In the early days of this blog, I would every now and then get an e-mail about a trailer/screener for non horror movies. I would take a look at the trailer and see if it was worth a watch. I'm an avid supporter of indie cinema and when I saw Dan Eberle's The Local (full review here) I really dug an authentic NYC underbelly. The NYC grime and crime you can only get from independent cinema. Later, Eberle returned with Prayer to a Vengeful God (full review here) which was more experimental and raw. I gave both movies 3 spinkicks and realized NYC's indie scene is still powerful and refreshing than I ever imagined.
Eberle is back with a new movie called Cut to Black. Here be the plot.
Bill Ivers, a disgraced ex-cop, is hired by a wealthy former friend to rid his estranged daughter, Jessica, of a petty a stalker. Soon, Bill finds himself interceding in Jessica's increasingly complicated life: caught between the crushing debt of a dangerous loan shark, and the specter of her father's shadowy past.
Cut to Black is a story of desperate people living in the wake of bad choices, trying to make the most of what's left of their time in this world. Nobody gets away clean in this tough story of love, loyalty, and the inevitable conclusion we're all headed for.
Color me excited except this film is in black and white it seems. I love Eberle's NYC, the characters he's created and the seemingly rawness of his stories. Looking forward to this one.
A standard horror movie runs about 90 minutes. When it runs 80 minutes you start to think "Well, it seems there were some budget concerns". But you can do a lot in 80 minutes and The Loved Ones does just that.
Released in 2009 in Australia, one can only wonder why this movie didn't get at least a theatrical release. Is it because Hollywood plans a remake? God knows they wouldn't have the balls to make it. Sean Byrne's debut film is filled with WTF moment after WTF moment, it's relentless and will make gorehounds ejaculate with glee (that's glee you perv). What it also does is pack some black humor into the mix, as the torture porn is packed with LOL bizarre moments. A "B" story also gives us some high school comedy like moments that eases our tension throughout the film.
The Loved Ones is the perfect combination of sour and sweet. One moment your seeing all hell break bloody loose and the next you're watching the nostalgia of prom night. It's the two perspectives on a special night, one that is awkwardly normal and the other straight out of a bizarro horror world. Our protagonist Brent gets the latter and it's been a while since I openly rooted for our final guy to get his revenge served cold.
This is the movie horror fans will call a cult classic and the ones horror fans will recommend to their causal movie fan friends. Prom has always had hijinky and quirky moments. That pesky virginity has to be lost. But you also grow up on that special night. In horror terms, you survive and that's all that counts.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
When Brent turns down his classmate Lola's invitation to the prom, she concocts a wildly violent plan for revenge.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Poor Brent. He gets a case of those sad as his father dies in a car crash as Brent who was driving avoids a figure on the road. Months later, he has an overly concerned mom and a pretty hot girlfriend Holly. He also has a horndog best friend, likes Metallica and smokes weed.
Lola has not none of that. Just a crazy fucked up dad and some finger licking good chicken.
And so begins one of the best movies of 2012. Soon Lola's obsession for Brent has her having her own personal prom with Brent, her insane dad and zombiefied mom and something in the basement. It's not going to be good times for Brent as he's going to have to endure a Hostel torture endurance challenge that would make even Eli Roth squeal. In a parallel story, Brent's BFF Jaime goes to prom with Mia (a goth chick chopped full of attitude). It's this story that gives us breathers in between Brent's unfortunate events. As his girlfriend and the sheriff search for our missing final guy, it all leads to a punch in the stomach ending.
What The Loved Ones does so effectively is not take it self so seriously. It's a horror movie no doubt but the mood is a mix of 80s John Hughes high school melo-comedy if it were on bath salts. The movie is very tight. There are no scenes that seem unnecessary. Nobody goes and talks in wild tangent monologues. We get serious bang for our buck and the ride is so demented, so fucked up and so hilariously awesome you want to say why can't all horror movies be this good.
Describing The Loved Ones, you'd easily say it's about a demented wannabe prom queen who tortures her obsession. But in a way, it's got suspense thriller written all over it. In a way, it's kidnapping plot through and through where everybody is trying to figure out where the hell did Brent go? You want him to escape (and he does have his chances) and you want him to defend himself and somehow not get as badly damaged (but he totally gets badly fuckin damaged).
The performances are pretty dead on. Xavier Samuel plays a quiet, reserved but resilient Brent. At times he goes silent, showing the pain through serious squeamish inducing interrogation scenes. The father played by John Brumpton goes outback killer daddy. Skilled with experience on making people scream. But it's Robin McLeavy as Lola aka Princess who's decked out in a pink prom dress that steals the show. She plays the sadistic serial killer perfectly, blending in kid like happys with some black humor. Clearly insane, McLeavy does a fantastic job in bringing up fucked up bitch to a whole new level.
