In this section, you can read reviews for the films you didn't know existed. They were either Direct-to-DVD affairs, movies that didn't do well and disappeared from theatres quickly and some underrated and unseen independent, amateur or underground movies. They won't necessarily all be good movies, but some of them are... and after reading my reviews, maybe you'll check them out?
In this section...
* Duel
* The Babadook
* Tremors
* Tremors
* Troll 2
* The Human Centipede
Duel
If you thought the first film Steven Spielberg made was “Jaws”, it wasn’t. That classic was certainly the film that put him on the map and exploded his long impressive career into action. But it was an ABC Movie of the Week that gave Spielberg his first directing gig.
Way back in 1971, at the
young age of just 25, Spielberg was literally hanging out around studio back
lots waiting for his big break. He had directed an episode of “Colombo” when
the opportunity landed on his lap to shoot a small budget film for television
about a man in his car chased by a truck through the desert. He was given a
small crew and an even smaller schedule of only ten days to film the whole
movie. Technically still a young person himself at the time, Spielberg had some
crafty ideas and creative smarts well beyond his years and level of experience
to ensure the film could be done, on location, and on time.
It took him thirteen days
to make the film, but he got the job done, and three weeks later, it debuted on
television to high ratings, and went overseas for a theatrical release. It was
a hit and the beginning of Spielberg’s career.
Now for the story of the
film itself. We begin with a camera’s view from the front of a car, driving
through a few city streets then down the freeway, and eventually along a long, lonely desert highway. We don’t
know much about the man behind the wheel, until his character is revealed
through how he deals with an odd situation unfolding for him on the road. A
large diesel truck is trudging slowly along the highway. With FLAMMABLE printed
in big words on its back end, it blows out plumes of black smoke and is slowing
the man down from getting to his appointment across state. Losing time and
patience, he overtakes the truck, without knowing that one single maneuver
would set off a chain of events, and let a monster out of its cage, to be
played out on the highways of California.
This truck looks like a
monster more than a heavy rig vehicle. It’s an old relic of a machine that
probably shouldn’t even be on the road. Brown, rusted, covered in oil stains
but still fast on the road, this behemoth on wheels is driven by a culprit we
never fully see, except for his arm when he waves the man in the car on, or just
a glimpse of his brown leather boots when he hops out at a gas station.
After some overtaking and honking
of horns, the man in his red car gets some miles ahead of the truck, and stops
at a diner thinking he’s put the road rage behind him. But after a glance through
the diner window shows the truck of death parked across the road, the man’s
problems are just beginning.
“Duel” was a small
masterpiece in its own right, and showed what talent was already evident in a
young, aspiring filmmaker called Steven Spielberg. He builds some terrific
suspense scenes, given the majority of the film is constant camera shots of the
car and truck on the road. But the performance of Dennis Weaver in the lead
role of the man in the car, adds to the heightened sense of panic and terror
behind the wheel. His facial reactions and internal dialogue to this intense
experience happening to him is terrific acting, lifts this made for TV film
far above the standard fare it could
have been with a less talented actor. But even then, with Spielberg behind the
camera, it was always going to be good. He certainly exceeded expectations when
he made his film so quickly and effectively and garnered overseas interest on
top of just the regular viewers of American ABC television.
You connect with the man in
the car as he tries to resolve the situation and make sense of why this elusive
truck driver has targeted him, and only
him, to play out a long, twisted game of cat and mouse on the road. Was it just
because he overtook him, or was it a case of fate on the freeway? No
explanation is given, which adds to the horror of what’s happening to his
salesman as he drives across state on just another day. Who he becomes and what
he does to defeat the iron beast is a well crafted suspense film that will
always be Spielberg’s big break that became the teaser trailer of the long,
fantastic career that has spanned over forty years and continues to give us
mesmerizing and memorable films year after year.
For a glimpse of this terrific gem of a suspense film, watch the trailer below.
