose all interest. The rest of the story is kind of a cold version of three young people at the end of their lives figuring out why they are alive. I really wish that I had cared after they became adults, but they just ceased to be interesting people. The acting was great and the movie looked really good (Romanek and cinematographer Adam Kimmel did a lot of research to make the movie look like an old Japanese film), but I just didn’t care after a certain point.
Think The Island – action + a bit of heart…but not enough to make it really good, only better.
The story, though, says a lot about human nature and what we do with our lives. It makes says a lot about who we are and how we want to live and where we want to go. Unfortunately, the movie didn’t move me. It did, however, make me want to read Ishiguro’s book. He also wrote The Remains Of The Day, which I have always been interested in. Maybe, at some day, I’ll actually pick them up. Until then, we have this movie that…well…is just kind of cold. Re-watch Remains instead.
MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED! (2010)
Directed by: Mark Hartley
Written by: Mark Hartley
As he did with Not Quite Hollywood two years ago, Mark Hartley has spot-lighted a little known bit of exploitation film history and made a bunch of film fans want to see these terrible movies.
This time, he put his focus on the films that American exploitation filmmakers made in the Philippines throughout the 70s. Roger Corman was one of the main ones, but he took his entire cadre of proteges over there, including Jack Hill, Joe Dante, John Landis and Francis Ford Coppolla.
From the late 60s through the early 80s, the Philippines were an oasis of cheap filmmaking with very few rules, so Corman could go over there, make a film for $5 and come back to make millions. He could treat his actors like shit and his crew even worse, paying them a couple of bucks a day. If someone broke a leg, they had a few bucks stuffed in their pants and were carted home.
Through interviews with the participants (including a few key Philippin0 filmmakers), Hartley creates a pretty vivid picture of how it was over there. Landis, of course, is the voice of reason and steals the show from everyone else. He has basically no filter and will tell it like it is. Even though he can’t seem to make a film these days, I’ll always love him for his recent interviews.
I know that most of these films are complete shit (Hartley said that really only The Big Bird Cage and two others were any good at all), but I want to see a bunch of them. Thanks, Hartley. Thanks a lot.
Definitely check this movie out if you have any love for exploitation filmmaking. Hell, even if you don’t have any love for it, check it out. You may begin to understand why the rest of us love it so much.
Directed by: Adam Green
Written by: Adam Green
Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) is at it again in this sequel to the near-hit from 2006. This time, though…um…well, it’s more of the same. Marybeth (Danielle Harris filling in for Tamara Feldman from the first film) is the sole survivor from the first movie. In fact, this movie takes up exactly where the first one left off…to the second. She’s still fighting with Crowley on the boat after everyone else has been killed.
She’s eventually semi-victorious and is saved by an old man who tells her to go see Reverend Zombie (Tony Todd reprising his role from the first movie). Zombie leads her and a crew of misfits (including Parry Shen playing the twin brother of his character from the first) into the swamps to find Marybeth’s dad and brother’s bodies and to rid the world of Victor Crowley once and for all.
Of course, bloodletting ensues.
Once again, the kills are imaginative, bloody and pretty awesome. (Including one that I FUCKING WROTE ABOUT 5 YEARS AGO!!! Goddammit. Oh well. It’s not like Adam Green read my bit and stole it. Whatever…) Unfortunately, where the first one had a nearly decent script and some alright acting, this one followed the trend of those early 80s slasher sequels: the script was awful and the acting even worse. (Horror writer/director Tom Holland was especially bad.) There were times that it was almost hard to watch because of the terrible acting.
But fans of the genre should still be pretty pleased with the blood and creative kills. As long as you don’t pay any attention to the rest of the stuff going on on the screen, you should be fine. Still pretty fun, but not even as good as the first one. And, while I like the first one, I know that it’s not a particularly great movie.
Watch for lots of cameos by horror stuntmen and writers…not that I knew who any of them were. Unless they’ve been on screen, I don’t necessarily recognize them. Sorry to disappoint, kids.
Oh yeah, and this is an unrated film that’s being released into theatres. Let’s all thank AMC theatres for liking the film enough to actually show the unrated version! I only wish that it was a better film…