The Loved Ones does go into arduous scenes of Hostel territory. The slice and dice torture of Brent is masterfully executed. Armed with knives and a power drill, Lola executes her fucked up torture on a soundtrack of not being pretty enough. It's the little things that give you a glimpse of how Lola's world is like Leatherface family on steroids. Her mom has been zombified, she keeps a scrapbook of her best boy toys now dead and loves milk and chicken. It's well crafted to make you hate her so that by the end, you may want to clap at her demise.
Within here are skilled WTF moments, the craziest being what the fuck is in the basement. Also, just skilled playful scenes of a boy stuck in a tree. It's the balance of black LOL humor and horrific massacre of bodily harm that works. Because when we're not seeing Brent fucked up, we follow his BFF Jaime and his prom date Mia. It's this 80s comedy throwback of stoner boy with goth-tard chick doing teenager hi jinks that balances both story lines as we watch, then connects them at the end.
So you may ask who are the loved ones? Well it seems love comes in all form from what Byrne point of view. A father to a daughter, a mom/dad to a son, a girl to a boy, a crazy sicko girl to a boy. A boy to his dog. Clearly we must decide which relationship strikes a chord the most to us and realize love can be good or it can become the evilest thing you've ever seen.
Whatever you may think, The Loved Ones cements what I love about horror movies. Sometimes watching over an hour of hardcore horror is way too much. Intersperse it with scenes of juvenile American Pie jokes and it lessens the eye strain. The way the Loved Ones completes its plot and story arc make it feel like you watched a damn good stand alone episode of Carrie but Australian.
We'll get our prom gone all fucked up this year when Carrie goes all telekinetic, but if you want your fix now, I highly recommend you watch The Loved Ones as soon as you can. It's as good as getting a hole in your head.
Nude-ipedia
Some steamy car sex boobs
Gore-ipedia
Lots of moments Kathryn Bigelow would be proud of WTF moment
Finding out what was in the basement
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
The Loved Ones is out on DVD. Check out the official site. I really do recommend this film. It's a perfect horror film that should not have been relegated to straight to DVD status when it hit American shores last year.
@TheRaidUS is the equivalent of seeing a 100 car pile up, head on collisions and fiery mushroom cloud explosions. It's fuckin awesome
It's rare to see an action movie that says, fuck the characters and the plot! We're not going to waste time developing our characters or explaining the plot. Instead, we're going to give you non stop action for well over 100 minutes and it's going to be some of the most insane stuff you have seen in a while.
Remember when you first mesmerized by Tony Jaa in Ong Bak? Well The Raid is Ong Bak on fuckin steroids and fully armed with nuclear explosives. It's bar none the best action movie I've seen in the past decade.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
The plot is simple. SWAT Team are told they have to take out a ruthless crime lord in an old tenement building. The building is heavily guarded by 1-800 Henchmen and house lowlifes, thugs, addicts and pieces of shit. It also has a few good Samaritans who our remaining cops will meet later. All you need to know is humans with lady parts are at a minimum. You're going to see glorious violence in a Just Dance choreography that is pure awesomeness.
Awesome Review-O-Matic I said it would revolutionize the action movie and I wasn't wrong. You may not know the name Iko Uwais but you will after seeing The Raid. Move over Tony Jaa, your 15 minutes are up. I first saw Uwais in Merantau, Gareth Evans first flick featuring Silat Harimau the Indonesian martial art. I'll admit, it had some stellar action scenes but it was full of boring drab plot and story and had staged action scenes that seem to appear out of nowhere.
But The Raid is floor after floor of non stop Silat in closed quarters, rooms with many breakable objects and ferocity of throwing your enemy against the wall numerous times. Uwais is a skilled tactician playing our hero cop and the synchronized ballet of Silat on Silat violence via endless henchmen are a sight you won't fuckin forget.
The man who steals the show however is Yayan Ruhian who plays Mad Dog. Dude is like the Nate Robinson of the film. He's barely 5'8 from the looks of it but his Silat skills are fuckin stellar. In the penultimate scene, he battles Uwais and his "partner" in well over 15 minutes display of kicks, blocks, punches, blocks and gallery of lightning quick Silat-o-pedia of moves.
And don't get me started by the point blank violence. Holy fuckin shit. Here are things I've never seen before:
Execution of 4 men via point blank gunshots to the head (and one via hammer)
Silat battle ending in multiple gunshots to the face
Machete wielding fight scene
Rude Awakening neck breakers
I mean check this scene out.
This is a badass flick that destroys all semblance of what action porn should be. It defies the genre by be unrelenting and ferocious. It doesn't apologize, it says FUCK YOU and gives you more of what you want. It has moments of pure suspense and anxiety then delivers one screaming kick after the other.
The Raid Redemption is the one action movie you need to see this year. Gone is Thai action. Indonesia is the king of action and Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais are sitting on the throne.
Nude-ipedia
Puhlease.
