Fantastic Fest 2011 – Retreat/The Devil’s Business/Love/Urban Explorer
Am I scared? You have to be living to be scared.
RETREAT (2011)
Directed by: Carl Tibbetts
Written by: Carl Tibbetts/Janice Hallett
Another day, another home invasion flick. Better than some, still no Straw Dogs. (And I mean the original. Eff the remake.)
Martin and Kate (Cillian Murphy and Thandie Newton) go out to an isolated island for a little R&R and relationship rehab. Unfortunately, Jack (Jamie Bell) shows up in full military garb and blood. He tells them to start plugging up holes in the house and not let anyone in because there’s been a pandemic that has decimated the population.
Would you believe a slightly crazed supposed military dude? Neither did they.
So, there’s the plot. Was it good? As I said, it was ok. Great acting in a pretty mundane plotline, but it was pretty well executed. My only real problem was how stupid Martin was. Kinda wanted him to be a normal dude, not a guy with about three brain cells to rub together.
Other than that, though, not a bad flick with an ending that was better than most in this genre. Check it out.
Directed by: Florian Puchert, Wolfgang Boehm
One of the better shorts that I’ve seen. A woman is haunted by something. Her husband doesn’t believe. They get someone to come out to exorcise the demon. Unfortunately, he might only be in it for the money.
Some creepy stuff going on here with some great makeup effects. Nothing too terribly special, but definitely cool for a short.
Directed by: Sean Hogan
Written by: Sean Hogan
Yay, for devil worshiper movies! Boo, for bad endings!
Two men (one to learn, one to teach) go to kill another man for their boss. They find some pretty awful things going on in this guy’s house. When they actually kill him, things REALLY get going.
The Devil’s Business is a fairly run of the mill devil worshiper movie, but it rises above it with the acting and the sense of dread that comes from these two guys walking around a dark house. I could have done without 20 minutes of the movie being given over to one of them telling a ghost story that just barely paid off at the end, but I liked it overall.
Until the end, that is. They tried a little bit too hard for a “big payoff” that ended up just being silly. There was a point where I thought it would have been great if they had just cut the scene and ended the movie. Unfortunately, they went on, showed a silly creature and ended with a whimper.
What makes the movie worth it, really, was the performance of Billy Clark in a role that Dean Stockwell would have taken about 20 years ago. He’s the hardened hitman who does his job and gets out and is never shaken by anything…until…
But, damn that ending.
ANGELS & AIRWAVES PRESENTS LOVE (2011)
Directed by: William Eubank
Written by: William Eubank
When a band’s name is above the title and it’s not a concert video, you know there’s something wrong. Especially when that band is the side-project of a guy from Blink-182.
Lee Miller (Gunner Wright) is alone. Completely alone. I don’t mean that kind of alone that a teenager feels when he’s “so in love” with the girl next door. Or even the kind of alone that a girl in a romantic comedy feels when she’s the only one of her friends who isn’t getting married. I mean he’s actually on a space station and he’s told that he’s going to be left there for an indeterminate amount of time with no contact with the Earth.
The rest of the film is Lee slowly going insane. He talks to pictures that other astronauts left behind. He uses his treadmill as a sled. He keeps his beard amazingly trimmed for the first six years. (As a man with a beard, I can tell you that this is impossible.)
I was almost with this movie up until the 2001 ending, complete with white room and nonsensical mumbo-jumbo about the human race. (Speaking of which, why would a ship with lots and lots of mainframes and advanced technology apparently be controlled by an Apple IIe?) It was an interesting study of isolation. Then it just went all dumb and derivative.
Here’s what IS impressive: The guys from the band managed to make this film basically in their back yard for under $500,000. It’s a sci-fi film that is pretty impressively realistic made in someone’s back yard. While the movie itself didn’t impress me, I’m kind of happy that it got made. Maybe someone with more writing talent will see it and decide that they can do better. I guess we’ll see.
The soundtrack was ok. Probably better than anything else that Angels & Airwaves has ever done. It’s pretty atmospheric and has some really cool passages. Overall, it gets a better rating than the movie. I don’t know that I’m going to rush out and buy it, but it was at least interesting.
Directed by: Andy Fetscher
Written by: Martin Thau
Urban exploring is one of the more fascinating subjects of exploration out there. Yeah, exploring jungles and woods and stuff holds its appeal, too. Space certainly would beat all of this out. But exploring the things that we humans have left behind and forgotten can lead to some pretty amazing discoveries, especially in big, old cities. Hell, even in Austin there are plenty of tunnels to go through.
Unfortunately, a lot of this stuff has been boarded up or just plain destroyed.
Berlin, though, is a bit of a different story. According to this movie, anyway. Yes, the tunnels have been blocked off, but there are apparently tours of the Berlin underground going on right under the authorities’ noses. (Actually, I’m sure this happens everywhere. Whatever.)
Urban Explorer is about four kids who take one of these tours. They get a guide and go looking for the “Fahrenzimmer.” It’s the room where the Nazis’ drivers would hang out and it has tons of murals and Nazi graffiti everywhere. It’s been walled up to keep Neo-Nazis from going in to worship at the alter of their Fuhrer.
The kids make it to the room (and it is VERY interesting), but on the way out, their guide falls, breaking his leg. Time to get help!
The rest of the movie is a cat and mouse game between the kids and a super-creepy Nick Nolte look-alike. And a true thrill-ride it is. Not only is the scenery amazing (it was all filmed in the actual Berlin underground…all of these places are fucking real!), but the action is pretty non-stop.
No, the kids aren’t super interesting. They do smart things and stupid things. (NEVER investigate a noise when you’re on your way to safety!) There are leaps of logic. (I definitely heard a squishing noise. How is he still alive?) But it was a really fun ride and, with this kind of movie, that’s all I really need sometimes.
One thing I don’t like is the fact that the filmmakers seem to kind of equate the Nazis with the Communists. The bad guy is a former border patrol soldier. They make so many references to Nazis (and hardly any to Communists) that it’s easy to start to think that he was a Nazi, but Nazis didn’t build the Berlin Wall. Communists did. This guy was not a Nazi.
Could the movie be an anti-Communist statement?
Whatever. Somehow, I doubt it. I think it was just an excuse to film down there and they happened to run into some old plumbing from the Wall.
Definitely check this one out if you get a chance. It’s well worth your time.
“But wait, Prof Wagstaff! That can’t be all! This was the last full day of the festival. Did you only see FOUR movies?!”
No, no, child. I actually saw five. Unfortunately, the fifth one (the Hong Kong movie), I’m not allowed to write about. It’s really too bad, too, because it probably would have been a 4.5 star review. Pretty damned awesome stuff. But I can’t tell you what movie it was.
Sad face.
