End Of The Line (2007) Maybe They Should Put Up Billboards

Look at me, being all timely.  Well, sort of.  I mean, that piece of work, the bubbly Harold Camping did recently give another one of his spot-on predictions for the end of the world (two weeks ago as of this writing), and he's got another apocalyptic prediction scheduled for October.  Among the first things I thought of, other than the usual disdain that I feel towards money-grubbing, victim-creating crackpots, was the low-budget horror film End Of The Line, an interesting little apocalyptic flick that I saw a couple years ago.  The hamster wheel began turning in my head, and I thought it would be fun to look at it again in the light of all the Family Radio hullabaloo.

Hullabaloo.  Man, how old am I?

Anyway, End Of The Line was a small 2007 film written and directed by Maurice Devereaux, and it was a darling at several film festivals, including the Toronto Film Festival.  Touching on the subject of religious zeal, mob mentality, and fear of the dark and closed-in spaces, the film has its fans (and detractors) in the horror community.  Regardless, it offers a unique take on survival horror.

Karen (Ilona Elkin) heads home from her job at a psychiatric hospital, taking the local subway.  After meeting Mike (Nicholas Wright), who saves her from a seriously creepy guy named Patrick (Robin Wilcock), she boards a train for the ride home.  The train suddenly stops and several passengers, seemingly religious types from the Voice of Hope Church who wear similar clothes and acting generally nice, all get messages on their beepers.  They produce various sharp objects and begin stabbing other passengers, saying things like "God loves you" and "This is for your own good."  The train turns into an abattoir, with only a few - Karen and Mike included - making it off the train in mostly one piece.  But help isn't coming.  The land and cell phone lines are down, and the TV is showing nothing but bizarre images coming from the enigmatic preacher who heads this bizarre cult.  Apparently, they all believe that the Earth is being besieged by demons, and it is the End Times.  They show their "love" by killing others so that they're "spared" the coming apocalypse.  Karen and the survivors head into the tunnels, but getting away isn't so easy.

Man, the Backstreet Boys got DARK.

 The tunnels are crawling with Voice of Hope members, including kids, creepy guy Patrick, and even a member of the survivor's party, although she wants to rebel and go with the dude who took her virginity on the train.  One of the guys who helps them get out of a break room deep in the tunnels is even a member, despite being new and "not really a believer."  The growing paranoia adds to the tension, and Karen's occasional hallucinations don't help.  When they hole up in a control room, where they tie up Patrick, they get their first glimpse of the reverend on a TV, and the murderous chaos is widespread.  He's calling for Armageddon and a "holy rapture"...hm, sound familiar?  Hopefully, Harold Camping hasn't seen this movie.

The survivors, with the exception of the conflicted member and the boy she now loves, move on after hearing the subway workers come under attack.  The scene in which the Hope members descend upon the workers is harrowing and disturbing.  The lengths these people will go to "save" people is horrifying.  Patrick gets loose, and as the pursuing Hope members arrive, the boy and girl are killed.  In the meantime, the survivors have a bloody battle with some more Voice of Hope nutjobs and get away mostly OK, but Mike is hurt badly.  With multiple stab wounds right from the start, this movie just hates poor Mike.

 I LOVE this door!

The survivors split up, but not all of them make it.  Another page beeps for the Voice of Hope members, and they immediately cease their onslaught and take suicide pills.  Still, resident perv Patrick pursues Karen, completely off his rocker.  Karen dispatches Patrick in a most brutal way, and then the movie takes a turn for the weird...or does it?  The ambiguous ending isn't really that ambiguous if you've been paying attention. 

Look and listen during the first few minutes of the movie to pick up on the fact that the movie is not being told in a linear fashion.  While much of the ending is left open for interpretation, there are some helpful hints along the way.  The hallucinations are not coincidental or a throwaway device; they're pretty central to what's happening.  Think muffins.  Yeah, muffins possibly laced with some kind of hallucinogen run throughout the movie, and since we're seeing a lot through Karen's eyes - and she casually eats one early on - we can't always trust what she's seeing.  Are the demons real?  Did Reverend Hope have it right?  Or was he an insane but gifted strategist who plotted the horrible acts of terror?

The performances are quite good, especially from Ilona Elkin as Karen, showing strength and fragility, and Robin Wilcock as Patrick, smarmy and evil, wanting to rape his way to the end of the world.  There is a great deal of gore and scares, mixed with good amounts of tension.  Obviously the budget wasn't very large, but that doesn't matter.  Devereaux works well with what he has, and it's a nice little take on the "end of the world cult lays the nutbar smackdown on the world" subgenre.