Gore-ipedia
Mucho gun trauma Mucho broken bones trauma Mucho head, arms, legs trauma WTF moment
Uwais takes on EVERYBODY!!!!
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
The Raid is out now in limited theaters. It's a must see, no ifs or ands about it. It's the pinnacle of the modern day action flick. It's why it's getting a release here. The Raid may have been overshadowed by that movie with kids killing kids, but leave it up to the adults to give us grown up violence.
After watching the umpteenth trailer and clips of The Raid: Redemption, you just get the feeling this shits going to be fuckin awesome. Sure we can all get hyped by The Expendables 2, but I get the eerie feeling Gareth Evans Indonesian action flick is going to get rewashed, rebooted and remade in that repackaged American way.
Haven't seen the trailer? Check it out.
Remember when Ong Bak came out and it fuckin exploded in your brain? I think Thailand may get dethroned by Indonesian's action stunt teams. I mean look at these scene below. Holy fuckin cow.
There is nothing like seeing some dude gets his head blown up point blank. Plus there a few more scenes of just pure WTF. "Silat", the Indonesian martial arts style seems like it's replacing muy thai for pure action awesomness.
My friends who know me, know I'm a stickler to see original flicks before the remakes. I'm pretty sure they got The Rock and Will Smith lined up for some pussy PG-13 American bullshit. Sorry Tony Jaa, your ass got replaced.
Is The Raid going to revolutionize the action film? What do you think?
On the surface, Kill List looks to be your standard five and dime crime thriller. Underworld goons doing their trade eliminating threats for $$. But as I thought about the film after watching it, you start seeing the layers underneath Kill List that enable you to see a movie that has more than meets the eye.
Kill List is a film that slowly burns you into a look into the life of a retired hit man and scopes out a world where his past, his present and his future all collide into an orgy of madness. It's an interesting journey seeing a drama, gore soaked slaughter and a Wicker Man-ish horror flick all blended into one. Sure there is a twist at the end and numerous unanswered questions which make you go WTF but it stills hit you harder than a hail of bullets.
What you'll get from Kill List is a character study of a soldier turned assassin who elects to try to live as a normal but it seems PTSD and pure conditioning to kill are not as easy to shut down when you get home. There is pure hell to pay for the sins of your past and it seems mysterious forces want have molded our hit man's world into their own.
Kill List is a solid flick that may seem like Pulp Fiction without the glitz and glamour. And for that it gets high marks for showing me a touch of all the genres I love from the UK.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
Eight months after a disastrous job in Kiev left him physically and mentally scarred, ex-soldier turned contract killer, Jay, is pressured by his partner, Gal, into taking a new assignment. As they descend into the dark and disturbing world of the contract, Jay begins to unravel once again - his fear and paranoia sending him deep into the heart of darkness.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
I'm going to break this down via Earth layers. Seems easier that way as far as I'm concerned.
The Crust
Kill List starts off as we see Jay and his Swedish wife Shel arguing about money. It seems Jay is a retired ex soldier with tours of Iraq who came back and went all crime underworld . We meet his friend and partner Gal and during a dinner party they talk about their lives, a past botched job and the life they now lead.
Clearly Wheatley uses this first Act to make us care for Jay and Gal and their alpha male shenanigans. Jay and Shel have a son and we see his fatherly side as well as Mr. Husband. Both Jay (Neil Maskell) and Shel (MyAnna Buring) have an uneasy relationship and you can see the scars Jay has been dealing with bubbling up. He's angry and all his instincts have have been dulled by being in this normal life.
Both Maskell and Buring give off good chemistry as a husband and wife who know they have had issues as they both transition to normals (Shel knows Jay is a hit man which is unique). Michael Smiley as Gal is still struggling to go normal but it seems as we move on the the list, we'll see who still has the instincts to do the job. The Mantle
As both Jay and Gal fulfill their assignments, Jay slowly descents into what he was in the past. Before they embark on the kill, they stake out their victims finding in their now grey moral world reasons to take them out. The kills involving a Priest (highlighted in big white text), a Librarian are dastardly brutal. They slowly start out as professionals but it seems as Jay's scars get reopened (allegor-ized by a inflicted slice on his hand) he's going towards the deep end.
It begs the question can a soldier or even a hit man just turn off "their switch" when they retire? Is it just that easy to do? Kill List says no and I agree. Jay who seemed to be a brutal killer back in the day is as vicious when he gets a taste for it again. Each of the victims on "the list" are moral embodiments to stop him from going back to his killing ways. A priest representing morality, a librarian representing logic and a government official representing the law. Jay ignores all of this and slaughters them all.
The Core
The final scenes with the final kill go into weird Wicker Man territory. Everybody seems to have been played and characters who looked idle appear to be more sinister. A action sequence through a tunnel is mesmerzingly claustrophobic and vicious. These last scenes are very peculiar whipping in survival horror with bizarre rituals. It' s possibly fitting Jay confronts organized chaos as his final test. Having been now conditioned into a cold blooded killer/soldier, his instincts kick in and he becomes the embodiment of a savage.
