Cheap Thrills (2013)

Dir: E.L. Katz

Craig (Pat THE INNKEEPERS Healy) is a man down on his luck. His wife and him recently had a baby, they are months behind on the apartment rent and facing eviction and he just lost his job at an oil change shop. Finishing up his beer at a bar, while trying to work up the courage to go home and tell his wife, in walks an old buddy who he hasn't seen in years, Vince (Ethan VACANCY Embry). Vince convinces Craig to stick around for another beer so that the two can catch up. Craig has moved on from their wild past by marrying and becoming a father but Vince continues living their rebellious past by working as muscle for a loan shark.

Into the bar walks Colin (David PIRANHA 3DD Koechner) and his wife Violet (Sara THE INNKEEPERS Paxton). Colin is a coke snortin' loudmouth looking for some company as it is his young wife's birthday. Seizing an opportunity for free drinks, Vince makes nice and talks Colin into staying as well. Colin is very free with his money and quickly coaxes Craig and Vince into competing for cash prizes. The bets start out small, who can drink a shot of tequila the quickest or who has the balls to slap a woman's ass but escalate as the group moves from the bar to a strip club to Colin and Violet's luxurious home. Consumed by greed both Craig and Vince start to turn on one another in order to win the bet.

CHEAP THRILLS is a well made, disturbingly entertaining film. The characters are believable and well drawn. As we watch Craig and Vince's descent into madness and degradation the true scope of Colin and Violet's personalities are revealed to us. My only quibble is that there are what I thought to be hints as to the final outcome of the night of debauchery but that plot thread never reaches a conclusion. I'm curious if it was removed to give the film as happy of an ending as it could possibly have had.

*** out of ****

Battle of the Damned (2013)

Dir: Christopher Hatton

Dolph Lundgren. Zombies. Robots. That was all I needed to hear to add this low budget sci-fi / horror film to my Netflix queue.

An unnamed city in S.E. Asia (the film was shot in Malaysia) is under quarantine and surrounded by the military with strict orders not to let anyone in or out. Due to a chemical leak nearly the entire population has been turned into rabid creatures hungry for human flesh. While not technically zombies, they certainly act like the fast moving variety of zombies. The head of an international firm hires Max Gatling (Dolph Lundgren) and his band of mercenaries to rescue his daughter Jude (Melanie Zanetti) who was only staying in the city to be closer to her father. Boss man assures Max that the infected are dying from the contagion and will pose no threat but that's not the last lie he'll tell that will affect the rescue operation.

Once Max's crew is on the ground in the city the situation quickly goes from worse to hellish. The infected are hungry and their numbers easily over run the living. Even as the last man standing, Max continues his rescue mission. A couple of weeks later he stumbles across Jude who is staying in an elegant hotel with the last remaining uninfected. The rag tag group of survivors is led by Duke (David THE ROVER Field) who does not want his power usurped by Max, nor does he believe Max is on a rescue mission. Max and the group bump heads until Max is finally able to convince them that the city will be fire bombed.They agree to work together to make an escape.

But what about the robots? Like much of the plot there isn't much of an explanation as to why a pack of robots are seen one day patrolling the streets and gunning down the infected. Max recruits the robots to aid him and the others to escape the city.

With its over the top gore, robots with SMGs for hands, minimal plot and Dolph looking taciturn for most of the running time, BATTLE OF THE DAMNED is a barely entertaining time waster. It ain't high art nor does it come close to reaching the delirious and maniacal heights of B movie favourites like DEMONS or DOG SOLDIERS but it was acceptable for a lazy Sunday afternoon when I didn't want to engage my brain.

