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Review: American Mary

Feb17
by Jay on February 17, 2013 at 10:30 pm
Posted In: reviews

American Mary

The Soska Sisters, 2012

Typical. You wait ages for a psychosexual body horror with a bizarre surgical fixation, then two come along at once. Stranger still is that both turned out as well as they did, offering distinctly different takes on the subject that set them apart in their own right. So sharpen your scalpels and prepare your best cringing gear, it’s that time again, as we take a butcher’s at the Soska Sisters’ American Mary.

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“Mostly ‘armless,eh? We can do that.”

Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps, Freddy vs Jason) stars as Mary Mason, a promising surgical student. Becoming increasingly disillusioned with her profession and finding herself straining to make ends meet, a chance encounter brings her into the world of underground surgery, eventually introducing her to one of the harder of hardcore fetishes, extreme cosmetic body modification. As she delves ever deeper into her strange new world, her reputation starting to precede her as the new darling of the fetish community, she finds her surroundings starting to change her.

It’s easy to come into the Soska’s follow-up to their grindhouse throwback Dead Hooker in a Trunk with certain preconceptions in mind, but to their credit those preconceptions will be entirely wrong. This is much more accomplished stuff, both on a technical and a storytelling level. No longer beholden to trading on a sense of trashy nostalgia, this is a more confident work, happy to blaze its own trail on its own terms.

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Betty Boop fetishist Beatress is another highlight.

Though certain to make you squirm in places, it’s nowhere near as explicit as you’d expect, confident enough to pull back from the worst of the surgical detail that other films might have revelled in. And for all the bizarre characters and outlandish fetishes on display, it never forgets to treat its subjects with a certain degree of humanity. It reminds me a little of Todd Browning’s Freaks in that respect, and that can only be a good thing. Indeed, a great deal of the more monstrous acts are committed by the straightest characters from typical positions of male power, letting you know in no uncertain terms where the filmmaker’s sympathies lie. It might be overreaching to claim it as a feminist film, but it’s certainly one with a distinctly feminine take on the material that really sets it apart.

It’s helped along by a tremendous performance from Katharine Isabelle, finally returning to a great lead role after too many years in the bit-part wilderness, proving once and for all that she’s one of the strongest actresses in the genre when given something she can really get her teeth into. It’s just a shame that with subject matter as strong as this, she may not get the kind of accolades she truly deserves, but hey, at least we know better. I can only hope it leads to a few more leading roles in the near future, as it’s great to have our Ginger back.

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Our directors, ladies and gentlemen.

The only major criticism I have is that the film does seem to lose its way a little in its final moments. While never coming completely undone, it does feel a little rushed towards its conclusion compared to the deft handling of all that came before. It’s far from ruinous, but the faltering final steps are a little disappointing, knocking it back from masterpiece status to “merely” a great piece of work.

With their second film, Jen & Sylvia Soska have set themselves out as a real force to be reckoned with. A huge improvement on their previous work in every imaginable way, aside from a sloppy final act this has everything going for it. Strangely beautiful, engaging and often darkly funny, add in a career-best performance from Isabelle and you’ve got an irresistible slice of outsider cinema.

 

4 Stars - Excellent

amary4

└ Tags: excellent, horror, katharine isabelle, movies, soska sisters
1 Comment

Retro: Thriller – A Cruel Picture

Feb12
by Jay on February 12, 2013 at 11:57 am
Posted In: reviews

Thriller – A Cruel Picture

aka They Call Her One-Eye

Bo Arne Vibenius, 1973

With the recent switch to bi-weekly reviews here at FFS, we’re mixing things up a little. Sundays will cover the usual contemporary stuff, while Tuesdays are now home to retrospective reviews on the best, worst and just plain weirdest from the wider world of exploitation cinema. And where better to start than with one of my favourites, Bo Arne Vibenius’ artful, nihilist revenge story They Call Her One-Eye.

As a vintage genre piece, the usual caveats apply. If you’re expecting work at the technical standard of productions with actual budgets, this is not your movie. We’re firmly in the realm of grubby 16mm film stock and extremely limited resources here, and it’s rated on its relative merits. Some people just can’t get along with this stuff, but I find they provide unique experiences on their own terms if you’re willing to meet them halfway.

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I wish they still shot this kind of stuff in 16 mil.