The
Babadook
There is a
dark force at work in the world today, gripping many, many people. It can
strike anyone, and build up slowly over time or hit you in an instant. When it
has you in its grip, it can take you over and make your life seem pointless and
lifeless. It can change you into someone you’re not, and all the things that
once seemed enjoyable or true for you, don’t matter anymore. This force moves
among us, and can be a silent killer. One in six people will have it at some
level in their lifetime, and through time and support can escape it. However, others
will let it consume them entirely, and won’t return from the dark place it
holds them in. This sounds like some monster or malevolent being at work here,
but rather, I’m referring to depression.
You might
be wondering why I shared that as the opening paragraph for my review of horror
movie “The Babadook”? If you’ve seen the creepy trailer or even just by the
look of the poster above, you may have assumed it was just another
run-of-the-mill horror movie. Well, it isn’t. And my introduction to my review
is well placed as a pre-cursor to the main theme of the story that is so
cleverly worked into this chilling, frightening and intelligent scary movie.
Made in
Australia and released quickly and quietly last year, The Babadook didn’t take
the box office by storm, and many have not heard of it, hence why it’s in this section,
“Down to the Basement”. When I saw the trailer for it during one of my daily
visits to the website IMDB, I was instantly taken by it. It looked good, and
the fact it was an Aussie movie got me even more curious. Australian cinema is
not typically know for its horror movies, and with a small industry churning
out only about 25-50 films annually, it’s nice to see something break out of
the pack and make a splash overseas to show Hollywood in particular, that
Australia does have considerable filmmaking talents at work here who don’t
always get the critical and commercial attention they deserve. The really
ambitions ones head over to the US, if they can break in and can make it big. And
for feature debut director Jennifer Kent, she will certainly be a name to watch
and should have no trouble getting Hollywood execs knocking on her door. Here,
she has taken her own former short film entitled “Monster”, and turned it into
a feature length, psychological thriller that plays with many ideas and is not
the horror movie you expect it to be at first glance.
But let’s
make one thing straight. The Babadook is a scary movie. It is about a monster
or ghost of some kind. It is primarily set in a house. It does have a young boy
who seems troubled or aware of what we can’t see yet. And it does have a
parental figure, a mother in this case, lost and alone, trying to figure out
what’s going on with her son, and in her own house during the night in the
shadows. So, there are some traditional and familiar horror movie elements at
work here, but The Babadook takes it to a deeper level, and intelligently uses
the actions of its villain as a reflection of the situation this woman and her
young son find themselves in.
Essie Davis
plays Amelia, a single mother who lost her husband to a car accident before her
son was born. She works in aged care, has no friends, a sister who doesn’t
support her, and her only friendly contact is her next door neighbor, an
elderly woman with Parkinson’s disease. Not even the school her son Samuel
attends lends a helping hand due to his troubling behaviours. He continues to
rant on and on about The Babadook, a scary man who comes out at night which the
boy learns about from a bedtime story his mother reads him. She doesn’t know
where the book comes from, and puts it away after reading it to her son, due to
its dark and graphic imagery. The story captures the mind and imagination of
the boy, who claims The Babadook is real and wants to get in. He makes weapons at home, sleeps in his mothers bed every
night, and physically pushes other kids away who pick on him; clearly, he’s a frightened,
and anxious little boy. But for good reason. Deciding to take him out of school
until she can figure out what’s going on with him, the woman and her son are
holed up in their dark, damp house, as the menacing monster closes in.
The movie
is expertly made and well acted, by the woman and young boy. It isn’t full of
spooky special effects, jittery jumps, of buckets and blood of gore, but
rather, delivers its scares through the mental turmoil and anguish of the woman
and her son. Once she starts to realize The Babadook might be real, she loses
control and begins to act in ways that are both disturbing and violent, which
is the intention of The Babadook; to get
in, underneath your skin and make you do “bad” things. Without revealing
too much else, the ending hints at a few possibilities for the origins of this
monster, but the film doesn’t give you all the answers. Like a smart movie
should, it assumes you are smart enough to figure it out for yourself.