It also bears watching since the whole Harold "You Gotta Believe Me This Time" Camping debacle.  A charismatic religious leader creating a following of human lemmings so desperate for spiritual absolution that they're willing to kill because someone tells them to commit murder is comparable to what happens out there in the real world.  How many people base their religion or politics on what someone on TV tells them?  Yeah, a frightening amount.  People who don't think for themselves and blindly follow someone with obvious agendas might be easy targets for jokes, but there's the potential for very dangerous behavior.  End Of The Line shows an extreme, fictional account.  Read the headlines if you want the real chills - or worse yet, the comments sections of any political article.  The looney-tunes in the movie might seem tame compared to what crosses some peoples' minds.

In the meantime, my dear zombie survivors, remember to steer clear of the subways if you see a lot of smiling people all dressed the same.

Tooth And Nail (2007) You Lost Me At The Setup

Even the most outlandish post-apocalyptic story needs a believable setup. You can get drawn in by Dawn of the Dead or 28 Days Later because how does the apocalypse happen? Sickness. The sickness may not really exist, but we as viewers can buy that a disease can spread quickly through bites or bodily fluids. Sometimes war is the reason the world ends. Civil unrest. Natural disaster. Those reasons move forward quickly and leave little room for escape. For the most part, they don't make you scratch your noggin and say, "wait, what?"

In the film Tooth And Nail, the world ends because it runs out of gas. Try to wrap your mind around that. Runs out of gas. It's assumed that the whole world will grab their collective heads and start screaming like escaped lunatics. Running out of gas just seems to me like too slow of a burn to create a dystopian landscape and normal people reverting to wanton cannibalism. Yeah, I know, Dawn of the Dead is cannibal city, but as I said before: it's a sickness that's quickly and logically spread.

I couldn't get past the "no gas" thing. Even with a pretty decent cast and the basically good premise of survival of the fittest, Tooth And Nail couldn't hold my interest for long periods of time. It had its moments, believe me. It wasn't a total lost cause, but it remains largely forgettable. Still, let's jump into the synopsis:

A group of survivors called Foragers chase off a nasty fellow (Vinnie Jones) after discovering him slitting some poor sap's throat. They rescue a woman, Neon (Rachel Miner) and take her back to the abandoned hospital where they've been living with a group led by Professor Darwin (Robert Carradine) who for once was not being pursued by this guy:



No, the Rovers of the movie looked more like Vinnie here:



The Foragers are split on whether they should keep Neon around, but realize they're still human at least. One of the Foragers, a tough guy called Viper (Michael Kelly) storms off. During the night, a Rover sneaks in and slits the throat of the Lambda Lambda Lambda alumnus before dragging him off to an unknown, but likely fire-roasted, fate. The Foragers argue about whether or not Neon had anything to do with it but pretty much decide she didn't.

Meanwhile, outside, Yukon (Zach Robidas) searches for the Professor out on the tennis courts. C'mon, Yukon, you know those nerds don't play tennis! To show him the error of his ways, a gang of Rovers attacks him, wounding him before he gets away and back into the hospital. He doesn't get far before he's hacked up by Jackal (Michael Madsen, who also produced).

The Foragers survive this round, but still aren't the most trusting of Neon. She's met them before, telling her story of escape after the Rovers attacked her group of twenty in a grocery store. The Foragers, now led by Dakota, decide to try and escape during the night. That's all fine and good, but the Rovers are still hungry. See, they're cannibals. They're not just mean guys or members of Alpha Beta. OK, that's the last Revenge of the Nerds reference. I've gone to the well too many times with that one.

Most of the Foragers do a decent job of hiding, except for skinny Max, who is hacked up and dragged off. Jackal almost gets a hold of Dakota, but mute little Nova shoots him and - I think - kills him. I think we're supposed to assume he's dead. I don't know.

Somewhere else, after some naughty action together, Ford (Rider Strong) and Torino (Alexandra Barreto) run afoul of some Rovers before a distant trumpet calls off the hunters. Since when are there rules in an anarchic, post-apocalyptic gang? Oh, well. Maybe it adds to their cruel nature. Ford takes a nasty wound to the leg and has to be fixed up by Dakota.

Dakota and Neon argue about who should be leading the group, and that's when Neon shows her true colors: she's a Rover. Not only that, she's apparently the leader. She clocks Dakota and shoots Torino before taking her rival to Rover headquarters. They lock her away and return to the hospital to fetch the others. Just in time for a rescue is Viper, who shows his bad-ass Hawkeye (of Marvel Comics' Avengers) side a few times before taking a spear in the back during a rescue attempt at the hospital.