This Swedish film tells the tragic tale of Frigga (Christina Lindberg, Sex & Fury), a young woman rendered mute after a childhood assault. After finding some degree of peace and happiness with a simple farm life, her world is once again thrown into disarray when she is captured and forced into heroin addiction and prostitution by a local lowlife (Heinz Hopf, Exposed). Following a vicious punishment after refusing to co-operate with a deviant client, Frigga decides to put the money she’s been earning towards lessons in self-defence, weapons handling and stunt driving. Slowly developing a formidable array of skills as she struggles through her day-to-day existence, eventually she finds her time has come, and everyone who wronged her is headed for a reckoning.

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Special guest director: J.J. Abrams.

What sets this one apart from contemporaries like I Spit On your Grave (which I’ve never had much time for) is the tone and style of the piece. There’s a sense of isolation that runs throughout, making even the most explicit scenes feel strangely repellent, especially in its intended cut with its jarring hardcore inserts staged by stand-ins. It’s dressed like obvious exploitation but feels more like an art film in its execution, falling into a hypnotic, repetitive rhythm with a queasy, disgusted air that seems to mirror the emotional state of its protagonist.

It all hangs on the performance of Lindberg as its iconic lead, striking an unforgettable image as the tortured soul with a nifty line in colour-coordinated eye patches. She was best-known at the time as a cover girl, and while her performances in other films had their limitations, she fits this role like she was born for it. Silent throughout, she gives this unusual part a surprising amount of weight with a haunted presence that feels removed from her surroundings while hinting at hidden depths. She’s jaw-droppingly beautiful, but in a doll-like way that accents the fragility of her character and makes her trials that much harder to bear.

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You might have to pray a little harder for that happy ending.

A sense of irreparable destruction runs throughout, where even the eventual acts of catharsis seem to ring hollow. Frigga’s revenge plays out in hyper-slow motion over a booming feedback loop of echoing noise, giving the scenes a surreal, weightless quality that denies the viewer a real sense of satisfaction from their outcome. Whether that was an intended effect or simply a result of overusing the technique to mask some weak action direction is another matter, but it adds an interesting twist regardless.

At their basest level, revenge films of this stripe tend to work by titillating with their opening acts and thrilling with a redemptive conclusion, but this film subverts or at least challenges both (however intentionally) to great effect. The cards are stacked against a typical outcome right from the start, with an already damaged heroine with no means of resolving trauma inflicted before the central events of the film even happen. It matches the expected beats for the most part, but feels like something very different, with a little more thought and a lot more venom to it. Anyone coming into this one for guilty thrills might well leave disappointed, but I found its slow-burning attack engaging, though certainly depressing.

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I’m guessing he wasn’t a Christinas Svampskola fan.

After languishing in obscurity for far too many years, Thriller now holds its rightful place as one of the most distinctive and influential examples of its strange little sub-genre. Referenced by everything from Kill Bill, Machete, Hobo With A Shotgun and Sweet Karma to Christina’s upcoming return to the patch in Cry For Revenge, time has been kind to this once-forgotten gem. Not everyone will get along with the confrontational content, minimal dialogue and glacial pacing, but those who do will find a curiously hypnotic film that lingers in the memory long after lesser contenders have been forgotten.

 

4 Stars - Excellent

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└ Tags: Bo Arne Vibenius, Christina Lindberg, excellent, exploitation, revenge, sweden, thriller
 Comment 

Review: Danger 5

Feb10
by Jay on February 10, 2013 at 9:47 am
Posted In: reviews

Danger 5

Dario Russo, 2012

A bit of a departure from the usual this time, with a review of a TV series for a change. It’s not something I’m planning on making a habit of on here, but I think this one deserves to be an exception. First of all, it’s one that’s sure to be of interest to exploitation and trash culture fans, and secondly it’s an Australian production that hasn’t really made much of an impact outside its home territory (not helped by it not getting any kind of international release yet). It also doesn’t hurt that it’s a hugely entertaining show with a clear love for its sources.

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Tucker, Claire, Jackson, Ilsa and Pierre.

Set in a very ’60s-inspired version of World War 2, the series follows the exploits of the multinational adventurers of the title. Their mission: to upset Hitler’s endless schemes, eliminate his subordinates and eventually put an end to the mustachioed fellow himself. Each episode focuses on one of those plots in particular, from Rommel’s golden superweapons to Mengele’s Lizard Soldiers of the third Reich, which says most of what you need to know about this show by itself.

