REDNECK ZOMBIE: Trailer Park of Terror
by HILLARY BRENHOUSE,
LORRAINE CARPENTER,
MATTHEW HAYS, PATRICK
LEJTENYI, JEFFREY MALECKI,
CHRISTOPHER SYKES
Trailer Park of Terror
Trashy, sleazy, dumb, gory and fun, TPOP updates the Reagan-era interpretation of the zombie genre with bloody-fisted aplomb. A minivan packed with troubled teens and their do-gooder pastor is lured into a seemingly abandoned trailer park, and soon they find themselves on the wrong end of the zombie stick. Much campiness ensues, soaked and splattered with an unhealthy dose of gore (you’ll never eat possum jerky again). A truly lowbrow affair that joyfully celebrates its own lack of any good taste, this is not for the discerning filmgoer, nor the squeamishly bellied. (PL)
Our Town
A succession of haunting images figuring lacerated female corpses—strung up with arms outstretched in a small Korean town—opens this riveting and unsettling pic of the serial killer genre. Gyeong-ju (Man-seak Oh), insolvent alcoholic writer and childhood friend of the cop on the case, is a prime suspect, but it seems like the latest atrocity may be a copycat murder. Enter naïve-looking loner Hyo-I (Ryu Deok-Hwan), who soon skins and eats his pet dog, and this psychological shocker gets grisly. The unexpected link between the two disturbed men ultimately surfaces amid some forceful flashbacks. Commanding performances, clever twists and plenty of blood-letting make for a gripping Fantasia film. (HB)
HELL RIDE: Stuck
 |
Stuck
The chilling hit-and-run of 78-year-old Angel Torres, captured on tape this year in Connecticut, has sparked a debate regarding the decline of morality, as onlookers at the scene failed to lift a finger. Stuck is loosely based on another equally disturbing true story. While driving under the influence, Brandi (Mena Suvari) runs a red light smack into newly-homeless Tom (Stephen Rea), and then proceeds to head home with the man still firmly lodged in her windshield. Problem is, Tom continues to inconvenience Brandi by not dying. As if director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) was going for a horror version of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Dark stuff. (CS)
Home Movie
Those of you who caught Offscreen at last year’s festival will recognize this as another in the increasingly long line of hyper-realistic self-surveillance horror flicks. In this case, an isolated family slowly discovers the depth of their children’s mental disturbances through holiday footage they’ve taken of themselves. It’s a mixed bag. There are a lot of grating addresses to the camera, but also some truly horrific moments. Because of the film’s casual and haphazard construction and our familiarity with home recording, you’ll get sucked into a pretty creepy modern tale. However, no matter how much one tweaks it, this idea screams gimmick pretty loudly. (JM)
Accuracy of Death
Japanese heartthrob Takeshi Kaneshiro (House of Flying Daggers, Chungking Express) stars as a Grim Reaper with an affinity for all things musical in this promising feature-length debut from 30-year-old director Masaya Kakei. Calling himself Mr. Chiba, Kaneshiro must spend a week with his mortal appointees and judge whether or not their time on Earth is at an end. Better than Meet Joe Black, but still relies too heavily on the wishy-washy naïveté of the lead as he struggles with modern-day vernacular and the notions of loss and sentiment. A charming, if uneven, first-date flick. (CS)
Rule of Three
Three linked storylines unfold at three different instants and involve a couple of confused threesomes gone wrong, giving this crude, contrived flick its tag. A desperate and enraged dad—in a fit of affected acting—paces the motel from which his daughter disappeared. Two weeks prior, she and her boyfriend check in to their roadside room, intent on experimenting with group sex (don’t get excited—the result isn’t very sexy). Earlier, an annoyingly anxious man waits in the same room for his roofie dealer so that he can “relax” a female friend. Punctuated by murder, rape and incest, Rule is as implausible as it is perverse. (HB)
From Within
In a small religious community in flyover America, young people start dying, apparently by their own hand. While the authorities turn a blind eye, the town’s teens start asking questions as the body count rises. Directed
by cinematographer Phedon Papamichael (3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line), From Within is part teen horror, part screed against religious extremism—and it almost works, but not quite. Though beautifully and hauntingly shot, the acting is inconsistent and choppy, the plotline too obvious. With Adam Goldberg as a tattooed Christian fundamentalist redneck. (PL)
DIGITAL DYSTOPIA: From Inside
 |
From Inside
A pregnant woman on a train travelling across an endless plain flooded with blood: this is the promising beginning of this haunting animated post-apocalyptic feature from John Bergin. The woman’s dark, mildly poetic monologue narrates her dreamy journey, which is rendered in a rich digital animation, alternated with more impressionistic stills that only barely move. Despite the strong introduction, however, the narrative—much like the train—succumbs to a hyper-linear movement, ultimately too seamless and predictable. But the wonderfully bleak drawings and oneiric logic go far to compensate for this. (JM)
Shadows in the Palace
In this virtually all-female Korean film–from the cast to the producer and director, the latter (Kim Mee-Jung) making her follow-up to The King and the Clown–the servants who attend to the mid-Joseon-era royal family must adhere to a code of self-effacing subservience, and a vow of celibacy. But when one of the girls is found dead (by her own hand, or so it seems) and an autopsy reveals she had recently given birth, hell quietly breaks loose in the palace, from severe backroom reprimands to terrifying specters. A vivid and intense serving of beauty, repression, envy and cruelty. (LC)
I Think We’re Alone Now
Sometimes funny, often creepy, usually sad, this feature-length doc about the lives of two Tiffany fans (yes, you read right) is a strange but illuminating look at celebrity and its worshippers. The two subjects, deluded to the point of incredulity—one an intersex Denverite, the other a damaged man who could be George Bush’s cousin—seem in need of some good old-fashioned intimacy. Instead, they obsess over the ’80s shopping-mall pop idol. The film opens a series of questions about exploitation, with its obvious forays into mental illness (yes, Grey Gardens does come to mind). But it’s also sad that these two lonely people find solace in the only thing the world appears to offer them: a fleeting glimpse of Tiffany, someone perfectly symbolic of the aching emptiness of contemporary pop culture. (MH)
|