Historically,
the best monster movies don’t reveal their culprit until the end, only showing glimpses
of their form gradually throughout the movie to build suspense. The Babadook
follows this method and uses it well. We don’t often see the evil being appear
on screen, but you know it’s there. From the tiniest movement in the corner of
the room, to a Knock! Knock! on the door at night, or even through the face of
an innocent woman and child, this creation is conniving, faceless and ominous;
everything a great movie monster should be. It certainly is one of the most
original creatures to grave our screens for a long time, and although a new
franchise isn’t necessary, there is certainly scope and space for this monster
to spread its dark wings a little further. We’ll see…
And to tie
things back in with my opening statement about the dark and menacing force that
is depression, The Babadook is, at its core, about a woman still coming to
terms with the death of her husband eight years earlier, and the grief, loss
and guilt that has left her ridden with. Taking care of her son alone can’t be
easy, on top of working as a carer in a drab, dreary nursing home, so it’s fair
to say she has a lot of weight on her shoulders. This is the case for many
people around the world, who through circumstances not entirely of their choosing,
face terrible burdens every day, and very often, on their own. It’s out of
these situations of helplessness and despair, that the light of life and happiness
can disappear and the darkness of death and depression can creep in and in my
opinion, this was the inspiration behind The Babadook; a monster born out or
own our sorrows and pain, that will envelope you entirely and never let you go.
That’s a terrifying concept, that’s used cleverly and creatively in this small
but significant horror movie.
Do yourself
a favour and watch The Babadook. If you watch it alone, leave the lights on and
be prepared to keep one eye open as you lie in bed at night, trying to ignore the shapes
and shadows you think you saw in the corner of the room. Sweet dreams ;-)
Tremors
During the 1950’s “Monster Movies” were all the rage. Studios
were churning out new pictures almost weekly and on the cheap, to cash in on
the current craze. Films tried to outdo each other by coming up with the
scariest and most original monster ever seen on screen. It was a time before CGI ,
where monsters were portrayed by men in rubber suits; covered in make-up and
latex, appearing out of dark caves or rising from muddy swamps to chase some
damsel in distress through the forest. Then gradually, monster movies died off
and it was thought, by some, they would never take over the box office again.
And this has remained a fact until this day. However, every now and then a monster flick will grace our screens, and take the box office by storm again. Most recently in the sleeper-hit “Cloverfield” where a gigantic creature from beyond our world wreaked havoc inNew
York City
But long before this, back at the dawn of the 1990's, a low-budget monster movie was made, which you’ve probably never heard of. Set in a small desert town in the Nevada desert, it told the story of two handymen, Earl and Val. Along with their neighbours (taking the town’s population up to 11 or so) these two pals offer their services as “Jack of All Trades” and live a simple existence in the Great American Landscape; no boss, no rules and no worries. Until, some shaking and rumbling came from beneath the desert sand to change all of that.
And this has remained a fact until this day. However, every now and then a monster flick will grace our screens, and take the box office by storm again. Most recently in the sleeper-hit “Cloverfield” where a gigantic creature from beyond our world wreaked havoc in
But long before this, back at the dawn of the 1990's, a low-budget monster movie was made, which you’ve probably never heard of. Set in a small desert town in the Nevada desert, it told the story of two handymen, Earl and Val. Along with their neighbours (taking the town’s population up to 11 or so) these two pals offer their services as “Jack of All Trades” and live a simple existence in the Great American Landscape; no boss, no rules and no worries. Until, some shaking and rumbling came from beneath the desert sand to change all of that.
On the outskirts of this quiet town, people start to slowly and mysteriously disappear. First a farmer and his sheep, then a married couple and their car and finally a couple of construction workers patching up the road. Only blood remained at each of the scenes, with no signs of the victims in sight. Earl and Val are actually on their way out of town when they discover all of this strangeness and encounter the culprits who are responsible – in the flesh. They seem to come up from beneath them and chase our heroes through the desert. Making a narrow escape, they arrive back in town to warn the rest of the residents of the impending doom.
As they are all gathered in the town’s general store, the monsters emerge from underground to make the rest of the population their breakfast. These things are unlike any animal or creature they’ve seen before; large, black, able to shoot tentacles out of their mouth and burrow their way through the sand at fast speeds. One of the residents aptly calls them “Graboids” and as the survivors start to learn what they’re up against, they dodge being eaten alive any way they can, relying on the resources around them to outwit the monsters.
