The Cottage (2008)

When it comes to horror comedies, I don’t tend to like them. Not because I don’t like comedies, just the opposite,  I love a good laugh. But when mixing the genres, I find that the humor falls flat, or the horror is too cheesy. Too cheesy? I know some of you ( Obscure) will be wondering how I can say that. I love cheesy movies, I just don’t like it when it’s purposely a comedy coming off as cheesy. With that said, let’s start.

The Cottage is a Comedy/Crime/Horror film. The entire film is based around a single kidnapping. Peter, the good son, is convinced by his brother, wrong side of the tracks, David, to help him with a kidnapping. If it succeeds, David will give Peter his half of the house their mother left them. They got the girl no problem, and take her out to a cottage in the middle of the woods, time to just wait for their money. What could possibly go wrong?

Simple, everything. Including the deformed lunatic who lives near by. The one the villagers tried to warn them about.

Since this film is at the forefront a comedy, and a horror second, it’s important that the films jokes work. They do, I don’t think I stopped laughing the entire time I watched the film. There’s something about the UK, they seem to be the only one that does horror comedy right. This film has a similar feel to Severance, and Dog House, two UK comedy/horror that both pull it off with great ease.

As the film progresses, and we start to see more of the horror elements at play, and while they don’t work to provoke fear, they work well to give you that Slasher movie feel we remember the 80s so fondly for. Our killer is just one big bad ass, and the ways he kills are tremendous fun to watch.

The kills are so fun to watch, due to the effects. While I don’t think there’s a unique way to kill some one in this film, save for maybe tearing some ones head, and spine out, the effects they are done with are just so fun.  There’s no CGI used for the kills, just good old fashion practical effects, which earns respect in my book.

The music is also used to great effect, to heighten the humor more so then the horror. I guarantee everyone who watches will recognize a certain piece with great nostalgia to a lovable shark.

My final note is on the acting. It is filled with a wonderful cast, Andy Serkis, as many people know from LOTR, as well as Reece Shearsmith, from Shaun Of The Dead. Every ones favorite Cenobite even stops by for a cameo!

So, if you want a good laugh, and some slasher fun, check out the Cottage, I highly recommend that you do.

Score – 95%
Gore – 9/10

Trackman (2007)

This review is going to be a little unfair. I sat down in bed, where I have a tv and dvd player set up, but no remote for either, so I can only hit play, can’t go through set up, etc. I didn’t know this was a Russian movie, I thought it was just your typical low budget american slasher. If I had known I would of saved it so I could of watched it in the original language, but in this case, I watched the dub.

The story in Trackman is simple. Bank heist goes wrong, take hostages, and proceed into an abandoned subway system. People tell a story about a murdering freak, effected by the Chernobyl incident, who kills anyone that comes down. This is the only back story we get for our killer, a man who slowly picks them off, and removes the eyes.

The characters in this, or at least in the dub, are so annoying, you just can’t wait to see them get killed. Until you do see them killed, then your just left wondering, was that it? The deaths in the movie are clearly done on a low low budget, and are over before they even started.

The first part of the movie, the robbery, seems to be where most of the budget went, it looks good, the location is huge, nicely lit, and there’s some cool gun action for a minute. After that though, when we get into the subway system, all of the locations look the same, there’s a mist that doesn’t go away, and just helps to disguise the re-used locations. The lighting in the subway too seems to change from shot to shot, even if it’s the same scene.

In the end it comes down to one of the criminals, and one of the hostages, and the criminal keeps going back and risking his life to save her. This seemed very out of character as they originally were just going to kill the hostages when they no longer needed them, so why risk your life for one? Also, the killer seems to change his motives, going from killing people without any remorse, to tying one up as a hostage in his lair, just so he could be saved later.

The very last scene of the movie, and while you might call this a spoiler it doesn’t make enough sense to be, shows that the killer was ease dropping on the criminals while they made there plan for the robbery. Why does it make no sense? Well simply, if he was up there ease dropping on them, and that’s how he knew they’d be down there, then how is it he had a whole set up down in the subway system for removing eyes, etc. It just didn’t seem to fit.

I wanted to like this one, I was willing to look past the terrible dub ( they tried to match it to the peoples mouths, so sentences just seem to stop half way), and the re-used sets, but in the end it just fell flat. The characters motivations don’t make sense, and shit just seems to happen, with no idea why, or how. I’d avoid this one, unless you really want to see what low budget Russian horror is like.