This is the follow-up from the same creative team that brought you the internet’s own Italian Spiderman, and if you were a fan of that, then you’re almost certain to love this one. Drawing on everything from Thunderbirds to Kaiju shows (think Ultraman) with a healthy dash of spy action and exploitation thrown in to sweeten the deal, there’s a lot here for genre fans to revel in, not least because it’s clearly a product of some pretty talented fans itself.

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Blingtime for Hitler.

The 5 newcomers do some sterling work capturing their stereotypes, from their period looks through to the accents dubbed (of course) over their performances. The production design is right on the money, supported by some appropriately vivid colour grading and endearingly shonky miniature work that all adds to the appeal. Throw in confident, crash-zooming direction, stop-motion monsters and no small amount of men in rubber suits and you’ve got quite the package.

The only failing that might annoy some is that for a comedy show, the joke rate is on the light side, with little more than a handful of out-and-out gags per episode. On the flipside of that, however, it’s never really content to just throw silly stuff onscreen to chuckle at, knowing when to go for it and provide some straight-up entertainment. When the soundtrack kicks in and the bullets start flying, it’s hard not to get swept along by the relentless fun of it all, in a way that similar attempts like Darkplace never came close to managing (a closer comparison would be the similarly affectionate Black Dynamite). It’s not content to snark on the sidelines when it could be showing you what the creators loved about this stuff to begin with, and it’s all the better for it.

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Mutant Nazis make for ‘saur losers.

Beautifully realised, stylish and charmingly evocative, this is the kind of show that could have been custom-made for people like me. Aside from being a little light on the laughs, this is a highly enjoyable series that makes an asset of its limited budget, the only real shame is that there’s so little of it (six episodes plus a mini webseries that adds up to another one). You could do a lot worse than checking that link to see if it floats your model boat.

 

4 Stars - Excellent

danger54

└ Tags: australia, comedy, dario russo, excellent, tv
 Comment 

Review: Piranha 3DD

Feb05
by Jay on February 5, 2013 at 2:59 pm
Posted In: reviews

Piranha 3DD

John Gulager, 2012

Optimism can be a real bear sometimes. After enjoying The Ward, I went trawling on IMDB for anything else of note starring Danielle Panabaker, with the options boiling down to either re-watching the surprisingly good remake of The Crazies (the “that’s where I know her from” film of the day) or giving this direct-to-DVD sequel a try. “Hey, this might be a bit of a laugh. The first one was a riot, if it’s even a fraction as good as that it won’t be a total loss”, I figured.

It’s not a fraction as good. I’m not even sure it knows what “good” is, other than breasts and rubber fish being somehow involved, and even then it fumbles it.

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Exhibit A for the defence.

After laying waste to spring break at Lake Victoria, our snappy pals migrate to the vicinty of Big Wet, a lowest common denominator theme park with a near-lethal addiction to obvious puns. Anticipating the oncoming carnage, designated heroine Maddy (Panabaker) tries to do her best to avert disaster as the water park’s grand re-opening approaches. You can imagine how well that goes.

It’s not the easiest sell to the unconverted, but there’s good trash, great trash and plain old, well, trash. Good trash knows its audience, gives them what they want, and everyone leaves happy, a la Machete or the better Corman films. Great trash transcends itself with such an onslaught of sheer what-the-fuckery it almost becomes its own artform, as seen in Planet Terror, Piranha 3D and of course poster child Crank 2: High Voltage. This is the other kind, just throwing a few shocks and some nudity in and hoping somehow some of it sticks. It’s sub-Troma stuff with a few more fivers in its pocket.

3dd2

Great Scott.

Far and away the best scene comes from Ving Rhames as a newly aquaphobic, legless survivor of the Lake Victoria massacre attempting to come to terms with his fear. Elsewhere it’s livened up by a returning cameo from Christopher Lloyd and one of two laughs from the Hoff in an extended joke that outstays its welcome long before the filmmakers are done with it. Even the better parts frequently suffer from lines so bad they feel like placeholders in a first draft. There’s cheesy and then there’s just not even trying.