** out of ****

Stonehearst Asylum (2014)

aka: Eliza Graves
Dir: Brad Anderson

Doctor Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess) trudges through the forest, a bit lost. It's Christmas Eve 1899 and he has left the University of Oxford after graduating to study and train at the remote and isolated Stonehearst Asylum. Hitching a ride on a horse drawn cart, he's dropped off at the asylum's gate and reluctantly greeted by the chief steward Mickey Finn (David HARRY POTTER's Prof. Lupin Thewlis). Finn unlocks the gate and leads Newgate into the asylum to meet with Doctor Silas Lamb (Ben Kingsley), the man in charge. Lamb takes Newgate on a tour of the facilities and Newgate is enamored at the sight of Eliza Graves (Kate UNDERWORLD Beckinsale) playing piano for the inmates. Graves is also an inmate. She suffers from hysteria and the touch of a man sends her into a fit. Newgate sets out to cure the beautiful, well spoken Graves, he wants to save her from her madness.

Lamb's methods are a bit unorthodox. Unlike Newgate, Lamb isn't trying to bring back the troubled minds in his care, his ideal isn't to save them but to allow their medical issues to flourish. A man who thinks he's a horse is given apples and groomed. The inmates dine with the staff. Chronic masterbators are given a free hand.

But something isn't right. Graves warns Newgate that he should leave the asylum but will not say why. And there's a curious tapping coming up the air vents from the lower level...

To say more would spoil the twist and though it is spelled out in the film's trailer and obvious to those who have been similar films and television programmes, mum's the word. I was surprised by the twist as I thought it too obvious and there there must be more to it. Director Brad (SESSION 9, THE MACHINIST) Anderson does a fine job with Joe Gangemi's script, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, but with a run time approaching two hours there just isn't much to keep things going. The assembled cast is solid but only Kingsley's and Sturgess' characters have much to do. Brendan Gleeson has an extended cameo that serves as book ends for the twist. Michael Caine has a slightly larger role but one that seemingly is on hand only because of the twist, and to provide an explanation for it.

What is here is done well enough but it's all in service of a by the numbers story.

** out of ****

Dark Country (2009)

Dir: Thomas Jane

Las Vegas. A seedy motel. Richard (Thomas Jane) awakes next to Gina (Lauren HOSTEL: PART II German), woman he has barely gotten to know, with a name he's not sure how to spell. They married the night before. Richard brings her a breakfast of an apple and a can of pop. Today is the day they get into her Dodge Polara and leave Vegas. Leave the city of sin and their sins behind and make a fresh start. Together.

Purchasing coffee to go at a gas station diner a stranger warns Richard not to get lost driving through the desert at night. Behind the wheel of the Dodge, Richard does get lost and turned around and has to back track. Along a lonely stretch of highway they come across a single car accident, narrowly avoiding a severely injured man flailing his arms about while standing in the middle of the road. Mobile phone not working Richard and Gina carry the now unconscious man into the back of the Dodge in an attempt to get him help. Still lost and starting to bicker, Richard and Gina are startled by the injured man who they thought on death's door sitting up and asking for a cigarette. The man seems to know who Richard and Gina are and is asking curiouser and curiouser questions.

Thomas Jane's directorial debut plays out like a cross between an episode of the TWILIGHT ZONE and a film noir. With the Vegas setting, the opening scene finding Richard in bed with a blonde after a long night of drinking and the hard boiled narration I expected Jane's character to be a riff on his character from the pulp fiction homage GIVE 'EM HELL MALONE released the same year as DARK. Instead his character here is very different from the hard boiled Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe archetypes. Richard isn't much of a fighter, doesn't think fast on his feet, is more interested in building a solid relationship with his new found love and unlike his wife doesn't pack heat.

Jane also chose to embue his film with a hyper stylized look meant to invoke film noir. Much of the film was shot using green screen with CGI making up the dark and foreboding world. I struggled with the look for the first third of the film. It looked odd, quirky. And frankly amateurish. If Jane was going for the look of a comic book from the height of the film noir period I didn't get it. That unique look may have gone well with a 3-D release, the film was shot 3-D, but the U.S. disc release is 2-D only.

The film builds to an ending that is meant to be a sucker punch to the throat but instead had me scratching my head wondering how it made sense. Unlike the TWILIGHT ZONE's less than 30 minutes an episode (yes, I am ignoring the hour long ones) there's not enough plot to sustain a feature length film. The film is never boring, just confused and oblique.

