Director: Steve Miner
Written by: Fred Dekker & Ethan Wiley
Starring: William Katt, George Wendt, Richard Moll, Kay Lenz, Mary Stavin, Michael Ensign
Music by: Harry Manfredini
Taglines: “Ding dong, you’re dead.”
“Horror has found a new home”
“Enter at your own risk.
“You are cordially invited to spend an evening with Roger Cobb and his friends. Don’t come alone!”
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Here’s the first official video, featuring an interview with Hobo With A Shotgun director Jason Eisener.
Day 2 (and sadly, as always, the last day) was rather more eventful in many ways than the first day. Highlight of the night has to go to Jason Eisener (director of Hobo With A Shotgun) dropping his trousers at the end of his opening Q&A, then returning in his boxers to answer the audience Q&A following the movie!
There were a few extra surprises, as well. We were treated to a preview of one of the special features from an upcoming remaster of Don’t Look Now, and an amusing short called Zombie Musical. Freebies also flowed quick and fast (well, apart from the Troll Hunter t-shirts that Alan was struggling to offload). I managed to bag 2 free DVDs (the dodgy looking Death Tube and Gnaw), a Drive Angry T-shirt and poker chip and some Skyline glowsticks (!), as well as buying the official T-shirt.
First up was the deliberately bizarre Rubber from French director Quentin Dupieux, better known as electronic musician Mr. Oizo. The plot is simple but strange enough – an abandoned rubber tyre gains sentience and psychokinetic powers and goes on a killing spree. However, the execution takes further left-field turns with the entire thing being watched over by a group of paying spectators thorough binoculars, and some characters being perfectly aware that they’re only acting in a movie.
Generally speaking, it’s a decent movie that’s worth watching, but it’s more of a dry comedy along the lines of Aki Kaurismaki or Jim Jarmusch with a dash of surrealism than an actual horror movie. The humour is rather strange, and while the gore moments (mostly exploding heads) are amusing gooey, it’s one of those films that’s pretty borderline for a genre festival, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Rating: 
Next up was the thoroughly politically-minded Territories, which may get retitled Checkpoint by the time it makes it to general release. Again, the story here is deceptively simple. A group of 5 people are travelling back from a wedding through backroads when they encounter a state border check. The officers are at first tough but fair, but seem to take a special interest in the driver, who is of Middle Eastern racial origin. Before long, the situation deteriorates and one of them is killed, while the rest find themselves taken to a backwoods re-enactment of Guantanamo Bay.
There’s a few major flaws with this otherwise solidly directed movie. The first is that, while the political subtext is a welcome change from the typical backwoods torture genre, it’s rather too obvious. The second problem is that the focus abruptly switches to a new character toward the back third of the film, and this is a little confusing and never satisfactorily resolved. There may have been a further subtext there I was missing, but if so I missed it.
Overall, a decent and well constructed thriller for the most part, but it’s too flawed to wholeheartedly recommend.
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The Shrine was the next on the lineup – the new, serious film from the director of the decent horror comedy Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. The story here follows a journalist for a small-time investigative magazine who’s tired of being shunted to minor projects. She sees the story of disappearances of travellers through Eastern Europe as her last chance at getting a real career and goes along to the village where the last missing person was last known to be, along with her photographer boyfriend and her intern. Needless to say, not everything is as it seems and they find a dangerous situation unfold.
This is one of those movies that impresses and annoys at alternate intervals. To start with, it’s the typical moron movie, with characters making stupid and rash decisions that would guarantee them problems even if the event they encountered didn’t happen. This continues throughout the movie, with characters often doing what the plot demands, rather than what any intelligent person would do. This is a common criticism of the horror genre as a whole, and this does us no favours.
Having said that, when this film works, it really works. A key scene involving fog and a statue is perfectly executed, and there’s a final twist during the climax that’s amazingly effective and turns most of the movie on its head. It also has to be commended for daring to use the native language for all of the native characters, unsubtitled. That really does add to the sense of confusion and oppression (vital for the twist to work) and helps identify with some otherwise worthless characters.
Overall, a worthwhile watch, but one that fails to impress as often as it succeeds.
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The only remake on the roster was Mother’s Day, nominally based on a Troma movie. I’ve not seen the original, but a little research suggests that only the general mother character has really carried over. Since it’s in the normal remit of my blog, I’ll probably review the original in the near future.
Anyway, this remake takes the form of a home invasion movie. A bank robbery has gone wrong, one of the brothers involved has been shot and badly injured, and they flee to the pre-arranged meeting point of their mother’s house. Unfortunately, they’ve now been on the run for several months and have not heard that their mother’s home has been foreclosed and picked up on by a couple who are currently entertaining several groups of friends in the basement. When they realise their mistake, they force on of the guests to attend to their shot brother, while they get their mother and sister to meet them at the house. When she arrives, it’s instantly clear that the mother is the one who calls the shots and she has a very twisted view of what’s right and wrong in this situation.