Could we have gotten a better explanation of the "game" being played? Final answers on why characters actions became oddly weird? Sure but Whealtey seems to want us to fill in the holes which is fine with me.
Kill List gets a barely 3 spinkicks from me for taking me on a long journey of how easily a man can be stripped of his normal suit and launched into a naked and vicious savage. That's what you should take away from Kill List.
Nude-ipedia
Nada
Gore-ipedia
Hammer to the head trauma Gunshots to the head Torture trauma Sliced bowel trauma WTF moment
The twist ending
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
Kill List is available on VOD and on Amazon Instant Video. It comes out in theaters on February 3rd.
Who knew 40 years ago, a TV movie by an unknown director named Steven Spielberg would still be influencing filmmakers today? With Duel, Spielberg made a statement about man's isolation against a force of nature or something like that.
That's where Rage draws it's inspiration from and because of this influence, director/producer/editor Chris Witherspoon even drew up a scene commenting on what the metaphor might be. One can make up comparisons but I'm pretty sure Generation Y and Z have never seen Duel. So Rage becomes it's own malevolent little indie that takes cat vs mouse to a whole new level. What Witherspoon has created is a tense, suspenseful and amped movie about a ordinary Oregonian with his share of secrets and thrown him into a deadly game vs a masked villain whose motivations are also hidden in secrecy.
Rage plays with it's audience so well, I even got duped by its overall simplicity (I'll explain in a bit). It's a mix of Hitchcockian slickness, Twilight Zone twistiness and Spielberg terror magic. Sure it's hindered by its low budget and some odd flashback placement but overall it's an entertaining movie that plays out like a long riddle of emotion.
Rage tricked me big time and it's why it was so much fun.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
A thirty something man who lives in a suburb just outside of Portland says goodbye to his beautiful and loving wife and heads into town. There he unintentionally provokes the wrath of a mysterious motorcyclist. The confrontation between the two, sets in motion a day long battle. Beginning in the form of harmless taunts then quickly escalating into something more serious and then into something unimaginable.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
So we get to hang out with Dennis Twist (Rick Crawford), a 30 something writer from Portland, OR who with his wife Crystal (Audrey Walker) live the American suburban life. But all is not well with the Dennis. He has a few secrets and on his day off, we're going to see all of them. As he drives off in his SUV we see him get into a scuffle with a black helmeted motorcyclist over a parking spot. Dismissed, he meets with his mistress who he breaks off an affair and also meets with a friend where they discuss his failed writing career.
Soon the stalking of Dennis begins and the motorcyclist is appearing at every angle. He is taunted at a red light, then his car gets keyed is only the beginning. Later his breaks are cut and a random beatdown at a bathroom get it all into the bit of ultra violence. Dennis plays mouse and our Darth Vader mute (he doesn't speak throughout the film) are gaming it up for all of us to see. It's not until Dennis gets home does all shit hit the fan. Uber gorehounds with rejoice in the splatterific scenes involving chainsaws, stab-o-palooza and an uncomfortable rape-ture. The end of Rage is pure madness and one final twist breaking down what the fuck just happened is the WTF of the entire movie.
Let me get what irked me out of the way. There is a bit of bad acting by all (Dennis's neighbors are cardboardy) and Rick Crawford who plays Dennis goes in and out of his Irish accent on more than one occasion. During highly emotional scenes, none of our actors can emote above a 5. But overall Crawford plays a mousey mouse well and shows a man littered with guilt and believes karma is out to get him.
Witherspoon also added a few B/W tinted flashbacks of scenes that only happened 5 minutes before. I have no idea why these were added. I'm pretty certain I was following along and didn't need a reminder. There were also a few odd camera angles that had me scratching my head ( a lunch scene in particular was a bit odd)
But these can be forgiven because Witherspoon for an indie does a nice job of getting SUV vs motorcycle shots all over Portland. Solid camera work for on the location shooting and I was impressed. It's a testament to Witherspoon's ability to make low level speeding into car chasing awesome.
Rage is clearly a guessing game. Witherspoon plays with the audience tossing in clues and red herrings to get us emotionally vested as well as riddling all of us. His mistress ex BF might be the man under the helmet but we savvy vets are ultimately going with the Twilight Zone route and expect somebody else. Everybody wants to know who this road rager is and why he might be doing it but it's not until the end do we get a clear explanation. At first, I thought I had been gypped, that all that had occurred was too far fetched for our stalker to go through to exact revenge.