Nova hides from a pursuing Mongrel before tricking him into an old walk-in freezer and locking him inside. Dakota finds Torino dead, having bled out from her gunshot wound, and Ford, who's in no condition to go anywhere. She gives him some pain killers and sets out to find Nova. She finds the girl, but Neon shows up to ruin the fun and there's a standoff. Neon leaves Dakota to a fellow Rover, but Dakota gets crazy on the guy and throws acid in his face. Dakota's had enough and joins KISS to get her revenge:

The Rovers are living high on the hog, or rather the cooked carcasses of Ford and Torino, but dinner turns out to be pretty heavy. The Rovers start passing out just as Warrior Dakota shows up and methodically slaughters them all, including a pretty impressive shot to Neon's head:

Turns out Dakota gave Ford some pain killers. Turns out she gave him - and Torino - a BUTTLOAD of pain killers. The Rovers ate Pain Killer Pie, pretty much. Dakota gathers up a still-alive Nova and leaves the city to an uncertain future.

Ah, well. The parts were there, but as a whole, Tooth and Nail just didn't whet my appetite for good post-apocalyptic horror. That premise, the one with the "we just all ran out of gas," didn't hold water at all, and weakened the entire plot from the get-go. The cast was really good and despite some early missteps as to creating sympathetic characters, we do eventually care about a few of them. The gore was appropriately heavy, which will please some gore fans, I'm sure. But on the whole, I'd rather spend time with this "Tooth and Nail":




That's right. Dokken, baby!

Well, dear survivors, at least the only cannibals we have to deal with shuffle and groan at a much slower pace. And aren't led by a guy who might break out into a dance to "Stuck In The Middle With You."

Be safe!

Paranormal Activity (2007) Maybe Turn Down The Hype Volume Next Time

I think there might be a formula in the horror film genre, similar to physics or mathematics, in regards to the hype of a movie:

"The intense hyping of a film will be converse to the general reception of said film."

Remember The Blair Witch Project? Well, of course you do, what am I saying? That is the poster child of overhyping a film. Actually, the early marketing of the film was great and it looked like something different was coming down the horror highway. More often than not, I hear people speak in disappointed tones about that movie. Most are kinder to Cloverfield, which employed a blitz of viral marketing, easter egg-filled websites, and all sorts of bells and whistles. For the record, I rather liked Blair Witch Project and very much enjoyed Cloverfield.

Paranormal Activity came on like the little demon ghost engine that could. Made for about ten dollars and employing plenty of admirable cost-cutting tricks, the hype machine rolled out with all guns blazing. Moviegoers were told to demand it at their local theaters. Videos of shocked and screaming audiences accompanied the minimal trailers. There was an air of mystery, yet a tinge of skepticism among seasoned horror fans.

I finally got a hold of it and took it in one afternoon, many months after the hype had died down. What I found was a film that wasn't bad, but not the all-out assault on my senses I was promised. When it comes to faux documentaries featuring hauntings, Lake Mungo set the bar pretty high for me.



The plot of Paranormal Activity, directed and written by Oren Peli, is pretty straightforward: a young, upwardly mobile couple has been bothered by strange occurrences around their home for some time, and the boyfriend, Micah (Micah Sloat), is all excited about it. He thinks it would make a great documentary, but girlfriend Katie (Katie Featherston) is apprehensive. Seems the weirdness isn't new to her. She grew up with a feeling that something has followed her, and that something isn't a guardian angel.

It starts off light, a sound here, something moving there. They contact a psychic, who recommends they bring in a demonologist to nip this thing in the bud right away. Katie's okay with that, but Micah overdosed on his douchebag pills and wants to make a film project out of the haunting.



While the hauntings intensify, the once-strong couple starts to fall apart at the seams. Katie is angry at Micah for taunting the entity and dismissing her feelings. Micah is mad at Katie for not embracing his new passion for film, and for bringing the entity into their lives in the first place, which just another notch in Micah's douche-ism tally. The entity itself becomes more and more malevolent. It shows no signs of letting up, and the incidents become attacks. They even become more frequent in the daytime. It's suggested to the couple that no matter where they run, the entity will follow them because it's after Katie.



The nighttime footage gets weirder, with Katie sometimes standing and staring at Micah for long stretches of time. Footsteps sound, heavy and thunderous in the house. One night, something pulls Katie right out of bed and drags her into the hallway, even biting her at one point. Katie is off the deep end after that, and Micah finally gives in to leave the house. Oddly, Katie refuses, saying that everything will be "okay."



That night, Katie spends hours staring at Micah before leaving the room. She screams and Micah follows, beginning a terrifying struggle that we, the viewers, don't see. The theatrical release of the movie ends with (spoilers, so if you really want to know, highlight the text after this warning) Micah's body thrown into the camera, and a demonic Katie entering the room before disappearing, according to the final credits.