While the ensemble arranged for the movie is pretty decent all around, the star of the show is inevitably Rebecca De Mornay as the mother. Simultaneously chilling psychotic, persuasive and charming, she give one of the great performances of recent horror movies, surpassing her own role in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle as a benchmark of female psychos.
It’s not quite the best home invasion movie of recent times, but it’s a notch above most recent horror movies and would have been my favourite of the festival had I Saw The Devil not shown the previous night. It’s also a revelation regarding director Darren Lynn Boseman – previously best known for Saw 2 – 4 and Repo: the Genetic Opera. It’s easily a step up from any of those films, and he mostly dials back on the more annoying tactics he normally uses behind the camera. Definitely recommended.
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Well, I was really looking forward to Hobo With A Shotgun and all the signs were there at first glance. Rutger Hauer starring in a grindhouse homage assembled via the same trailer-to-movie technique used for Machete. how could it lose? Well, while most people seemed to love it, it was only fairly entertaining in my opinion.
I think my problem was the Troma style direction of the movie. While Troma has its fans, I’ve never really been one of them and their more outlandish movies tend to leave me cold. It’s just a matter of taste, of course, but I found it as hard to get really into Hobo as I do with many of Troma’s titles.
Having said that, there’s plenty to recommend here. When the characters aren’t being straight-up annoying, there’s a lot of laughs to be had. There’s homages to everything from 70s fighting hobo movies to 80s Italian exploitation to Bumfights references. The movie is shot with an incredible, eye-popping colour palette, and the gore is plentiful when it comes.
Overall, a decent, crowd-pleasing end to the night but one that’s defeinitely experienced with a crowd.
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A surprisingly warm Glasgow greeted me this year, and a good thing too since my flight arrangements were so hectic. Luckily, everything went smoothly and I managed to get an hour or two in my hotel before wandering the street to the cinema. I’d recommend this hotel to anyone travelling to Glasgow, by the way. CitizenM is its name and it was pretty decent and for not much more than the Travelodge were asking!
I didn’t, of course, and after getting my ticket, enjoying a quick pint in the bar and buying this year’s t-shirt, I was ready for action.
First off was the British anthology Little Deaths, here enjoying a world premiere (though suggestions were made that this might not have been 100% true for whatever reason!). It’s a three story collection, each story directed by a different director – Sean Hogan (Isle Of Dogs), Andrew Parkinson (I, Zombie), and Simon Rumley (The Living and the Dead).
First up was Hogan’s “House And Home”, following a sadistic couple who get their kick by tricking and sexually abusing homeless girls. Unfortunately for them, their new victim has a secret that unexpectedly allows her to turn the tables. Second is “Mutant Tool”, a rather bizarre entry from Parkinson which follows a ex-junkie who falls foul of a corrupt doctor and the strange Nazi experiment he uses to manufacture a lethal drug. Third was Rumley’s “Bitch”, where a dominated partner in a series of strange fetish role playing games turns the tables on his girlfriend after she goes too far.
As the double entendre title suggests, this is a loose anthology tied together by a rough sexual aspect to each of the stories. They’re all fairly silly, especially the “Tool” segment, which got a lot of juvenile giggles. But, overall, it’s a fairly mediocre set of stories that’s probably OK for a laugh if it shows up late at night, but not a great opener for the festival. Then again, I have a rough time with other recent British anthologies such as Cradle of Fear, so you might think differently.
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On another level of class altogether was I Saw The Devil, the latest from versatile Korean director Kim Ji-Woon. Starring two heavyweights of Korean cinema (Byung-Hyun Lee from The Good, the Bad, the Weird, and Oldboy’s Min-Sik Choy), this tells the tale of a serial killer who murders a girl stranded in her car on a snowy night. Unfortunately for him, her boyfriend has connections in the police department that allow him to not only track him down, but also engage in a game of cat-and-mouse to prolong his revenge.
As with most Korean cinema, this is a little overlong and takes some wild lurches between comedy, action, thriller and horror. However, it’s a great movie, beautifully shot with some amazing sequences (look out for one where Choy stabs 2 people in a car). Especially compared to the previous film, this was an excellent piece of cinema and thoroughly recommended.
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Rounding off the night was another excellent piece of cinema, this time a documentary. Machete Maidens Unleashed is Mark Hartley’s follow-up to Not Quite Hollywood, an amazingly well received documentary on the Australian exploitation cinema of the 70s and 80s. This new film take a similar style, and applies it to the Filipino industry around the same time, largely concentrating on the output produced by Roger Corman.