But I remembered a scene Witherspoon inserted mid way in where cordial social parking protocol was followed and realized what I was watching. The movie wants you to believe our psychopathic biker is the embodiment of karma, what goes around comes around. Our man Dennis has to pay for his transgressions, for all the evil that he has done to his wife and to others. It's a brilliant play on the audience's preconceived notions of what we SHOULD expect. But the world is a much simpler place. People get angry for the stupidest and dumbest reasons and real ultra violence happens for far less. I mean people got beatdown for retro Air Jordans, wedding dresses and an Xbox during Black Friday madness.
All the clues lead to Rage. It's the damn title in the movie and the clues are littered throughout peaking at that scene I mentioned earlier. Witherspoon's Rage is so creatively smart that even the best cinema-phile might have been duped. It's one of the best movies I saw in 2011 and I'm going to keep my eyes on Witherspoon (he played the biker BTW). In a few years, we might be calling it Witherspoon terror magic instead. Nude-ipedia
Nada
Gore-ipedia
Chainsaw trauma Stabby stab stab stab WTF moment
The reveal at the end
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
I get a lot of indie screeners sent to me and I toss them into a pile and figure I'll get to them eventually. But the horror blogosphere is getting this little indie the buzz it deserves and I decided to watch it based on the hype.
Rage has no release date but it has won tons of awards. Rage won top honors at the 2011 Horror Quest Film Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. Rage screened in festivals across America and all over the world including the Oldenburg International Film Festival in Oldenburg, Germany and the Cryptshow Film Festival in Barcelona, Spain.
Hopefully Witherspoon gets a distributor so the horror universe can see this awesome bad boy.
"I will kill you when you are in the most pain. When you're in the most pain, shivering out of fear, then I will kill you. That's a real revenge. A real complete revenge."
-Soo-hyun
It wouldn't be the same if Korea didn't release an awesome revenge flick this year. But surprisingly they released 2 stellar revenge movies with Bedevilled being the other. I Saw the Devil is on lots and lots of Best of 2011 lists and deservedly so. It's a top notch, blood soaked crime thriller that echoes the pantheon of awesome Korean revenge but takes a step into a whole new frontier. You're not just given a rinse and repeat formula, oh no. In this dark and dreary tale, Jee-woon Kim serves up a curveball that will befuddle all your senses, pull your emotions and have your jaw completely on the floor.
What separates I Saw the Devil from its American counterparts is a sense of humanity that gets loss at our most vulnerable. The white knight becomes dark. And the level of grey is maximized to give the audience a decision to evaluate who is exactly the "devil" in this film.
I haven't questioned my loyalties in a while but I Saw the Devil is like a personality test for all those involved. Revenge is a dish best served on a heaping pile of decapitated heads and blood splattered walls and floors. I wouldn't want it any other way.
Simple premise really. Fiancee of special agent Soo-hyun is killed by a most depraved serial killer Kyung-chul, who makes Hannibal Lecter look like Mickey fuckin Mouse. In his quest for revenge, Soo-hyun methodically tracks down the scum of Seoul until he finally meets our fucked up Dexter. But death would be too quick for Kyung-chul so Soo-hyun decides to turn the tables as the cat is now the mouse. It's this twist that breaks the mold. It's executed brilliantly and the path these two leave are dead bodies, scarred victims, confused cops and massive beatings not seen since Oldboy.
The type of revenge Soo-hyun implements is almost as methodical as a serial killer. It's calculated, it's wicked and it's fucked up beyond what I can describe. But clearly this Korean revenge film could have delved into mucho sadness but during the cat and mouse scenes, it echoes a Tom and Jerry vibe. The violence is insanely sadistic but in almost over the top cartooney way. We get head bashing, bag suffocation, Achilles heel trauma, random pipe beatings and mouth trauma. Really in all this mayhem, I found myself chuckling at the ACME level smashes to the sternum.
But what drives I Saw the Devil is clearly it's two main pro/ant-gonists.
Let's start off with Kyung-chul (Min-sik Choi). He is a serial killer who has no morality whatsoever. We see him hunt women and kill them without any remorse. Choi is absolutely brilliant displaying a performance that shows a man who in this midst of survival and second chances remains as evil as can be. True evil killers, similar to a Category III HK flick villain are what Kyung-chul embodies. He is a wolf and clearly he sees all people as his sheep. Even though he is bruised, battered and rundown, he still unleashes his teeth. It's unbelievable. Instinct would tell you that once you got the shit beaten out of you, you'd give up. But it's Kyung-chul's perseverance that is a trait that no other serial killer on screen has ever shown.
With Soo-hyun, he slowly devolves, losing his humanity in his quest for vengeance. Like Ahab in Moby Dick, all he cares about is slaying the White Whale that crippled him. His fiancee's death, she was the daughter of a former police chief, has driven him into madness and Byung-hun Lee plays him with a calm robotic quality. All his anger and sadness are buried deep and in the film's final act does it unleash into a wicked but clever way. Great performances by these actors.