Of the three endings I know of, this appears to be the better one. It's not easy to end a movie like this on a note that everyone will agree with, but it wasn't horrible. And that's how I felt about the entire movie. I know it disappointed some and thrilled others, but honestly, I didn't get either side of that argument. Ultimately, I guess there was some disappointment, because I wanted it to be utterly terrifying, and it wasn't. First-person horror that is truly scary: [REC]. Still, the movie provided me with a fair amount of creepy-crawlies:

• The scratch on Micah's face in the framed picture.
• Katie's footsteps at the end of the movie.
• The exorcism footage they find on the Internet.
• The footprints.
• Katie's voice when she says, "I think we'll be okay." Listen closely.

Too much hype is like too much sugar. It's good for the product, but if it's overdone, it ruins the taste of what could have been a hidden gem. I'm happy that such a small film could rake in mounds of dough, but there's a part of me that's cynical when the Hollywood Hype Machine-o-Rama demands I watch and be scared. As I mentioned before, Lake Mungo had me turning on the lights from sheer creepiness. Paranormal Activity had me interested, but not as skeeved out as I was told I should be.

So, what's next on the helicopter's rounds? Next time, I'll finally get around to discussing the great horror comic Crossed, which sets infection horror on a new path. After that, I might be doing a little article about I Sell The Dead, which just arrived in my mailbox.

Until next time, remember, if zombies follow you from place to place, unlike the demonic presence in this movie, you'll be able to see them...and smell them. Bring Febreeze.

Take care, fellow survivors!

À l'intérieur (aka Inside) (2007) - Um...Whoa

Of the four French extreme movies recommended to me by my dear friend Andre from The Horror Digest, À l'intérieur (aka Inside) was the only one that arrived to me with a reputation preceding it. I had read various accounts of the most steel-stomached viewer feeling an urp of queasiness upon watching certain scenes of this movie. I'd better dollars to raspberry jelly-filled donuts I know which scenes they spoke of after watching it. I had that fluttery anxiety to see things unfold and it reminded me of that same feeling arising when I first viewed movies like The Thing and The Exorcist, where my own subconscious had built up a reputation for each of those films.

Inside is, as I mentioned earlier, a French film and has many of the elements of the other French extreme films I reviewed. I'll get into some of those similarities later, but right now, let's get the introductions out of the way and dive right into the review:

Remember: Possible spoilers abound!

Directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, it takes place mostly around Christmas Eve in a Paris suburb. We're given a setup as the movie begins, right in the womb where a baby rests comfortably until the screeching of tires and a horrifying crash. The baby hits its head and blood fills the amniotic sac. In the outside world, we tragically meet pregnant Sarah (Alysson Paradis) and her husband, Matthieu (Jean-Baptiste Tabourin). There has indeed been a horrible accident, and its claimed the life of Matthieu.

Flash forward four months, and Sarah is still bearing the physical scars of the accident. The mental scars run so much deeper, it's not even funny. Sarah has become anti-social and withdrawn (although that creepy nurse would drive me into a shell, too). Her mother Louise (Nathalie Roussel) wants her to be with family on the holiday, and everyone including her boss, Jean-Pierre (François-Régis Marchasson), only want the best for her during what has to be an insanely difficult time. Sarah just wants to be left alone with her photography and fantasies of Matthieu still being alive. Nice creepy/romantic scene when she imagines his embrace, and his hands slowly glide across her pregnant belly before she's snapped back to reality by the doorbell.

If there was ever a moment in film where you wanted to yell out "don't answer that door!," this would be it. On the porch, in the shadows, is a mysterious figure. A woman with a rather deep voice begging to use the phone as her car has broken down. Sarah's wary, and lies to the woman, saying her husband is asleep and doesn't want to wake him. The woman (Béatrice Dalle) suddenly knows Sarah by name, and knows that Matthieu is dead. She still demands to be let in. Freaked, Sarah tries to snap some pictures of the woman through a kitchen window, but only gets a faint shot of her face. The police arrive to find nothing, promising to check in on Sarah every so often.

Sarah develops the film, including shots from the park earlier that day and actually sees the woman stalking her in one of them. It's sinking in that this is really serious now. Exhausted and sure the woman is gone, Sarah goes to bed. This is where we see more of the mysterious, unnamed woman as she pads through the house, collecting various items like alcohol and scissors. Yeah, sharp objects. Pregnant woman. Insane lady. This does not add up to a desirable situation for Sarah. As you might think would happen, The Woman attempts a C-section right there in the bedroom. She gets as far as the scissors entering the belly button before Sarah is shocked awake and manages to escape to the bathroom.

