Here we are, my final post for Shocktober 2018 aka “Shuddertober”. I can’t think of a better way to end this dive into Shudder’s extensive horror catalog then with one of their most critically acclaimed exclusives. Revenge has been hailed as a visceral, badass, feminist exploitation flick. It’s been called one of the goriest and intense films of the year. So should you believe the hype?
I’ve been a defender of found footage for years. Where many filmgoers have written off this subgenre as a cheap gimmick, I believe it has been and can still be a unique way to tell a story. I won’t deny there’s been a lot of filmmakers and studios that have exploited the lower production costs of found footage. Like, did anyone who worked on The Gallows actually give a shit about the end product? And don’t get me started on The Devil Inside. What a lot of found footage detractors overlook is that a great found footage movie is great because it finds a way in which it would only ever work as a found footage film.
In my review of Prom Night, I mentioned that I put pretty much zero thought into choosing to review it for Shocktober. I’m sure I put in even less thought into WolfCop, since my selection was based primarily on the film’s title and that I assumed it would have a kind of shlocky fun ’80s vibe. I think I would say that I did have fun watching WolfCop, though for some reason the fun rang a little hallow. Still, you have to give the film some credit for the amount of bloody gusto it throws at the screen even on what appears to be a fairly modest budget. Continue reading
Most of the time when I watch a movie for the second time, I have an agenda. I’ve made up my mind based on the experience I had in my prior viewing and so the second time I’m looking for evidence that supports my stance. Oftentimes, that means a comedy movie seems funnier or a action movie more exciting. Horror, thriller, and mystery movies suffer under this level of scrutiny, most of the time, because those genres all rely on exploiting the unknown. But truly great cinema can rise above that – I’ve always said that if a spoiler can ruin a movie, it probably wasn’t that good anyway – and Take Shelter is one such film. Because I remembered vividly how it ended, and when I got to that last shot again, I still couldn’t make up my mind 100% about what it means.
Last month I reviewed Mandy the sophomore effort from Italian/Canadian filmmaker Panos Cosmatos. For those who don’t know,
The stories we read, listen to, and watch have to go to extremes. Everyday life is boring, you don’t want a movie about someone having a regular day. So instead we get tales featuring disastrous mistakes, shocking epiphanies, whirlwind romances, and brutal violence. That last one is tricky, because everyone hates violence and it’s not really a part of most people’s lives. Writers often clear that hurdle by finding a reason to justify violence, and the easiest one to come up with is having bad guys kidnap or kill some guy’s spouse. They do that, now we’re OK watching our man do some heinous shit to save her/get revenge. That’s kind of fucked up, right?
I don’t feel great about giving a so-so star rating. I’m a fan of Adam Green’s ArieScope Pictures the independent studio behind cult classics like Frozen (the ski lift one, not that snowman one) and the Victor Crowley series. Adam Green’s podcast “The Movie Crypt” is my favorite podcast and one I would recommend to fans of the genre or aspiring filmmakers. Of course being a fan means checking out other projects from the studio. Grace is a 2009 horror/drama written and directed by Paul Solet, Produced by Adam Green and released through ArieScope. The film details a mother, Madeline Matheson (Jordan Ladd), whose child dies in the womb. Yet she takes it to term, it’s born and it wants to suck blood. There that’s the whole movie. Goodnight everybody.