I Saw the Devil is stylish, punch in the gut of what revenge cinema can do to you. Your emotions sway and the basic instinct to give "an eye for an eye" are something we all have thought about. Like it's well known predecessor Oldboy, it has a twist and a rawness we Western audiences hardly see in are Hollywood CGI blockbusters. It's why the Dark Knight seemed to work for us when it gave us the same dilemma.
Let's make sure that I Saw the Devil gets the accolades it deserves. It's a bloody, gore splatterific opera of revenge cinema at it's sharpest. A movie that leaves you thinking of what YOU would do if faced with the same situation. If you had superhero, CIA-tech and awesome fight skills like Soo-hyun, would you do the same? Are we all capable of being evil when we believe it's justified?
Who exactly is the devil in the film? Maybe it's actually all of us idly applauding this masterful and brilliant film of 2011.
Nude-ipedia
Victim boobies are creepy to look at
Gore-ipedia
So much gore and splatter if you blinked, you'd miss a decap WTF moment
Our killer makes a discovery in the bathroom The ending
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
See this bad boy ASAP. It's out on Blu-Ray and DVD released via Magnet Releasing. I still have chills thinking about that ending. Fuckin brutal.
That's the tagline for iCrime, a stylized, indie film 2.0 that uses the MTV formula to tell a story about a Midwestern girl finding her way in the City of Angels.
I'll be honest, the poster and trailer make it look like it's a late night Skinemax after dark production. Go watch the trailer and don't tell me you didn't expect a scantily clad female seducing a dude to show up. But I was kind of surprised that this wasn't the case (and a little disappointed). In a weird way, iCrime is a perfect fit for a midnight showing on MTV. It clearly calls for the 18-34 year old demographic to eat up the content.
So what's the appeal to the Millennials? You have a murder mystery wrapped up with iJustine homages (or maybe a bit of Lonely Girl 15) with some fancy window editing, texting gimmicks, small town girl in a big city looking for love and a TMZ ripoff. It's a blend of Web 2.0 and film noir that clearly is more ambitious than it should be.
I'll admit I was very much entrenched in the goings of our lovely cutie Carrie but that's not to say it didn't have a mountain of flaws. It felt a bit unfocused at times and sometimes stressed style over substance. A supporting cast with little depth as well as subplots all over the place made it a bit over packed with shiznit.
But for a movie that plays on themes of the unsparkly side of Hollywood, family bonding, trust and betrayal, it works and for that I enjoyed my iCrime film viewing experience. Now check out what two millennials think.
MovieLover1992: @SelenaLovesKyle6 I just saw this awesome flk iCrime!
SelenaLovesKyle6: @MovieLover1992 OMG. Whats it about?
MovieLover1992: @SelenaLovesKyle6 Well this Okie girl comes to LA and works for a website called Echo Report and tries to prove this girl Jordan on YouTube is a total fake. As if!
SelenaLovesKyle6: @MovieLover1992 Sounds a bit like one of those shows on CW or ABC Family....I'm totally gonna watch!
MovieLover1992: @SelenaLovesKyle6 Yeah its got texting on screen, internet videos and chatting and OMG that ending is just crazy. Srlsy I was so shocked!
SelenaLovesKyle6: @MovieLover1992 Send me the trailer and a review. I wanna chk it out!
OK that's enough of my fake-o tweet-o vision. Director Bears Fonte debut film is clearly entrenched in a world that spins the small town girl in LA into a whole new direction. We've seen it before but here he's added a few Web 2.0 add ons to the mix. Carrie (Sara Fletcher) our Oklahoma noob tries to protect her cousin Stefy from a sex tape going public. But that plot line is just one of many which either detracts or enhances the film (to me, there were way to many things going on). The main plot line revolves around Carrie who works for "the Echo Report" online tabloid as she tries to expose the internet phenomenon Jordan, as she tries to prove she's an actress and not the innocent school girl she plays online.
The first thing about this film is the Web 2.0 generated gimmicks that get maxed exposure. We get the following:
The Echo Report (TMZ-ish parody)
Some gratuitous Skype-ing (video chatting)
Texting in movie (as the texts appear like subtitles on screen)
YouTube videos of our LonelyGirl/iJustine phenom "Jordan"
YouTube response videos of Jordan's fans reacting to her ordeal
Various references to message boards and social networking sites (you know the ones)
I don't mind all of these things in my movies. I laugh when Spyder Crawler or FrienderZ show up. Making an internet UGC movie without mentioning the obvious brands they reference is a staple. I mean you can't just say Twitter you know? The beauty of iCrime is it taps into a generation spoon fed info via 160 characters at a time. The Nancy Drew mystery Carrie investigates is a wee bit ridiculous but Sara Fletcher's performance was stellar and her presence onscreen negates any ridiculousness we see.