** out of ****

Official Web Site 

Escape (2012)

aka: Flukt
Dir: Roar Uthang

Norway. 1363. Ten years after the black death ravaged the country, families with little to lose venture into the lawless, plague swept regions to make a claim to the natural resources and start afresh. One such family, mother, father, daughter and son lead their horse drawn cart into a mountainous region. There they are ambushed by a group of thugs led by Dagmar (Ingrid Bolso Berdal who starred in the director's COLD PREY), who live off the land and travelers. The family is brutally slaughtered save the daughter Signe (Isabel Christine Andreasen). Taken back to the thug's camp, Signe learns why Dagmar spared her life. Dagmar is barren and the young female Frigg that was kidnapped to be raised as Dagmar's daughter is asking for a sister.

Realizing the fate that awaits her, Signe puts into action a plan to escape.

While the plot is simple and straight forward, much of the running time being comprised of chase sequences, the motivations of the characters are not. Dagmar, a strong leader and fighter, aches to be a mother. She longs to hear Frigg call her Mother. Dagmar does not see herself as a villain, she sees herself as someone willing to do what it takes to create a family.

The character of Signe is well rounded. When we first see her she is carving an amulet for her younger brother to wear, she values family. Over the course of the film we see Signe use her brains and will to survive. Her compassion for Frigg comes through and they become sisters. Signe seems to be like a younger Dagmar only the toll paid for survival was too great for Dagmar.

Director Roar Uthang co-wrote and directed the recommended slasher film COLD PREY. Both that film and this film highlight the natural beauty of Norway and Uthang's adeptness at creating action sequences. One can hope he'll return again to horror but until then I will not complain if he continues helming solid action / adventure films like ESCAPE.

*** out of ****

Women in Cell Block 9 (1977)

aka: Frauen Fur Zellen Block 9
        Tropical Inferno


Dir: Jess Franco

The government of an unnamed South American country fights the rebels with every tool at their disposal, even torture. Two of the deadliest tools are Loba (Dora MANIAC KILLER Doll) the commandant of a women's prison and her lover / partner in pain Dr. Milton (Howard 'of course I'll be in your next film Jess' Vernon). Dr Milton has just arrived back in the country after a self imposed exile of three years when the former regime disagreed with his proclivities. Acting on a tip that three women are being smuggled via truck to meet up with the rebels, they set a roadblock. A squad of soldiers from the prison intercept a fruit truck and discover a number of women hiding in crates. Loba and Milton only care about three of the women, Aida (Aida Gouveia), Karine (Karine Gambier) and Barbara (Esther Studer). The rest of the women are given to the guards to be raped.

Don't look at the camera, don't look at the camera...D'oh!

The women are taken to the prison and chained up by the neck inside the cell block of the title. One by one they are interrogated by Loba and the bad Doc and grilled as to the location of the rebels. The Doc employs torture methods as electro shock, lowering a naked chained woman onto a saw horse with sharpened steel plate overlays and a wooden horn repeatedly rammed into the vagina (the doc comments that most of the men he subjected to the horn became homosexuals). Another woman, Maria (Susan Hemingway), after being forced to perform cunnilingus on Loba, joins the naked and shackled women of cell block 9. Knowing that death at the hands of Loba and the doc is not far off, the women put on a lesbian act for a befuddled soldier, take him out with a couple of poorly performed karate chops to the neck, and make their escape into the jungle. Naked and weaponless. Loba, the Doc and soldiers track the escapees. The women's inevitable, gruesome deaths have only been postponed.

Loba has a go at the prisoners

Annie got her gun

Amazing special effects

There are Jess Franco films that I've enjoyed watching, THE BLOODY JUDGE, VAMPYROS LESBOS and its fantastic score and I'm willing to admit the man has talent. WOMEN is not one of those films. It falls into the category of sleep inducing tedium along with THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU and everything I've seen that Franco directed after FACELESS. The signature Franco out of focus shots, close ups of female pubic hair and scenes that run far too long without a cut away can all be found. As most of the cast worked with Franco on his other epics from around the same time I would not be surprised to find out that Franco filmed WOMEN on days off from another film.

