Savage (2009) Brendan Muldowney

I approach revenge cinema a little differently to my usual genre appreciation, being fundamentally opposed, even disturbed by the notion, as a viewer I find myself in a position of opposition. Not predisposition not to like revenge films at all mind, just more critical, more interested in the inner workings than surface stories. Savage thus is a film of some interest to me despite not being wholly successful, as it does quite admirab;y try to make an interesting point out of a decidedly conventional scenario. The story of Paul, a photographer of Dublin's seamy underbelly who gets brutally attacked, his descent and ultimate violence, it falls into the serious category of revenge film rather than that of redemptive myth, here revenge is not a means to restore order but atavistic hunger beyond justice. Territory travelled so many, many times that the challenge of any individual film is virtually desperate, to wrest some kind of insight, any worthy insight, out of the sheerly obvious. Savage actually does quite well, rather than a matter simply of descent into madness the focus is on the folly of masculinity in extremis, so focused on ultimately meaningless signifiers like hair, muscles and genitals, that the really important things, those that make someone not just striving towards Man but simply man, strong in heart mind as well as body, good and fulfilled. The opening scene neatly foreshadows this point, as Paul pursues sordid little detail for a photostory while missing wider events right around him, then while the film practically bellows its point from scene to scene the focus remains agreeably clear. A strong performance by one Darren Healy as Paul keeps things compelling rather than eye rolling, beginning a weak man with a measure of real underlying goodness, his halting progress through fear and anger, goodness seeping away as blindness enfolds, is handled with skill and actually slightly unsettling by the end. Decent shooting helps too, painting a world merely bleak during days, at night a restless hopeless underworld crawling with violence sometimes not even out of range of streetlights.

So plenty of good here, unfortunately this only has a real punch to it in the final ten minutes. By some combination of low budget and artistic intent the key early attack is much shied away from, minor face carving and POV shots of crashing feet and fists being about the extent of it. It's mean but it really feels too restrained, too coy for a film of serious, relevant intentions. And in the final block, fantasy taking over as confrontation draws imminent, things simply aren't stressful or twisted enough, there's some psychological suspense but not so much dramatic. The climactic nastiness is reasonably gruelling, but more and earlier really would have improved the overall effect. Still, this is noble stuff, an addition to a stuffed to bursting genre that might not have much worth beyond serious fans but is still worthy of not being forgotten. So don't run, but check it out I guess...

High Lane (2009) Abel Ferry

Wow, just what you always wanted! An almost absolutely generic backwoods (or in this case mountains, same difference) horror in which the modicum of pulse raising tension created by the one genuinely fine set piece (bridge mishap!) is almost instantly dampened by a descent into the kind of fare that feels like you've seen it hundreds of times before even if its actually been under a dozen. And of course the characters aren't especially likeable or interesting (daredevil, timid, totty etc.), with the chief shot at context or history mostly an irrelevance. 

Basically there's little reason to watch this unless you happen to be an absolutely committed fan of backwoods horror and as such will take anything. Fortunately I am that committed, and presuming that the proverbial room has been cleared, onwards! This all takes place in a lovely setting, genuinely impressive early on and later at least pleasant. The pace is swift, getting stuck into the mountaineering pretty well immediately and skipping downtime between the two phases of the film, nor is there any let up in the latter. The menace is adequate, however unimaginative. I mean, no one wants pitfalls, spikes, man traps or a loon with a bow and arrow. There's a bit of bloodshed and even a wee sliver of atmosphere when it comes to the villains lair. And when it comes to the final scuffle things are shot to quite reasonable exciting effect, frenetic yet visually coherent and modestly satisfying. 

So it works, more or less. Trouble is that work more or less is all that it does, even for die hards like myself this is incredibly thin stuff. I'm no great stickler for originality, point or purpose in a mindless horror, but time and time again I've seen films able to be genuinely weird and surprising within generic constraints, or simply doing things with sufficient gusto to override their familiarity. Such is the case for about ninety percent of worthwhile vintage slashers instance, and this kind of modern backwoods stuff is a close cousin to that. So while I won't entirely dis-recommend this I really can't judge it any more than a bog average time waster that might appeal on a really slow spell. Take it if you must I guess... 

Summer's Blood (2009) Lee Demarbre

Ah, the curse of an inviting premise and an active imagination. See, when I read of a nutter kidnapping a girl to be part of his garden, I imagine upright burial in earth, rows of unfortunates dead and dying, pale faces gasping in hunger and smeared in dirt. You know, kinda Motel Hell style but meaner. Not just a girl chained up on top of, not even within, a gardening plot in a cellar. Massive let down really. 