The Woman is, yes, certifiable. She makes it clear that she wants Sarah's baby, and it's pretty damn obvious that she'll do anything to get it. The Woman finds her plan isn't perfect, though, as Jean-Pierre shows up to check on Sarah. Meeting him downstairs, The Woman leads him to believe she is Sarah's mother and brings him a drink. Then, like a Three's Company episode broadcast in Hell, Sarah's real mother shows up, demanding to know where her daughter is and who The Woman is. Louise heads up the stairs to find her daughter, but a case of mistaken identity causes a spike to find its way into Louise's neck. Sarah has accidentally killed her own mother. That on top of everything else - the side kicks to the emotional center of Sarah's brain are relentless.


Jean-Pierre dashes up the stairs to see what's causing the commotion and finds a bloody Sarah pleading for help. Her, and the blood-soaked body of Louise. Before Jean-Pierre can react, The Woman stabs him behind each knee, in the nether regions, and repeated in the face before slashing his throat. This woman is...a little off. Jean-Pierre isn't quite dead yet, but a pillow on the face and one random stab there is all it takes. Surely the body count can't rise any more, right?



Here come the police, with a recent teenage arrest in tow, to check on Sarah, just as promised. Two of them talk with The Woman, but they aren't convinced - Sarah's pregnant, The Woman is not. One heads up the stairs to find Louise and the splashes of blood, then tells the other to arrest The Woman. She's prepared though, and shoves a knitting needle into the cop's eye before taking his gun. The upstairs cop finds Sarah - or rather her left arm, impaled by the hand to the wall by a pair of scissors. He frees her and before he can do much of anything, half his head is blown away by The Woman, who keeps firing at the bathroom door. The cop outside hears it and drags his teenage prisoner in to investigate. They discover Sarah huddled in the blood-painted bathroom and it looks like maybe, just maybe, Sarah could get out of this. Then the lights go out. The cop tells Sarah to go to the bedroom and wait there while he and Abdel try to fix the lights. That doesn't go so swimmingly, as The Woman shoots the last cop in the head, then stabs Abdel in the forehead with the scissors.

When Sarah makes her way down the stairs, she discovers the bodies of...well, pretty much everyone. Scooping up a knitting needle, she confronts The Woman, but this time with her own twist. She aims the needle at her own belly, threatening the child this crazed lady wants so badly. Still unrelenting, The Woman brains Sarah with a toaster before crouching down to light up a gloating cigarette. Sarah's not down yet, and in a scene that actually had me cheering out loud, she sprays The Woman with oven cleaner just as she lights up. Fireball to the face! With most of her hair on fire and half her face scorched beyond recognition, The Woman retreats while Sarah gives herself an impromptu tracheotomy (which provided a real eww moment with blood bubbles). She then fashions a crude spear and searches for her assailant.

The Woman cowers in a closet and as Sarah's about to deliver the killing blow, all the cards are set on the table. Turns out The Woman does have a connection to Sarah: she was in the other car in the accident. It was her baby we saw at the beginning of the movie, and it did not survive the accident. The Woman wants Sarah's baby to make up some kind of twisted settlement in her fevered brain.

Suddenly, the lights come back on. At the junction box is the last policeman assaulted by The Woman, his stance wavering. How he's alive after being shot in the head is anyone's guess. When Sarah tries to talk to him, his confused state of mind confuses her for The Woman and he attacks her, hitting her in the stomach with a baton. He's enraged and almost demonic...I mean, look at his eyes when you see this. Also, look at the address of the house: don't know the street name, but the number is 666. Was there a secret subtext there, I wonder? From out of the blue, The Woman actually rescues Sarah, or actually the baby, by stabbing the policeman to death with the homemade spear.



Sarah's in labor, though, and The Woman calmly performs the C-section she set out to do earlier. The camera does not shy away. I mean, you are made to stare directly at Sarah's belly as The Woman does what she can to open it up and reach inside to deliver the baby. The last shots are of a defeated and dead Sarah lying on the stairs, as the scarred Woman settles into a chair with the baby, alive and presumably well. Fade to black.

Brrr.

There are a lot of constants in these French extreme films, not the least of which is a strong female lead. Not only is she usually a great actress on the real life end of things, but the character has to have some otherworldly resolve. There is also a conservation of cast members. With the exception of Frontier(s), the casts of these films I've enjoyed have been fairly small. It lends itself to the next area I found to be constant, the visceral emotions that really make up the genre's definition. Feelings of being trapped, being pursued with no routes for escape, the loss of dignity and personal power (see: hair cutting). Add to that this basic but powerful basis for fear: pregnant woman assaulted by psychotic with sharp instruments. Pregnant belly. Sharp. See, no matter what, those two phrases do not go together. Like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho capitalized on the visceral fear of naked vulnerability in the shower scene, this film takes those phrases and forces them together with disturbing results.