The big surprise about “Tremors” is actually how good it is. Despite the plot, which sounds simple and quite ridiculous, it’s a very entertaining little film. The cast were picked to perfection, led by Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward. Joining them is Michael Gross; the dad from “Family Ties” who plays a gun-happy enthusiast, along with his wife, who aides the towns fight for their lives with his massive collection of weapons and explosives. There’s also a young female Seismologist, who was originally drawn to the town of
The premise of the monsters coming from underground is a clever one. When you stop and think about it, we humans are limited to the ground we walk on by that thing called Gravity, you follow? So when our right to walk along the surface of the earth safely gets taken a way, we climb a tree, get on top of our car or high-tail it to the roof. The characters in Termors do this to avoid getting gobbled up, but these underground beasts are cleverer than they look, and find ways to bring down buildings and force their prey back onto the ground. The various ways in which the characters stay off the ground and play to the monsters sense of movement and vibration is clever and crafty. At one point, they make a lot of noise and stamp their feet on the ground to draw the attention of the monsters, allowing their friends to run away. Or my favourite was when they turned on a small mower, let it drive off on its own and watch, as the monster instinctively follows it, allowing one of them to make a run for it.
Tremors was not a hit in it’s time, but went onto to garner a massive cult following over the years. It gave way to three sequels, which all went straight to
It’s been nicknamed “The Best Worst Movies of All Time”. It has the number 2 in its title,
despite not being a sequel to anything. No one knew about the film upon its
release in 1990, but it has now developed a major cult following. The poster
comes with the tagline
“Celebrate one of the most disrespected horror films in
recent history and fall in love with this genuine failure”
That sums it up perfectly to be honest. And so, here is my
review for the God awful ‘Troll 2’, which I forced myself to watch last night
with a mate, struggling to maintain my sanity throughout.
Probably the most famous scene from this film is a video
doing the rounds online you may have seen. A young nerd looks up to the top of
a staircase, where the remains of a girl (which have turned into green slime
and sludge) are being devoured by little creatures. In the most unconvincing
acting ever churned out, he spits out the words “They’re eating her. Then
they’re going to eat me. Oh My Gooooooooooooooood!!!” Look closely and you will
se a fly crawling across the guy’s forehead during the scene; something the
filmmakers simply didn’t notice, or was it left in on purpose? This fly, or one
that looks strangely like it, appears in a couple of other scenes, buzzing
around actor’s heads and possibly crawling across the camera lens at one point.
That is just one small snippet of atrocious acting, appalling filmmaking and
laughable story telling in this terrible movie, which was supposed to be taken
seriously.
I’ll try my best to describe the story for you, so just bear
with me here. A young boy named Joshua is being told a bed time story by his
Grandpa. The old coot speaks of a legend involving ugly little things called
Goblins, who trick people into eating and drinking food tainted with a green
poison. Once consumed, the poison turns the unsuspecting victim into a plant!
Then the Goblins finish the job by eating them. Charming right? This story
scares the crap out of young Joshua, who’s interrupted when his mum barges into
the room and asks him why he’s still awake. Then Grandpa vanishes – because
he’s actually dead. Joshua sees his ghost regularly however, but his family are
none the wiser.
The next day they head off on a family holiday, to the
dump-of-a-town called Nilbog. They swap houses
with a family for the weekend, and find a table of food prepared for them when
they arrive. Grandpa Seth pops up again, warning Josh to stop his family from
eating, or they will die. He foretells him of the Goblins and that he and his
family are in an evil place. So far so good, are you following? Well, from here
onwards, that’s were things take a turn for the worse and this film carries on
for another hour and half or so (which felt more like a few hours to me) to try
and tell it’s story. Be warned –
there is no plot to speak off, no structure, no consistency of story and no
reason why you should watch it in the first place.
