All Aboard, If You Have Nothing Better to Do

Some nights, you just really want to sit back, drink some wine, and watch what I predict will be a lousy Dead Pretty Teenagers Who Might Deserve Some of Their Fates direct-to-whatever-was-not-theaters at the time of its early 2000s release horror movie.

Unfortunately, this was one of those nights. 

Quick Plot: An American college wrestling team is touring eastern Europe. Four of the students and their assistant coach decide to party their last night in Russia, leading to them missing their morning train to Odessa and pissing off their pretty awful coach. A helpful English-speaking blond directs them to a Ukraine-bound train she's boarding, and before my cat can cough up a hairball that looks like Eli Roth, it's organ reaping time.

Remember those early post-Saw years in horror? Though I genuinely enjoy and often defend that franchise, I'm also the first to admit that its success bred some terribly ill-spirited, uninspired movies that hated humanity...especially the female kind.

Train apparently began life as a remake of Terror Train, but decided along the way that it would rather be Hostel with a spoonful of Turistas.

But also, with more would-be rapists urinating on a man about to be castrated.

Did I mention the POV is from the soon-to-be castrated dude, which means yes, writer/director Gideon Raff gives us a piss shot.

I added Train to my Amazon Prime queue after seeing the description as "horror on a train from Russia to Ukraine". As someone who's made that train trip twice and knows the terror of those cramped corners and floor toilets, I welcomed a change of setting. I wasn't expecting Shakespeare or, I don't know, something perfectly average, but I don't know that it's ever fun to watch something as outright ugly as Train.

Thora Birch makes a decent final girl, but also one devoid of any sense of fun before the slaying starts. As you'd expect, every victim is an ugly American without any charm and in some cases, with plenty of obnoxious attitude. There are a lot of chains. Not, like, Chain Letter-levels of chain quantities, but still: lots of chains. The gore is gooey and admittedly well executed, but of course, it's all done under that typical 2000s style of literal and figurative darkness. 

This movie hates the world. 

High Points
I was getting incredibly frustrated with the whole idea of a movie making its cast wrestlers only to have them so easily picked off by some very unhealthy looking organ harvesters, but at least the film remembered in its final fight

Low Points
Oh I don't know, probably the fact that after I groaned about a fairly graphic attempted rape, we go a few minutes before another young female character is carried off screaming by a group of lusty soldiers and that's the last we see of her

Lessons Learned
The trick to blending in when in Ukraine? A babushka

Chekhov's Law of Nipple Rings In Torture Porn tells us that if you introduce nipple rings in the first act, you must use use them as tools of extreme pain in the fifth

Eye transplants take less than 24 hours for the subject to be fully active sighted

I didn't realize anybody needed to hear this, much less a premed college student, but don't like, just GIVE your passport to anyone who asks, especially if said anyone has been making rape eyes at you all day

Rent/Bury/Buy
Blargh. I knew what I was getting into from the opening credits, wherein we just got a lot of closeups of oozing body parts, but still: Train is mean, the perfect representation of how unpleasant early 2000s horror was. If you're seeking that reminder, head to Amazon Prime. 

I'd Rather Be On a Haunted Boat

Hey! Here’s a great idea: let’s make a movie about slightly better than average looking wealthy Caucasian 20something assholes doing terrible things to each other. Everybody LOVES mildly attractive rich white kids being awful to fellow mildly attractive rich white kids, right?!


...
...
...
Is this thing on?

Quick Plot: Two vice-happy young British women take their just-cheated-on friend out for a day of drinking on the Spanish coast. At a bar, they meet a quartet of guys with access to a luxury yacht. With that comes videotaped sex, crystal meth, stolen champagne, inaudible but still inane (when it’s audible) conversations, and swimming. Thankfully, the ladies knew well enough to pack their bikinis inside their designer bags. Otherwise, just IMAGINE how awful the day would be!

Before long, 5 out of the 7 passengers are embarking upon group sex. The youngest preppy is eager to impress his older friends and decides to cap off his first time with the titular specialty move, discussed earlier in riveting flirt talk. Because even nameless blonds you’re having sex with are human, the girl dies and everyone else starts shouting things.

From there, Donkey Punch gets a tad more interesting as the boys plot a cover-up, much to the shocked protest of the remaining females. Cellular coverage wanes, boat keys are lost, video evidence rotates hands, knives stab, and rich white kid turns on rich white kid with more venom than a snake on a plane.

Made on a budget somewhere around South Africa, Donkey Punch is filmed, acted, and written with full competence. The gorgeous blue water looks great with well-toned bodies swimming through it, and the bouts of violence are executed effectively without shyness or digital shortcuts. In other words, Haunted Boat this ain’t.

Side note: have you watched Haunted Boat yet? Please do. You really won’t be disappointed in its adorable awfulness.