So, yeah, the reputation of this movie was well-deserved. If you think there might be just a little blood in this movie, you're severely underestimating it. Hell, the title credits are set against a swirling bloody background. This film tells you to leave your stomach at the door because you may lose it before it's over. But if you want something intense and just a tad over-the-top, definitely introduce it to your DVD player.

I know I'll be studying the shadows a little closer...

Frontier(s) (2007) + The Word Of The Moment: "Primal"

Remember in my review of Ils, I spoke of fear? It had crossed my mind that there would be a certain segment of the viewing population - not a large one, really - that would puff up their chests and proclaim that they would "kick ass" if placed in a situation that the protagonists of that movie faced. Everyone knows or has met someone like that. The hero of their own mind, they've probably only ever seen fear in movies or news reports from the comfort of their own home.

I'm digressing a bit, but please bear with me. What I'm getting at is that I consider fear to be a "primal" emotion. There are certain emotions hardwired into us from the dawn of time: fear, desire, pleasure, anger, and a few more. How do we often express these emotions? By eloquently stating a monologue? No, it's usually through the most primal of expressions: yelling, screaming, panting, laughing, grunting. Sounds, not words.

I wanted to bring up the "primal" angle because the movie I just experienced, Frontière(s) (aka Frontier(s)), brought up the primal elements in nearly every part of the film. The film, which definitely falls under the horror subgenre "French extreme," is from 2007, and is written and directed by Xavier Gens. It stars a very fine cast headed by Karina Testa as Yasmine or Yaz. Hm, I'm seeing a trend here: strong female leads in the three French extreme films I've viewed, both in acting and in the characterization. This is a good trend, as the actresses I've seen warrant worldwide attention for their skills and a strong female lead is always welcome.

Let's dive into the recap: right away, we're introduced to a France that is falling apart. An extreme right-wing government has been voted in and protests are plunging the streets of Paris into chaos. Fresh off a robbery, we meet two groups of young folks trying to escape. Yasmine helps her brother, Sami, to a safehouse to nurse his worsening bullet wounds. Tom, Farid, and Alex are the others, and they're the ones with the money and the police tail. Eventually, they all meet up, but Sami's in bad shape. Yaz wants to get him to a hospital, but the others think he may rat on them. Tom and Farid take a separate car into the country on their way out of France, and to wait for the others. Yaz and Alex, whose baby she's pregnant with although they have broken up, take Sami to the hospital. There, Sami dies, and Yaz and Alex barely escape the police who show up there. In this opening sequence, we're privy to the personalities of our wild bunch. Yaz is emotional but headstrong. Alex is a hothead, but his toughness is a facade for regret. Tom is a douche, and Farid is quiet and almost innocent.

Speaking of the douche and the innocent, they stumble upon a very, very rural motel to rest up for the night and wait for the others. Tom's digging it because the two women they meet there, Gilberte and Klaudia, are more than receptive to his douchey pick-up lines. A fearsome specimen, Goetz, shows up to encourage the love motel shenanigans. Goetz, by the way, is played by Samuel Le Bihan, who played Grégorie de Fronsac in one of my absolute favorite movies, Les pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf). To say these were two different roles is an understatement.

Angry butchers: a horror staple.

Everything seems great for Tom and maybe Farid. Tom's loving the wanton sex the women offer, while Farid is less than enthused, claiming he has a "girlfriend." The motel even offers a home-cooked meal of...uh...something or another fried up in pork fat. As a bonus, "Mom" sits nearby to have her meal spoonfed, even if some of it pops out of her throat tube. When Farid refuses to eat the pork fat because of his religion - he's Muslim - the family seems not just offended, but angry.

While Tom and Farid discuss what just happened, a new guy bursts onto the scene, this time brother Karl. He's pissed that Tom insulted the women and threatens the guys, who fight back. They don't get far before Tom is floored by a blunt object to the face and back, and Farid is held at gunpoint by Karl. But, you gotta hand it to these guys, they do fight back in the face of fear. They don't "kick ass," but they do take the opportunity when it arises. Stabbing Karl with scissors, Farid snags Tom and they escape. For a while anyway. Goetz, in pursuit, runs them off the road and down a mineshaft before leaving them for dead.