This is basically just your average innocent trapped by psycho family fare. Moves along fairly effortlessly, quite nicely shot, with just a couple of tweaks. As main weirdo Tom, Peter Mooney is good value the young, handsome and charming sort of loon he does a solid, even somewhat creepy job, one imagines him a nice guy outside of being irreparably broken. His "normality" does well to drive the film just a little beyond its mediocre reaches, contrasting well with the more outlandish incest themes. Contrasting too with the other villains, with whom he also shares effective chemistry. Barbara Niven works well as equally broken but considerably more downtrodden and desperate mother Gaia, but the main draw is Stephen McHattie as vicious yet charismatic dad Gant, just a bucket of fun in the final block. Classing things up with his tough, cool approach yet simultaneously bringing everyone down by being a big old scumbag, a turn of wickedly entertaining vim. 

Unfortunately this is otherwise pretty average, seen it all before stuff. Rather little in the way of bloodshed, sleaze or driving nastiness, distinctly disappointing given that director Lee Demarbre made the rather satisfyingly grisly and unhinged HG Lewis homage Smash Cut in the same year. There were the germs of something really quite appealingly twisted here, Earth mother as fount of sickness, irresistible attractive forces of family and nature turned utterly to wrongness, but things never grow, it's quite a downer But worst of all is the never convincing or compelling Ashley Greene as the heroine. Nice looking young lady and I'm sure she's lovely in real life, but Bob bless her a good actress she is not. She clearly tries, kudos to her, but no. 

So what we're left with is a generally competent affair, better than it might have been and passably worthwhile to addicts like myself that just have to watch, but still average and a little disappointing. Better than a poke in the eye with a wet stick though... 

Black Death (2010) Christopher Smith

One of the great adventures of contemporary cinema (as opposed to the relative assurance of the past) is tracking young directors. New voices, new visions, and whether they arrive fully formed or need time grow, take shape. Whether they do indeed grow, or are sustained or even decay. And the roads directors take, direct progression/regression or the more convoluted. Although accomplished from the start, Christopher Smith has taken rather the convoluted route by tackling several distinct subgenres, Black Death his most recent and it seems, the apex of his powers so far. Evoking Witchfinder General and at least one other classic Brit horror, though it pales by comparison it really shows a talent on the cusp of greatness. 

The story sees a young monk caught between religion and the world, who takes on a mission of escorting holy troops through treacherous territory to dark destination, a village exempt from the plague in which it is said God no longer reigns. In the best spirit though, the mission and destination reveal the underlying idea, society for all its contrasts permeated with rot and savagery. Religious isolation that controls rather than aids, and violence spread through the righteous, the lawless and the simply uneducated. Essentially a condition in which something as significant as plague is still just a catalyst. 

Unfortunately things don't come through quite as strongly as they should. Most have the easy chemistry of English veterans coming together (Tim McIninerny is particularly fun), while Dutch stunner Carice van Houten owns her evilly regal character. It's well paced and attractively shot too, moving nicely from damp and grim to light and alluring as events progress. But much of the potential blood, gore and general unpleasantness here is avoided, a move which one suspects was made to keep the audience from being distracted from the point by having fun but really comes across as squeamishness. To be fair, objectionable editing and speed cam are largely avoided, the grisliness is often just out of frame and there's a fair sprinkling of effective grue. But things are a little squeamish and offputting all the same. More troublesome though is the climax, which affords powerful turns to just two characters, largely abandoning the rest. The others may not have been key to the main drama, but their abandonment hurts the film as a whole, and the avoidance of most possible fireworks also dampens things. Then we get a coda which though smart in idea is sketchy and muddled in execution. All a bit of a bringdown from what is pretty striking for a good spell. 

But for the most part this is solid, thought provoking stuff, that it doesn't fully succeed is ultimately less important than its general qualities. So pretty well recommended dudes and dudettes. 

The Thaw (2002) Mark A. Lewis

Watching a film like The Thaw I get a small sadness that's different to the feeling I have of other generic fare. Big ideas here, the very future of the Earth, idealism carried beyond reason into calculated horror, the contrast of cold calculation with bloody reality and underlying all, two of the most momentous discoveries in the whole field of natural history. Big ideas but small, evasive and downright flawed execution. And there's the sadness, more than the endless iterations of nutbar with a knife, twisted family values, crazy crazy virus crazies or whatever, I come to this stuff to dream and here is dreaming denied. 

The beginning points to the rest here. The nature of the horror is made explicit within minutes, killing suspense and wonder, and by the end of the opening credits all has either been spoiled or over strongly pointed at. After this the construction becomes straightforward, but the course of things still inane. I've never been a science student, never gone on any exciting field trips in dangerous, unfamiliar territory, but I imagine that if we arrived at base camp to find no welcome nor even adequate power, we might be shocked and wary rather than just cranking up the generator and otherwise heading off to bed down or get amorous. And I think that if I had an insect bite that rapidly turned into a gruesome, unusual and painful sore I would get onto sorting it out pretty sharpish. I also think that if I found what seemed to be a well preserved specimen of a long extinct species with something clearly living inside it, I'd either be up and down whooping with amazement or at least jaw dropping dumbstruck. Furthermore, if I were a writer and I had established that two characters had a history, then that one gave the other an STD, I might actually do something with this point instead of making it and immediately dropping it. 