But back to Donkey Punch, the film that makes you kind of want to see very character die via donkey punch. Therein lies the main issue: these kids suck. Perhaps that’s the point—I can’t believe the actors or script are trying to get you on their side—but unlike, say, the Hostel films, there doesn’t seem to be any point to their sucking. If there’s satire, I don’t get it. And I’m the person who praised Starship Troopers as the year’s smartest film back when I was a 10^th grader in 1997!

I could fall back on the whole ‘this movie wasn’t made for me’ defense, but what does that really mean? If a movie about misogynist rich guys treating women like shark bait was made for younger or more male audience, then it’s just, well, kind of a misogynist film. There’s little humor or commentary to be found once the blood starts spilling, and while (MINOR SPOILER) all the bad guys DO suffer, the innocent don’t exactly get a weekend in the Bahamas. So abusing women is a punishable offense, but so, apparently, is discouraging such behavior.

I’m not saying Donkey Punch needed to be a treatise on male/female relationships, but I guess I’m just completely baffled by what the point of specifically making a film like this without ever pausing to consider its implications could be. At times like these, I often go back to the brilliant and sometimes misunderstood Deadgirl, a film that shares this type of shocking premise (teens tie down a beautiful zombie for nonconsensual sex) as an example of how you approach this kind of subject matter. Reading the DVD description of Deadgirl might be nauseating, but when you watch the film, you see how the filmmakers were using a dangerous, taboo plotline to explore something much deeper.

Donkey Punch takes the risk of calling itself Donkey Punch and, you know, killing a woman via donkey punch and basically does little to nothing with it but make a mediocre horror movie. True, we’re never rooting for the villainous men, but that’s only because they’re mildly more unlikable than the ditzy women. If the film gave us amazingly terrifying scares or dark and daring comedy (like the surprisingly sly Troma release, The Taint) at least, you know, there’d be some justification to its premise. Instead, it hovers on a strange line, being too afraid to go for full exploitation and just not smart enough to make a point.

High Points

As I said earlier, the violence is handled quite well. While the character choices don’t always work, the actual execution of stabbings, drownings, flamings, and shreddings comes off believably and extremely gross

Low Points

Here’s how I knew I would not care much for Donkey Punch: in the opening shot, our lead female is seen shaving her armpits in a bathroom without a touch of cream, soap, or water. Now I reckon’ this was done for the shock factor of beginning the film with a sexy shot of a bloody armpit, but no woman with a passing understanding of hygiene would just carelessly rub a razor into her skin when there’s a sink and, presumably, plenty of liquids right in front of her. It’s a small thing to harp on, and yet it instantly told me that this was a movie made by men who never thought to get second opinions on things only women do

Lessons Learned: The School of the Obvious Edition

Don’t do meth with strangers in the middle of the ocean

Don’t get on a boat with strangers in the middle of the ocean

Teasing a girl about rape just after your pal killed her friend during sex isn’t a turn on

A guy who doesn’t understand that women are supposed to enjoy sex is probably not the ideal sexual partner

Don’t have sex with the guy you just met who doesn’t understand that women are supposed to enjoy sex

Your slutty friend probably slept with your cheating ex-boyfriend

Brunettes are mildly more intelligent than blonds

Everyone in their 20s that looks decent in a bathing suit is awful and deserves to die

The Winning Line

“You want me to run through a glass door? Babe…you’re heavier”

Says one girl to her already low self-esteem carrying friend. It’s one of the rare genuinely clever lines that I could hear, and it made me wish Donkey Punch had a better sense of humor about its shallow characters

Rent/Bury/Buy

I was curious to see if Donkey Punch warranted its new cult reputation. After watching the film, the answer is essentially an eye roll. Technically, it’s well-made enough and shows that first-time director Olly Blackburn can easily put together a good-looking genre film. I can’t really comment on the script because I could only make out every other word, but it ultimately seems to be a passable straight-to-Netflix caliber bout of violence with a catchy title and nothing else.


In other words, no sharks. No albinos. No gnomes.

Isn't it time you boarded a Haunted Boat?

What Happens In Vegas Dies In Vegas

When Eli Roth’s Hostel hit cinemas way back in 2006, the horror industry took note in a way that would, in the opinions of many a purist, damn the mainstream for some time. Due to the juggernaut success of the then-fresh Saw series, Hostel’s box office boom cemented the so-called torture porn subgenre as a viable, financially sound investment for theatrical releases.

What followed was mostly uninspired cash-ins like The Collector and Captivity before audiences grew tired of dark lighting and disembowelments. The real shame in all this is that perhaps the subgenre’s best film—Hostel: Part II—was simply made too late. By 2007, everyone from George Romero to New York Magazine were tired of Saw-ish style, and though Roth’s sequel was smart and satirical, critics and ticketbuyers were simply too tired to give it a chance.