The pair is still alive, though, and cut into the nearby mine for what I thought was such an intense part, I could barely take it. See, one of my greatest fears is dying alone in a tight tunnel, stuck and unable to move in either direction. Just add water, and my fear intensifies. Would I kick the tunnel's ass? Probably not. Farid panics and actually grows a pair (something Tom told him to do earlier in the movie) while Tom weeps for his mother, which I though was a nice, sad touch. Tom does make it through the tunnel, where he meets the rotund Hans, who brains him and drags him out. Farid scrambles back the way he came, where he must face some weird scraping, scuttling noises. Poor Farid, though. He makes through so much before getting trapped in a steam room-type gimmick and is basically melted to death by Hans. He was a tough little bastard, though.

Alex and Yaz show up at the motel, but are given the runaround. Their friends, they're told, are at the nearby hostel (uh-oh, that word is never good in a horror movie). Alex and Yaz arrive and meet doll-like, hunched Eva. While Alex heads for the bathroom, which is across the courtyard of the old mine facility, Yaz meets "Father," a former Nazi who settled in the French countryside. I mean, you know something is off when Yaz scans the dining room and sees old pictures of Nazi banners and a Nazi officer (presumably Von Geisler, the Father). Alex hears sounds and explores the facility, where he finds Tom, who is by Jove still alive. He's been meathooked upside down and implores Alex to run. Alex, realizing the gravity of their situation, rushes in to get Alex, but the two are subdued by the Von Geisler family. Seems the old man in his infinite, hateful, and deranged mind, wants to recreate a master race and despite her "impurity," wants Yaz to be the brood mare for his son Karl.



Alex and Yaz are chained up in the hog pen, but Alex manages to free Yaz by straining enough on the rusty chain. Yaz digs and digs in the hog poop and dirt to create enough room to crawl under the iron gate, but pauses to admit to she still loves the father of her child. As much of a bravado-spouting tough guy Alex acted like in the beginning, he really was a caring, decent guy under it all. Yaz runs and runs, until she meets a guy driving along the country road. Yay, she's rescued!

No. It's Goetz.

Yaz is returned to the compound, where she's put right back in the pen with Alex. While she was gone, Von Geisler severed Alex's Achilles tendons so he wouldn't escape. Von Geisler wants Yaz readied to be betrothed, and kills Alex in cold blood. When Yaz awakens, she's in Eva's room. Eva befriends her and, while she cuts her hair (in a scene very reminiscent of Martyrs - removal of the hair to demoralize - like Samson lost his strength when his hair was cut), tells her tragic tale. She's not related to the other nutjobs and after having been kidnapped, has been a similar brood mare to Hans. Their children are not "perfect," so they are the ones scratching around in the mine.



At the "wedding dinner," Von Geisler places Karl in charge of the family and proclaims he and Yaz "married." Here, the tension between family members is palpable. Goetz thinks he should be in charge, and Von Geisler makes it known he is only proud of Karl. Yaz is in a hopeless situation, but the look on her face as she remains defiant is encouraging. She hasn't given up yet. Quicker than The Flash, Yaz holds Von Geisler at knifepoint and demands to leave. The family starts to fall apart pretty quickly. Von Geisler wants all guns down, but Hans wants to prove himself and says he will kill both to stop Yaz. He makes good on his word, firing, but only killing his father. Karl fatally shoots Hans as Yaz makes her escape.

Into the mine Yaz goes, first dealing with Goetz in a particularly nasty manner. You see the implement of his demise right there, and you know it's going to be used. It's a little like Chekov's Gun in theater: you introduce something like that, you best use it before the play's over. Karl traps her in an elevator and it all seems lost. But you can't help but notice what happens when Karl says "au revoir." I actually shouted out "ha!" when it happened. Karl won't be getting up from that head wound.

Now this is someone ready to kick some ass.

Eva tries to help Yaz escape, but the last two Von Geislers, Gilberte and Klaudia show up like a couple of Tarentino femme fatales, firing a hail of bullets at Yaz, who is also armed. Yaz fires on a gas tank and boom goes the...uh, gas tank. No dynamite, but just as effective. In a final battle with Gilberte, Yaz reverts to true primal brutality and uses her teeth as a final, desperate way to win the fight. And as she finally gets away into the waiting arms of the police, she breaks down in a series of cries and screams.

Primal. The yelling and the screaming. Yaz barely speaks during the last half of the movie. She's crying and screaming, whether in fear or rage, or both. Primal elements cover her in the film in dirt and blood. Besides the earthen dirt, she's nearly consumed by fire and is cleansed by rain - more primal elements. The tunnels of the mine: forcing a primal fear in not only the characters, but the viewers. Fear of the dark, of strangers, cramped places, the unknown. The lust that lures Tom and Farid deeper into the trap: primal. The desire for money that fuels the gang to commit robbery in the first place. The rage of Yaz as she finally snaps. It's all there.

