Whore

I watched this movie shortly after having watched "Død Snø" (Dead Snow), one of the coolest Norwegian movies ever, so this was somewhat of a disappointment. Don't get me wrong, this movie is not an utter complete waste of time. It is in itself alright, I just had my hopes up.

The story is pretty straight forward, no real deep plot or innovative things going on here. That is one of the disappointments. The movie lacks something that makes it stand out from other movies.

The acting is mediocre, and the dialogue is next to non-existent. The images and scenery is nice, except for the parts where they made it like the movie breaks down on the movie rolls. What was that all about? A word of warning, this movie might offend some people in the audience, as it is fairly graphical and explicit. There are some pretty rough scenes in the movie that may not be suitable for the easily offended.

Having watched this movie, I must say that I was left with somewhat of a hollow feeling afterward. Something profound was missing from this movie. It did have potential, but didn't punch through properly. If you like extreme movies that are a bit "out there", this might fall into your liking.

Now, approaching the movie from a low-budget creation way, it was actually nicely put together. That was somewhat of a good achievement. They took whatever meager fundings and props they had and utilized it for maximum effect. Hats off for that.

The movie is in Norwegian and Danish language, so it will be gibberish to most non-Scandinavians. But subtitles are a blessing here.

I bought 'Hora' (= Norwegian for 'whore') because I was anxious to know what a Norwegian grind-house film looks like. As we all know, Norway doesn't have a great film tradition, and the texts on my DVD-box did not encourage a purchase either: "the very bad in bad, bad taste", as well as "low budget". All issued by "Sodementecinema".

So starting out from a zero expectation, I was pleasantly surprised by 'Hora's contents. We are presented with a coherent story, and anybody familiar with Norway easily recognizes its very Norwegian setting. Tense is built up well throughout, and all key-scenes are as they should be: gruesome. 'Hora's picturing convincingly invites you to participate, the more so as at times its color is replaced by black and white. On top of that, the fluently passing by of its pictures is interrupted at times, allowing you a few seconds to recover.

'Hora' surely makes a good watch, keeping you on your seat from beginning to end.

This film should be banned. It's a copy of "I spit on your grave", with elements from "Last house on the left" cut into the mix. It takes plagiarism to a new level. I really hope whoever owns the rights to the films mentioned above sues Mr. Kiil for all he's worth, and then some... As if this is not enough, the entire film is poorly lit, shot on what appears to be hand-held DV cam, and some cheesy black and white "8mm"-filter has been applied here and there. The visual effects are less than awful, I've seen better on Sesame Street. The acting is non-existent, and the audio is muffled and poor. To make things worse (for those Scandinavians unfortunate enough to see this film) the actors speak a charming mix of Norwegian, Swedish, danish and bullshit.

DO NOT SEE THIS FILM!

How come that sometimes really bad movies get a world wide release? This flick is such an example. I have nothing against bad movies, mostly they are so bad that they become good but this here, no way. But I can guess after the release of Dead Snow coming from the same country and being a huge success in the genre everything made their will be released. It is stated as the first Norwegian grindhouse. No F***ing way. What we have here is a movie that rip off others. The so called grindhouse that is used is a copy

done in Death Proof and Planet Terror. At some moments the film reel is at his end, black screen or when they are making love you get an message, reel missing, sorry. Helloooooooooooooo, seen that and done better in Grindhouse. The story line, completely rip off of I Spit On Your Grave only that one is much better. And then for the use of slo-mo, remember They Call Me One Eye (Thriller: A Cruel Picture)when someone is hit, here we see the same but much worser. The first 45 minutes nothing happens and it's so slow that you want to push the fast forward. Even the nudity doesn't work, the rape scene is so worse. This is bad, really bad...a real whore in the scene.

This film is made on a shoelace budget, here we can see that it's taken a lot of inspiration from other rape and revenge films such as I Spit On Your Grave and Last House on the Left. And many people may see this as pure plagiarism. But this is a film made by a director with a heart for Grindhouse films and has spent every penny to get his debut completed. There are a lot of things that could have been better (Audio/Acting), but this movie is something any exploitation film fan should experience.

Watch this film, as the first Norwegian grindhouse film come to life.

Pesonaly I can't wait for the sequel. That's where The Whore really begins.