The back-story behind the production of Troll 2 is as absurd
and unusual as the film itself. The writer-director was an Italian filmmaker, who
chose to shoot his opus in Utah, hence
he had an entirely America
cast – but the director didn’t even speak fluent English. The “actors” chosen
for the film were originally local people who responded to a call to be extras,
but ended up landing major speaking roles. The luckiest of them being George
Hardy; a dentist who wanted to be an extra but ended up playing the part of the
dad; and as it is plainly obviously to see he had no acting experience
whatsoever. The acting in general resembled something of a high school media
project, where the cast had had most likely only read their lines ten minutes
before, the scenes were shot in one take with no continuity maintained
throughout and the sets and props look liked they were borrowed from another
film or pieced together by an apprentice carpenter. The reactions, facial
expressions, postures and delivery of lines by all performers involved are
amongst the worst I’ve seen in my life – and I’ve seen a lot of movies.
Look, you don’t need to watch Troll 2 okay. I have gone
through it for you and will have to work hard to remove any memories of this
film from my mind in order to keep some dignity as an avid movie buff.
Seeing a film as bad as this makes me ask the questions, a)
Who comes up with this shit? b) What where the filmmakers and actors involved
thinking when they shot certain scenes? (the popcorn springs to mind, which is
a moment in the film you have to see to believe) and c) Who allowed this film
to be released to the public in the first place?
However, filmmaking has come a long way since 1990 and
luckily, most movies made today are of good quality, with decent acting and
plausible scenarios. I guess Troll 2 is a cult classic because it is so bad and
by watching it we can remind ourselves that any idiot can pick up a camera and
make a movie, but these days that job is left in the hands of capable people.
This wasn’t the case with Troll 2. And now that I’ve written this review and
released this viewing experience from my soul, I can move on. Happy days!
If you're not familiar with the concept behind “The Human
Centipede”, it's quite complicated... and quite deranged. It involves a maniacal
surgeon who abducts three individuals, and aims to join them together like
conjoined twins to make the world’s first human centipede. They are to be
connected to one another in the most horrid of ways imaginable. The one at the
front will have the person in the middle joined onto him via his anus and her
mouth, and the same goes for the one at the back. When the one at the front has
to excrete, it will "feed" the one in the middle, and same goes for
the person at the end. They also have their kneecaps removed and have to move
all together. Pretty messed up right?
Well, two of our doomed guinea pigs are American girls
travelling through Germany,
who get a flat tyre while driving down a remote road. With no help driving past
they walk aimlessly through the woods and come across a house. The door is
answered by a sinister, ghostly looking man who takes them in and offers to
call road side assistance. Of course, he doesn't and they are taken hostage in
his sick little game.
After an attempted escape by one of the girls, the surgeon
proceeds with his demented operation and succeeds in creating the human
centipede. Now in traditional horror films, this might be where the film ends -
the villain succeeds in his goal and the characters (we imagine) are fated to
live this way for the rest of their life. But instead of leaving us there for
the viewer to imagine what it would be like, the movie continues - for a
considerable time - showing the Human Centipede in all its gory. It makes for
disturbing viewing and you can only imagine the hell these characters go
through in this situation.
If you do decide to watch this film for yourself, you should
know a few of things;
1. It’s unlike anything you've seen before. It takes “Torture
Porn” to even lower realms of the deep, dark and disturbing chambers of the
imagination. If you thought the Saw movies did this well, this movie takes it
up a notch.
2. Don't expect terrific acting or storytelling. This is
more of a ‘situation movie’. It is an exercise in torture and exploitation
3. Finally, have an open mind. Despite the dodgy acting and
absurd premise, there are some brief moments of deep meaning and truth in this
film. One scene in particular, which I believe gave the film some substance,
involved one of the characters from the experiment confronting his master face-to-face,
making a statement about what it means to be human and how no one has the right
to play God. This scene takes an interesting twist I didn’t expect, and if you've
seen the film, you will know which scene I mean.
So that's it. The Human Centipede is sick, twisted, absurd,
engrossing and provoking. I won't watch it again, as its images are burnt
firmly on my mind and will act as a reminder that the imagination can be a
dark, twisted and horrific tool as much as it is a creative force.
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