Now, I could just be reading what I want into it, and it may just be a really intense, bloody French torture movie. That said, I enjoyed it as a direct line into our primitive selves. We can always speculate what we would do in these extreme, fearful situations. Some of us, like Yaz, could bring ourselves to kick ass. But who knows? Fear is primal, and it's the part of us we can't control.

Until next time, make sure your shelters are secure and I'll see you from the skies.

[REC] (2007)

Some spoilers may lace this entry. Taste with caution.

A linear story. A simple location. A loss of control. You can't turn away!

Three very basic ingredients mixed together by writers Jaume Belagaro and Luis Berdejo, and baked by Belagaro and Paco Plaza in the beautiful oven of Barcelona, Spain, to make the delicious dish known as [REC].

Yeah, you see what I did there. Food analogies. I'm going somewhere with this.

The average movie-goer or novice horror might believe - if just for a moment - that [REC] somehow copied an American film called Quarantine. I mean, it's easy to think that, really. Same plot. Nearly the same players. Filmed in the same first-person way. However, Quarantine is a fairly decent remake of our subject. I personally thought Quarantine was pretty good, and I expected [REC] to be slightly better. I felt - and quite happily - that [REC] was not only far superior, but one of the best horror films to grace my DVD player in quite some time. And I've seen some good ones lately.

So how does this horror equivalent of a fine dinner experience unfold? Well, tuck in your napkin and I'll tell you - without spoiling too much, if I can help it.

OK, throughout the entire movie, we see only what Pablo's (Pablo Rosso) camera sees, for this is a television taping. Angela Vidal (the cute-as-a-button Manuela Velasco) hosts a documentary series that covers what happens while the residents of Spain (well, those with normal daytime schedules) are sleeping. Hence the name of the show, "While You Sleep." We never see Pablo's face, but Angela guides us and Pablo through the terrifying events that occur inside the apartment building that provides one of two sets of the movie. The other set is a firehouse, where the movie begins. For this installment of her show, Angela is visiting a local firehouse to see how the firemen cope with overnight life. She visits the cafeteria, plays basketball in the gym, and quietly hopes - trying not to sound morbid - that the firehouse gets a call so they can show the firemen in action.

The call finally comes: a woman is screaming, trapped in her apartment. Angela and Pablo join two of the firemen and policemen in investigating the emergency, and along the way we meet many of the denizens of the old place, all complaining about the noise. They're a cross-section of average Spanish citizens from a variety of backgrounds. Many would say that here is your buffet of cannon fodder. They would not be wrong.

When they get into the apartment, they find the lady, cowering in the dark like a David Lynch character. Can't quite...see her properly. The obviously sick lady becomes Sick - with a capital "S" - when she bites down on one of the policemen and going after the others before she's shot. This routine call just went from tense to strange to downright bloody chaos in a matter of seconds, and it's all caught with Pablo's camera.

What follows is claustrophobic, frustrated terror as everyone inside is quarantined (yeah, see where they got the name for the remake?). The poor cannon fodder tenants are sealed inside with no explanation and faced with death by sniper if they try to escape. There must be some disease here, because people aren't taking the bites very well, and there was already a sick little girl to begin with - flu, they think. This is a movie about disease...what do you think it is? When a health inspector enters to assess the situation, he gets caught up in the bloody, bitey carnage.

It all comes together as to why the authorities are there, how they got there so quick, and the connection to one of the tenants inside. But it's all going to hell, and no one has time to sit around and think about the ins and outs and the whys and hows. People fall left and right, until it's just Angela and Pablo. That quick scene of the stairwell teeming with the infected, all growling and moaning as they sprint up the stairs, is utterly terrifying.

Like a great survival horror video game on speed, our newscasters must find a key to a door under the building. Finding the key was tough enough, but they are soon forced into a penthouse where a man from the Vatican lived. I'm not going to go into the details of this part of the movie. I can only tell you that the clues in the Vatican agent's pitch-dark apartment - think of it: why is someone from a religious powerhouse there? - lead to a chilling implication. Much more chilling than the remake, by far. And did you really think they'd be alone in this apartment?

Yeah.



It's safe to say that I absolutely dug this flick. Insane, fast-paced, and disturbing...all from a first-person perspective. You are there. You can't look away. And really, you shouldn't since this movie is an Awesome Sandwich.

There I go, back to the food analogies again. Those biters outside the safety fence are really carved on my subconscious, I suppose.

Let's see if I can be more consistent with this thing.

Take care, and I'll see you from the chopper.