Can't even tell that's stock footage!

Dull.

* out of ****

Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014)

aka: Død snø 2

Dir: Tommy Wirkola

Five years after DEAD SNOW was unleashed, co-writer and director Tommy (HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS) Wirkola is back with another gory heaping of Nazi zombies in DEAD SNOW 2. The sequal picks up right where the original ended with hapless, one armed Martin's (co-writer Vegar Hoel with noticeably less hair) vehicle surrounded by the Nazi commander Herzog and his squad of the undead. After a series of darkly comedic events, Martin has Herzog's arm as a replacement for his own (an arm for an arm as it says in scripture) and the ability to resurrect the dead. Utilizing the unique talents of his new friends, a gay military museum worker and the three person Zombie Squad from America, Martin sets out to resurrect the Russian prisoners of war that Herzog sentenced to death and enlist them in stopping Herzog's plan to decimate a nearby village.

Wirkola and company continue the blending of sophomoric and dark humour with outrageous violence that made both DEAD SNOW and HANSEL & GRETEL fun to watch (admittedly it took me a bit to warm up to the mismash of genres in HANSEL & GRETEL but that may have been due to it being unexpected from a mid level budget Hollywood film starring Jeremy Renner instead of a low budget horror film from Norway). The jokes do not always work but the bigger budget and Wirkola's gained experience from the past few years certainly helped flesh out the characters and better set up the jokes and grisly set pieces.

It's a bloody good show.

*** out of ****

As Above, So Below (2014)

Dir: John Erick Dowdle

Scarlett (Perdita PROWL Weeks), a driven university professor, is obsessed with continuing her father's unfinished quest to find the alchemical Philosopher's stone. Crossing illegally into Iran to follow-up on a clue to the location of the stone, she discovers a sealed up chamber in an underground passage about to be destroyed by the Iranian authorities. The clue is the Rose Key in the form of a statue of a bull. Frantically taking photos of all the inscriptions on the Rose Key she barely makes it out alive as the explosives to collapse the tunnel are detonated.

Now in Paris to consult with her friend George (Ben FRIDAY THE 13TH Feldman), as he conveniently studied the dead language used on the Rose Key, documentarian Benji (Edwin THE PURGE: ANARCHY Hodge) tags along to film their quest. Together Scarlett and George work out that the Philosopher's stone is buried underground in the catacombs. They enlist the aide of Papilon (Francois Civil) and his crew to lead them through the catacombs to the hiding place of the stone.

Once underground in the damp and dark passages, the final resting place of millions of dead, weird, unexplainable events occur. The group continues on deeper into the catacombs despite the gloom giving birth to ghosts from their troubled past. Nothing will stop Scarlett from uncovering the stone.

Yes, this is another 'found footage' film and the shaky camera may have some nauseated viewers hitting stop on their remotes. But this film is all about location, Location, LOCATION. The film makers' decision to shoot in the actual Parisian catacombs was a wise one as the location is fresh and easily evokes a claustrophobic dread. I also liked the esoteric / alchemical frosting to what may otherwise have been a film about youngsters wandering around a cave for most of the running time (this is a far better film than GRAVEYARD DISTURBANCE). A reference to V.I.T.R.I.O.L is even worked into the plot.

The writer / director team of Drew Dowdle and John Erick Dowdle are no strangers to the found footage genre. QUARANTINE, their remake of the Spanish [REC] is surprisingly entertaining and the team has drawn on their past experience to propel AS ABOVE ahead of the pack. Having the character Benji install cameras on a number of head lamps allowing for multiple viewing angles instead of the now cliche one camera that just happens to always be pointing in the direction of action (or dropped to the ground at just the right angle) was a wise decision. [REC] 2 did something similar by having the police equipped with cameras on their person.

No spoilers ahead but I did want to mention that the ending felt a bit weak. It makes sense within the construct of the story and the Masonic notion of a chamber of reflection but it's an idea we've seen too many times to count. Overall the film builds up a nice bit of tension and is an enjoyable trip.

*** out of ****