A few supporting roles from Zeffer (Carrie's possible love interest), Stefy her cousin looking for another big break, Raychel a fellow blogger and Jordan the web star are solid as they are just outright cardboard cutouts of a teen Lifetime movie of the week.
As Carrie searches for the truth, she also goes onto side quests that got distracting. From a blackmail plot of her cousin, to Hollywood insider parties she attends, to the budding relationship between her and lovable goofball Zeffer to ultimately the final reveal, it's a mish mash of filler scenes that got a bit convoluted. Fonte may have overloaded his script in his debut film with all these plot lines. In doing so he forgot to develop the characters into something more than caricatures. Carrie ultimately reveals a slew of problems she's dealing with, but all I cared about was the kidnapping gone awry. The twist can be predicted without a degree in sixth sense powers but it's as MovieLover1992 says: Srlsy I was so shocked!
That's not to say the it isn't fun to watch.
iCrime is filled with various LOLs that kept the movie moving. Fletcher does such a good job of being the champion of anti-fakeiness it becomes addicting. She's got that girl next door look, has various "cool" outfits and smokes...alot. The supporting players though one dimensional are still interesting and the movie has a decent soundtrack (including a live punk rock performance) It's a perfect film for the millennial generation as the web and CW-ish plot are easy to buy into. Occasionally, I like watching betrayal soaps with an interweb style that can be consumed in easily digestible morsels. Yeah I said it.
It's a credit for iCrime to deliver an indie movie that knows how to speak that Millennial language. Sometimes you feel like watching something that "MovieLover1992" and "SelenaLovesKyle6" are gonna love. There's no shame in that.
Nude-ipedia
Nada...but some PG-13 cleavage. Does that count?
WTF moment
Srly that ending OMG! FTW!
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
iCrime is being released via Breaking Glass Pictures via their Vicious Circle Films brand. It'll be out on DVD on September 27th. The DVD will include Deleted Scenes and runs about 103 minutes.
The inner millennial in you is itching to see this. It's up to you to decide if you should listen to that voice.
Looking for a heist comedy? Well I got you covered. Well more specifically Philip Messerer has got you covered. His latest film is called Underbelly Blues and from the trailer, it's got the zaniest characters I've seen in a while.
After checking out his breakthrough film: Thicker than Water (review here) which was a revelation of vampire ingenuity warranting 3 spinkicks from yours truly, he's switched genres and he's going pulp crime fiction!
So what's this film all about?
The plot of Underbelly Blues follows a mysterious briefcase as it exchanges hands amongst the colorful denizens of the underworld. These include a corrupt cop, a sleazy strip club owner, a pair of lesbian strippers, an ex-military gun-for-hire who suffers from O.C.D. and has a penchant for creative torture, a Jewish pawnshop owner and his dominatrix mother, a British sophisticate who cooks crystal meth, a pair of surfer pot dealers, a legally blind albino gangster, a 7 foot tall, 400 lb neo-nazi, a sexual deviant redneck, a wild-eyed Mexican named Take It Easy, and a brilliant 'brain' called The Architect.
All of these characters are connected through a series of bizarre coincidences which inevitably lead to the downfall of corporate America as the rivalry between two soft drink companies goes out of control.
Well I gotta admit, this sounds damn fun right?
Now check out the trailer. You can also head over to the official site for more info.
"I've never seen anybody blend pulp crimeyness, film noir and fantasy all together! The fantastical twist in a pulp fiction cocktail is completely different from anything I've seen before. And that's the beauty of independent film."
Well now you get a chance to witness this pulp crimeyness for yourself. It's been recently released on Region 2 DVD in Europe. So for my fellow jaded European fans, this is for you.
For America and Canada, it should be on Netflix and Blockbuster. Definitely check it out.
Every now and then we here at the jaded viewer take a break from reviewing the horror and grindhouse and delve into the indie scene. Why? Because indie movies from every country are where filmmakers still bring creativity to cinema.
And the indie spirit is where you can find a movie like No Right Turn, a full fledge fairy tale pulp crime thriller that can only be described as eclectically unique and darkly comedic.
You'll get the feeling somebody's been eating your porridge and sleeping in your bed.
Well this is my first review of a David Bourke movie. I did not see his previous effort Last Exit so I'm coming in fresh on his work. I've never seen anybody blend pulp crimeyness, film noir and fantasy all together. Does this soup of genres work? You better believe it does.
No Right Turn is like a stage play come to life, depicting the seediness of Denmark's underworld and relying on four characters that pull us into the mystery filled with twisty twizzlers and shady betrayal.
What made this work so well? Let's explore. Boring Plot-O-Matic
Nina is the voluptuously alluring girlfriend of Johnny, a charming but delusional crook. To escape from her weary life she casually sleeps with an old friend, Teddy, but is fed up of her current lifestyle especially the drunken dreams of Johnny. One night after an argument with Johnny, she storms home where she is abducted by a pair of thugs and is fortunately rescued by a timid and guilt-ridden girl, Monella.