But setting aside what I might have done, essentially this is all worthy of something other than turning into a predictable riff on The Thing with incredible creature effects replaced by bugs. Not even weird looking bugs at that. Just regular old bugs. This disappointment aside though, these are an effective menace. Small, fast moving, swarming nicely when needed and always well realised on screen, they are about as cool as bugs can be. And they lead to nicely grody wound effects and vomiting. Combined with a fairly swift pace they make for pretty diverting fun in a vacant sort of way. The film is also crisply shot and appropriately lit, it all looks reasonably classy. Plus the acting is all at least competent, with an underused Val Kilmer a grizzled highlight. 

So overall this just about works on an entertainment front, despite shortcomings. Some gross goods and a few tense moments, just don't get suckered into expecting more. Partially recommended I suppose. 

Progeny (1998) Brian Yuzna

I can draw to mind scarce subjects more fitting for horror than pregnancy. New, pure life within world touched frame, unconditional love, human sharing a space with godhood for a spell. Joyous peak but daunting even at the best of times, and so a wealth of image and ideals ripe for perversion. There have been a few pregnancy horrors down the line, but since the success of Rosemary's Baby a majority concerned with the occult. Which makes some sense, it's almost a complete switcharoo. Me though, I just like science fiction a little more, which is why it pleases me that Progeny is a pretty creditable offering in this field. The story sees Craig and Sherry Burton conceiving after some effort, but soon things start to get a little unusual. See, they figure out the night they actually made it happen, and there's a two hour chunk missing that might have been more than just your run of the mill sex fugue... 

There are two drives here, one conventional and occupying around two thirds of the run time, the latter a little more creative. All the tropes are here, sinister puppeteering, suspicious authorities, weirdness escalating alongside paranoia and a general breakdown. Unfortunately the execution is somewhat rote rather than inspired, failing to maximise potential. A number of the scares are pat and predictable but worse, the film plays the physiological card early but then tries to maintain tension between reality and delusion anyway. Also, the script doesn't give its leads much of a chance to come across as loving and happy at the beginning, so the emotional descent is less pronounced and moving. Things do come together later on and rather improve with the addition of the idea of human intellect grappling with the incomprehensible, the films other drive carrying it through to the end. Depth is added, even dare I say it intelligence, but more importantly things build to a pleasurably tense albeit unlikely finale. But it doesn't fully satisfy, rather than properly entwining the two drives seem more to futilely pull against each other. 

Altogether this is a good watch though. Arnold Vosloo is convincingly edgy and rattled as Craig while Jillian McWhirter makes the best of her wild ride, the two take a little time to really gel together but when they do it makes for some tense viewing. Lindsay Crouse and Wilford Brimley provide effective support, but best is Brad Dourif as a sympathetic oddball, it's the kind of role he could do in his sleep but he brings an A game all the same. The pace is effortless, there's brief nudity, a bit of icky gore and high quality practical effects, particularly in a really pretty splendid nightmarish reveal (Screaming Mad George had a hand), although the computer assisted stuff looks a tad cheesy. So if you enjoy the pregnancy horror subgenre there's no reason not to watch this, even if you find it imperfect as I did you're sure to have something to chew over. Go check it out! 

Mulberry Street (2006) Jim Mickle

The convergence of human and rat is a rather excellent concept that occasionally pops up in genre cinema and literature, and should do more. People don't tend to like to think of themselves analogous to rodents, flea ridden agent of pestilence and biteyness isn't a common aspiration in the same way as bears or sharks or wolverines. But low bound human kind, trapped in cramped, dirty, twisted sprawl, co existing in cities with those of a whole different world, different living in almost every way, well there's something there. Mulberry Street is at its best building this impression, shot close and cluttered, all about sweat and dirt, pores and cracks and hair. A sense of place that comes less from grand establishing shots than a flow and cumulation of images. And people going about their business even as weirdness trickles in and new reports grow ever more sinister, as if not so much deliberately forcing the outside away but simply living apart. There's outright commentary here, after opening shots of rats we see the Statue of Liberty, a little later a public sculpture (one can only hope it is stainless steel) of a rat is glimpsed, the neighbourhood is being redeveloped and some white collar type smiles from posters. One character is a bedridden World War II veteran, another is returning home from her present service. It's not exactly subtle or creative but it complements the mood rather than being forced enough to spoil it. 

As is perhaps inevitable, things go a bit downhill when the excitement really kicks in. The action is shot in the fast and frenzied post 28 Days Later style, ridding the film of much in the way of actual gore or nastiness but even worse, obscuring the mutant effects to the extent that they could almost not even have been there. There are a few appropriately ratty shots and the first attack is quality fun, but in general this is rather more akin to the average infected "zombie" style. A couple of good jolts and a rather bleak tone building to a solid finale, but mostly generic. Solid performances and the tightness of it all keep things relatively compelling though, with Nick Damici deserving of credit for wresting what could have been the most generic of hero by default characters into reasonably affecting territory. So it all comes across a respectable good time, it probably won't set anyone on fire but good stuff for a slow night.