There’s a decent range of talking heads present, from Corman himself to Joe Dante, Sid Haig, Eddie Romero and even the late Cirio H. Santiago. The format of the piece is a little simpler than the previous film, going in a roughly chronological order. There’s a huge amount of clips, and like the previous do, you need to have a pen and paper handy to note down some titles! Some movies are already well known among exploitation fans, but there’s some amazing looking obscurities on offer. Nudity is also copiously on offer, especially from the ladies – frankly a relief after the huge amount of male nudity in Little Deaths!
Overall, it’s a decent documentary that will most likely stand up to repeat viewings just so you can catch all the references. I’m not sure if watching the film at home would be anywhere as entertaining as the festival audience was, but it’s certainly worth checking out.
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So, before I get back to my normal reviews, I managed to score tickets again for this year’s Frightfest mini-event as part of the Glasgow film festival. As ever, it’s a smaller event than the London one, with just 8 films over 2 days. It’s an interesting line-up as ever.
The first day will start with the world première of a British anthology movie called Little Deaths. This seems like it will be a hit-and-miss prospect to me, though you can never tell. It features 3 stories, each directed by a different up-and-comer: Andrew Parkinson (I, Zombie), Simon Rumley (The Living and the Dead/Red White & Blue) and Sean Hogan (Isle Of Dogs). Of these, I’ve only seen Rumley’s Red White & Blue. I, Zombie had some good buzz, while Isle Of Dogs was trashed by most of the people I’d spoken to when I missed the August Frightfest screening. Still, anthologies like this usually contain at least one great segment and the synopsis sounds pretty good.
Next up is a Kim Ji-Woon’s latest, named I Saw the Devil. Like most Korean movies, this is a little long (144 mins), but I’m confident we’re in good hands here. Kim was the director of the excellent The Good, the Bad, the Weird and the decent A Tale of Two Sisters, while the film stars Oldboy’s Min-Sik Choy as the bad guy. Lots to look forward to here. Rounding up the evening is Mark Hartley’s follow-up to the excellent documentary Not Quite Hollywood, Machete Maidens Unleashed! The former documentary did an excellent job of covering the sex comedies, action and horror exploitation movies that filled up the Australian film industry during the 70s and 80s. This promises to do the same with the Philippines industry of the time, featuring interviews with everybody from Roger Corman to Pam Grier. If it’s anything like the other documentary, I’ll have to take along a notebook to remember which movies to watch!
The following day seems to be a day full of grindhouse-style weirdness, and none more so than the opening movie, Rubber. I don’t know too much about this, except for the fact that it’s a French production about a killer car tyre. I have a feeling I might need a beer or two at lunch to fully appreciate this one! Following on is French Canadian production named Territories. Billed as being from the producers of Frontier(s), the plot (involving teens who are kidnapped by overzealous police for their own private prison camp) sounds a little over-familiar, while the promised political subtext sounds heavy-handed, but this should still be somewhat promising.
Next up is The Shrine, the latest from the director of Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. While that film was a rather silly horror comedy with lots of rubber monster effects, this one sounds a lot darker and more serious. I’m not a huge fan of Jack Brooks, but it was decent enough and the director shows some promise here. Following this is probably the biggest name production on the schedule, but not one I’m all that bothered about. Mother’s Day is the latest from Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw 2 – 4, Repo: the Genetic Opera), and sounds like a cross between Last House On The Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I’ll certainly give it time, but I can’t get particularly excited about it despite a decent cast.
Rounding up the festival is probably the one I’m looking forward to the most – Hobo With A Shotgun! Like Machete, this is an expended version of an fake trailer made for the Tarantino/Rodriguez collection Grindhouse. Unlike Machete, however, the original trailer was made by a fan, winning a competition to get included in the Grindhouse movie, and the lead actor has been replaced by Rutger Hauer! Should be a lot of fun and fitting cap to the weekend…
So, the final day of Frightfest, and it was as enjoyable as ever though as always it was slightly depressing that I’d be travelling back home the following day with no further movies! The day started with the Video Nasties documentary followed by a Q&A with some of the cast of the doc (and a slightly bemused looking Tobe Hooper, who I thought had left already!). I missed one film on this day, the fairly well received Bedevilled. What can I say, a few more beers at the pub was more inviting than a 2+ hour Korean movie at that point! Eli Roth was on hand for a short appearance for The Last Exorcism, overshadowing the presence of the movie’s actual director Daniel Stamm.
Overall, a decent finale to a decent festival that managed to entertain despite setbacks and restrictions. Looking forward, as ever, to next year and hopefully the Glasgow event in February if I can make it again.