Even though they are from two very different worlds, they quickly become close friends and sooth each other lives.
Johnny hearing about Nina's ordeal with the thugs, sadly attempts to win her heart back by going on a crazy revenge spree.This scares Nina off even more. Nina eventually tells Monella of her ploy of escaping from Johnny’s seedy world by conspiring to steal his much talked about hidden stash, stored in a safety deposit box deep in the neon city.
Monella reluctantly agrees to help...
...and we follow each of their dangerously entangled lives until their ultimate and bloody fate.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
No Right Turn slaps your senses right from the start. From the opening scene of Nina pleasuring a character straight out of a Coen Bros. movie Teddy, we're in for a jam packed grimy world that you will feel dirty after viewing. What drives this film in the beginning is the characters and for the first hour we get to explore their characterologies to a level where we have to be comfortable with so that when we get into plot mode (which we finally get to in the last 30 min), we can see the motives all spinning out of control.
First, we get Nina (Laura Bach) a blonde, hot vixen who wants to be an actress. She's multifaceted in more ways than one. More likely than not she is the town whore as we find out later but her ever changing hair colors and lesbian inklings are devishly sexy. It's Uma from Pulp Fiction, but nastier. She's the angel that fell from the heavens but ended up with Johnny.
Johnny (Tao Hildebrand) is Mr. Asshole Junkie. A drug dealer by trade, a junkie by hobby. He's our Mr. to the Mrs. that is Nina. Johnny works for Pedro our big drug czar. For now, Johnny is our "pizza" delivery guy delivering but he's aspiring for bigger things. Johnny's days go like this.
1.) Bang Nina 2.) Drink and smoke 3.) Deliver drugs 4.) Sniff coke 5.) Bang Nina (ever harder) 6.) Drink and smoke Repeat 5 times.
He's a slimy dimebag of a dude that if you make him mad, he'll fuck you up.
One of Johnny's customers is Teddy, a John Waters looking chap who is a writer and pseudo engineer. Teddy is quirky times infinity, doing his drugs and smoking like a chimney (that's on fire). An odd cat, he's wrapped in secrecy that will be revealed toward the end.
Wrapping up our quartet is Monella. Her introduction is somewhat Irreversible but with a beatdown. After Johnny gives a drunk tirade to a some patrons at his local bar, the patrons decide to go out for some old fashioned raping in a dark alley.
Poor Nina ends up being the victim but is saved by Monella. They then proceed to have a very Wachowski's Bound like relationship. Monella, her mother having past away is a suicidal painter. The two go all Ying and Yang and go all lesbian grunting. Good times.
Like I said, the first hour establishes each of these characters. At times I got bored of seeing repetitive smoking and drinking. It wasn't until we see the Nin-nella relationship did I feel like I got some worthiness of my time. This was best illustrated in a scene where both women are playing darts and Nina tells off a man hitting on her. Cue lesbian love scene.
The plot kicks in on the last 40 or so minutes as Nina's proposed heist with Monella's help ensues. It's filled with twizzler twists to keep you on your toes, even going all fantastical in the last 10. I'm still scratching my head. What's the goodyness in No Right Turn? The characters are never boring, more so cardboard cutouts of pulp. A junkie drug dealer, a sexy siren, a innocent ordinary and a quirky 50s wannabe writer. The comparisons to Bound are hard to ignore. Nina and Monella's sassy relationship has that same Gina Gerson-Meg Tilly feel with Joey Pants as the Johnny type. NRT can be described as Bound's cousin once removed.
The visuals are shot remarkabely well for an indie. From snowy hills to Johnny and Nina's loft apartment are very top notch. Even the film quality makes this feel IFC-ish.
What's the baddyness in No Right Turn? Well it's the fact that the first 60 minutes has no plot whatsoever. Part of a mystery is to get the audience hooked and I had to wait a whole hour for that.
The first hour was also filled with scenes to promote the soundtrack. It almost looked like a music video. The characters are not doing anything special and after seeing Johnny drink, smoke, snort for the 20th time, I was wondering if anything from the trailer was ever going to happen. The scenes are so disjointed going to character to character. It's almost if you could have skipped the first hour and still understood the movie.
Even with my gripes, I enjoyed No Right Turn for what it was. A fantastical pulpy mixture with a dash of crime gone awry. The fantastical twist in a pulp fiction cocktail is completely different from anything I've seen before. And that's the beauty of independent film. You can do that and let the audience decide if it worked.
Thank goodness it worked.
Gore-ipedia
Some shot off fingers Bloody nose
Nude-ipedia
Grade B boobies from Nina
WTF moment The ending ending...I'm still going huh?
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
It's a crime fairy tale movie from Denmark! I was able to watch this from DVD screener from Mr. Bourke (thanks!). No Right Turn should be on the festival circuit soon, no word yet on any distribution.