Score – 15%
Gore – 4/10

Open House (2010)

                                                      

I love it when you hear nothing but bad news about a movie, and then it turns out to be quite good. It’s like a little treat for my eyes. When I bought Open House I didn’t know anything about it, so like any interested person, I googled a bit. Everything I remember seeing said it wasn’t that good of a movie. I think they were wrong.

While at it’s core the movie is a glorified slasher, I don’t like it because it’s a slasher. I like the characters, they were written quite well, even if the movie plays off like an R-rated Criminal Minds(minus the FBI).

The story is about a couple that has just gotten a divorce, and are now selling their house. Brother and sister killing couple supreme, David and Lila, move into the house, without buying it. They go the old fashion way of real estate, kill everyone who enters. But David starts to fall for Alice ( owner of the house), and keeps her alive in secret. Alice knows her only way to survive is to ‘love’ David back. How far is she willing to go to live?

While a simplistic one location story, much like Inside, most of the movie is waiting to see who will show up to be killed next. The true shinning point of the movie is in the relationship between brother and sister. They are both quite crazy, David being the Submissive and Lila, being the dominate role. The relationship also has an air of sexual tension, which is almost creepy due to the taboo ( at least in North America) of incest.

I highly recommend the movie, just based on how fun it is to watch the siblings alone. And as a plus, the deaths are pretty fun to watch.

Score – 86%
Gore – 7/10

Return To Sleepaway Camp (2008)

                           

There’s nothing to be said about it. It’s just bad bad plain ol’ bad.

  It’s another sleepaway camp sequel, this time with no good characters, no good deaths, and pointlessly bringing Angela back in the end, with no idea she was there before. The movie was in fact, so bad, my mind is slowly eating away the memory of it, and I just finished.

Avoid this one like the plague, unless your like me, and need to watch everything there is.

Score – 5%
Gore – 7/10

Experiment In Torture (2007)

                                   

It’s either a good, or a bad sign, when a movie starts with screaming and the sounds of power tools. Flash up “Serial killers don’t need a reason to kill, they just do.” Then have the opening scene in a strip club, and you’ve got my attention. If you  give me tits right off the back, I’ll ignore the fact the film looks terrible. I’ll over look the fact the strippers aren’t even attractive, cause I’m not looking at the faces.

Less then five minutes into the film, I can tell the writers didn’t think much about it. Hopefully the gore will make it stand out, otherwise it’s just gonna be another movie cashing in on the Torture Porn genre. If the first kill says anything about the rest of the movie, then I know it’s not going to be worth the time, using a shaky cam, so the blood can be used less, and look like more, we have a hard time following what’s happening, it’s the same thing that ruined the transformer movies for me.

Why is it everyone that works at a strip bar acts like an asshole in the movies? I’ve had friends that worked them, I’ve even had friends that dated strippers, movies give them a serious bad image, I’ve yet to met a stripper who’s been as much of a cunt as movies make them out to be. It’s like racism in movies, cept with bigger titties.

So the story follows six strippers, so , Exotic Dancers, who are getting paid to spend a weekend in a nice lake house, with cameras all over, so that voyagers can watch them, and I guess get off.  But as we all know, this is a horror movie, and that’s the perfect set up to go picking the girls off, one by one.

If the movie wasn’t already a down hill journey, then a drunk stripper taking a piss and telling her little parts she loves them, would be a sign. But dumb writer, bad filming, bad acting aside, we can still hope and pray that there is gore going on. It doesn’t, the acting is just plain terrible, none of them are believable, so even when the gore is half decent, you can’t believe it.

I do approve however, of throwing some one with a broken leg, off a boat in the middle of a lake, reminds me of Funny Games, and that’s one of my top 10, there will be a list, and review of all the top 10 coming in the future.

The scenes when the torture happens, tend to be pretty interesting, if not a little boring, but I approve of putting maggots inside of cuts, I might be the only person around that does, but hey, I pride myself on it.

Turns out, everyone’s either in on it, or their dead. The movie tries to build tension between the killers, but we don’t care enough about them to let tension build. Go ahead, shot him in the fucking face, what do I care,  I didn’t even remember his name. For a movie with blowtorch, and maggot torture, it doesn’t keep the attention well. Even the unveiling that one of the killers is wearing a mask, to hide his burnt face, doesn’t even hold any weight. It’s just a bad movie.

In closing, I feel the idea of a torture porn film using strippers could be a great idea. You can really approach the idea of the disconnect strippers have with their bodies as a way to make money, and the torture done to them, an idea I’d love to see looked into by Cronenburg, the master of body horror. Instead, we get a cheap excuse for a movie, that was flawed from script to screen.

Score – 40%
Gore – 7/10