Well, here we are on the Sunday and it was an interesting experience. Everything ended up being a little messy, in part because of Westminster Council’s decision to try to block the showing of A Serbian Movie by enforcing a BBFC certificate for the first time in the festival’s history. This led to last-minute rushes on the part organisers to get a certificate for the movie (which had been shown uncut at various other festivals in the past), and ultimately to it being dropped. Rumours abounded as to what might replace it – one girl behind the counter at FOPP was apparently telling everybody it would be Robert Rodriguez’s Machete – but the replacement turned out to be the fairly decent Buried.
That was already the second film to be replaced after the original announcement of the line-up (Gregg Araki controversially pulled his latest movie Kaboom!, although the exact details are still debated – and replaced with Damned By Dawn), so this day looked like it might become the event’s darkest moments. Luckily, we ended up with a mostly decent line-up of films, including my personal favourite of the festival. We were also treated to some behind the scenes shots of the upcoming sequel to Human Centipede: First Centipede, which looks to be shaping up quite well as director Tom Six promised up at last year’s première.
Day 2 of Frightfest was the typically exciting day for the most part, the first full day of the festival. The morning, however, left a sadly disappointing impression on me in some ways. I opted to watch Eggshells instead of the tiger movie Burning Bright – partly to complete my Tobe Hooper filmography, and partly as the latter movie would be out on DVD shortly afterwards. I can’t say that I was totally disappointed with Eggshells, but it was exactly what I thought it would be, leaving me with a “meh” impression overall. The rest of the Hooper retrospective left me feeling a little underwhelmed – Texas Chainsaw is a little too familiar to me at this point in my life, while the Q&A was also disappointing.
I then apparently dodged a bullet by going to watch Wound instead of Isle Of Dogs, the latter getting terrible feedback from those I spoke to, but Wound itself was also pretty bad. The shining silver lining there, however, was the fact that I got to share a couple of beers with a group of people waiting for that film to finish – one of whom was Kane Hodder!
By this point in the festival, I also got the idea that technical problems that were plaguing the festival (it took 2 attempts to get Eggshells to start properly) were beginning to eat into bonus features. That is, while we still got some nice surprises, there didn’t see to be quite as many as last year. Oh well, it was still a great day either way! Full reviews after the jump.
So, a week on, and it’s time to recap my newly digested experience at this year’s Frightfest.
Ah, it’s never long enough, even though the festival consists of 4 1/2 days of solid movies! The busiest year so far, apparently, and it was the usual mix of friendly old and new faces with lots of good times to be had. As ever, the crowd were highly responsive to most of the movies, never afraid to state their opinion negatively or positively, and the regular staff & guests were on top form.
Sadly, this year featured a few mishaps. Most notably, Westminster Council decided that they could not allow the controversial A Serbian Film to be shown without a BBFC certificate, for which nearly 4 minutes of cuts would be required with no guarantee that the cut version would be passed in time. A shame, as I’m sure that it will do nothing to stop people seeing the film (we all have the internet, morons, and telling a horror fan they can’t handle something is like telling them they have to!) and will actually help marketing the film as it can now be claimed to have been “banned in the UK” even if that’s not strictly true. In place of that film, we saw the Ryan-Reynolds-in-a-box movie Buried.
Technical problems seemed to plague the festival this year as well. Fortunately, this didn’t affect any of the main films too badly (although it was a close call with Eggshells) but there did seem to be a little bit less of the exclusive footage & previews we often get shown so I wonder how bad it was behind the scenes.
Goody bags were also given out again, not a bad haul. The bag itself was branded with the Fanboys logo, and was of better quality than the rather flimsy Dawn of the Dead bag from last year. Inside, we had a copy of the most recent magazine from sponsors Total Film, a couple of DVDs (mine were Days of Darkness and Catacombs) and various bits of advertising. One leaflet that stood out for me was a previous of “Demons 3″, a comic book in 2 parts that will be given away inside Arrow Films’ upcoming re-release of Demons & Demons 2. Arrow’s discs are usually of high quality, so I might buy them even though I have the movies already from Poundland! No T-shirts this year, but we did get a mug for the upcoming TV series The Walking Dead.
There were a few guests, but it was mainly the Hatchet 2 crowd that impressed, with Adam Green’s usual full festival attendance joined by Tony Todd and Kane Hodder. Danielle Harris was also there, but had to fly off in a few hours, while Green and Hodder managed to stay for the whole thing! Tobe Hooper was a little bit of a let down, especially after last year’s sterling performance from the hyperactive John Landis. The Q&A was rather dry, and I’d honestly thought he’d gone until I bumped into him just before the Q&A for the Video Nasties documentary a few days later…
Anyway, more of that later. I’ll run a format of reviews here, day by day with the official daily videos. Sadly, I can’t find the typically excellent Road To Frightfest shorts to link individually, but you can find them here under the shorts section.