As far as everything else is concerned, it starts off reasonably well until it quickly becomes apparent how tone-deaf and half-hearted all of it is, with the few designated “shocking moments” coming off badly judged and bizarrely mean-spirited in a film otherwise content to throw rubber fish around while bobbing a few prosthetics in the water. The kind of thing that ends with (SPOILER:) blowing a kid’s head off then having the body bleed out over the closing credits to give the impression you’ve just watched something crazy when it’s really been very weak sauce with a particularly nasty aftertaste.

3dd3

Welcome to rock bottom.

Piranha 3DD is not the worst film you’ll ever see. I’m not sure it’s the worst thing I’ve seen this week. That doesn’t let it off the hook as anything other than a terrible waste of time, money and effort from all involved. There’s little worse than a killer fish film that doesn’t know its plaice. Except maybe that last sentence.

 

1 Star - Terrible

3dd4

└ Tags: comedy, horror, john gulager, movies, terrible
1 Comment

Review: The Cabin in the Woods

Feb04
by Jay on February 4, 2013 at 1:07 pm
Posted In: reviews

The Cabin in the Woods

Drew Goddard, 2012

Yeah, it’s another one that’s been out a while by now, but I couldn’t really resist an opportunity to blather on about one of the most entertaining movies of 2012. We might be in serious danger of this becoming “love-in week” at FFS what with this, the Soska sisters’ American Mary and a retrospective on James Gunn’s Super on the way, but what the hey, I’m sure we won’t have to go too far to stumble across some crushing disappointment (trust me here, I’ve just seen Piranha 3DD).

So let’s get started then, shall we, with Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s ode to messy fun on a desconstructed bun, The Cabin in the Woods.

cab1

Sam Raimi would approve.

You know how this goes – five teens set off for a weekend of fun & frolics at a remote woodland retreat, ignoring any dubious warning signs along the way. A drunken night’s truth or dare ends in them exploring the contents of a sinister cellar, only to unleash something they couldn’t have imagined. Except this time it’s not quite like you’d have imagined either.

Right from the off, you know this isn’t going to be just another stock slasher, with a fantastically irreverent opening scene that sets the off-kilter tone just right. As the title card slams in over irrelevant bickering, it sets the mission statement for the rest of the film – it knows its genre every bit as much as you do, and it’s going to delight in screwing with whatever preconceptions you had coming in.

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You’d be grumpy too if you’d been sitting on a shelf somewhere for the last three years.

It then proceeds to do just that with real wit and panache, thanks to a typically strong script from Whedon and long-time collaborator Goddard, where even meat-and-potatoes work like setting up the characters and getting them to the good stuff fizzes along on the back on sharp gags and snappy dialogue. Performances are dead-on across the board, with a decent scattering of Whedon alumni (including Dollhouse‘s Fran Kranz, Angel‘s Amy Acker and Buffy‘s Tom Lenk) supported by the likes of a pre-fame Chris Hemsworth (Thor, Snow White and the Huntsman) and scene-stealing turns from Let Me In‘s Richard Jenkins and The West Wing‘s Bradley Whitford as two perennially wisecracking observers.

Goddard’s direction (supported by second-unit work from Whedon himself) is right on the money, knowing when to play for laughs and when to pull back to build tension, not forgetting when to just throw caution to the wind and go for it with a properly mental free-for-all. It’s frequently bloody but rarely feels vicious, thanks to a tendency towards overtly “movie” violence over any attempts at realism. It’s not concerned with having you squirm in your seat when you could be jumping or cheering or laughing along at the sheer daft artifice of it all. At a time when most horror leans toward inconsequential fluff or defiantly niche viciousness, it’s great to have something both full-blooded enough for fans to get serious kicks from while fun enough to openly recommend without feeling like you’re getting added to somebody’s internal watchlist. It’s probably the best example yet of a film that’s a joke on the genre itself while somehow maintaining enough internal integrity to still work as a great horror movie.

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The universal reaction to finding out what happened to Firefly.

It seems lately Joss Whedon can do no wrong, and The Cabin in the Woods isn’t one to break that winning streak. Effortlessly switching gears between clever deconstruction and straight-up celebration as it sees fit, it’s a breathless exercise in out-and-out bloody entertainment that delivers on every available front. I loved every minute of it.

 

5 Stars - Essential

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└ Tags: comedy, drew goddard, essential, horror, joss whedon, movies
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