Hostel: Part III is the franchise’s first go-around without Roth onboard. In some ways, this particular threequel debuts (to DVD) with a lot of pressure on its bloody shoulders: can this become a profitable series on premise alone? Is there more to say about people paying for the chance to kill other people, and more importantly, will audiences want to listen?

Or should I just get to the face-peeling already…

Quick Plot: Just like that movie everyone talks about that I haven’t seen The Hangover, a group of good(ish) looking late 20somethings are heading to Vegas for token dull dude Scott’s bachelor party. On board is the wealthy best man Carter, handicapped nice guy Justin, and token obnoxious cretin Mike.  

Mike is a gem. Married to a wife he just loves to call fat, with kids who are surely better off by the end of the film for losing their hate-filled daddy, Mike is marked as Victim #1. After a whole lot of false starts, we finally get to see that transformation happen. With a twist.

The smartest thing Hostel: Part III does is play around with its pre-established formula. The earlier films took place in Eastern Europe, a beautiful and, to common American tourists, generally unchartered region where being abducted is hardly out of the question. Moving the action to the recognizable lands of casinos and vice was a risk, but because Michael D. Weiss’ script has a few tricks up its sleeve, the gamble pays off (ba dom bump Vegas pun, amiright?). We recognize the business of Elite Hunting, with a few new Sin City-appropriate touches.

Hostel was a great idea executed with a little too mean execution. Hostel: Part II was a genuinely clever followup where it felt as though Roth was both expanding his universe and fixing what didn’t work about his original (unlikable protagonists, unabashed misogyny, nameless villains). Scott Spiegel’s Hostel: Part III is far lighter in scope and tone, but it’s quite enjoyable as a continuation of the series. Though the characters are a little too forgettable, their plight is filled with surprises, be it false starts, creepy masks, villainous turns, or suffocation by cockroach.

All part of the fun.

High Points

The opening scene is both entertaining on its own and a great blueprint for the rest of the film to follow: as the previous films showed, you really never know who to trust when it comes to secret societies. Throughout Hostel: Part III, that’s a theme that constantly gets put into play

Low Points

I understand that much like the first film, the men on display are supposed to be alpha male wannabe misogynists who lead you to wonder if they get what’s coming to them. That would be fine if all the crass dialogue was restricted to a character like Mike. But why then put such ugly dialogue in everyone’s mouths? The gang sans Mike seems to revel in discovering the prostitutes they paid for live in mobile homes and can thusly be referred to as trailer trash, while a Ukranian prisoner repeatedly screams"f*ggot" while kicking his guard. It leaves an ugly taint on the entire script that makes it hard to say the film isn't, once again, misogynist, racist, sexist, and so on

Lessons Learned

In Vegas, you have to be missing a full week before the cops care to start looking

No matter what your fiancée may say, when his overgrown frat boy friends whisk him away for a weekend of bachelor fun, yes, yes you should indeed be worried

Airbags are great stabilizers for stabbings

Rent/Bury/Buy

Hostel: Part III is not the surprise gem that its predecessor was, but I think I can safely say I enjoyed it far more than the original. The Vegas setting adds necessary refreshment, bringing with it plenty of new quirks in the every-expanding Elite Hunting empire. If the franchise continues to roam the globe in search of new locales, I’ll be happily queuing it up on Instant Watch for years to come. This isn’t really worth a buy or investment of cash, but it’s a well-made straight-to-DVD horror film that has plenty of fun with itself. Give it a spin.

Why, I Oughtta Rate the Aughts!

You know what time it is...

That's right. Wheel out your eternally young, probably vampiric music personalities and let's toast to the end of the aughts. I'm actually quite bummed to lose this decade since I only discovered about two weeks ago that I could have been using the word "aught" in daily speech for the last ten years. Such a loss.


And just what is my last post of 2009? A rough guide to my thoughts on the last ten years in horror, with special attention to the highs, lows, and in-betweens. Expect zombie talk. Saw defending. Friday the 13th bashing, Martyrs theorizing, and lots of other 21st century travels surrounding studio horror I happen to remember.


Here goes:

THE HIGHS

1. The Evolution of Torture Porn

See my list of Lows for how I feel about the brief craze that rocked the mid aughts, but like any art form, good things can always rise from the bad. Eli Roth’s Hostel may have made the bucks, but it was his 2007 followup that explored new aspects of horror by taking us inside the world of a few regular joes ready to get off on the sensation of murder. Similarly, there was Martyrs, the genre fandom’s most divisive film of the 2008. Pascal Laugier’s French shocker disgusted some with its graphic violence and wowed others with its philosophical spin (and genre-bending) take on what was becoming dangerously well-tread territory. I’m thankful that the mean-spirited fad of the mid decade seems to be on the slide, but in hindsight, we shouldn’t deny that some of the more powerful films of the time came out as direct responses to its popularity.

2. Zombie Makeover

Hard to believe that prior to 2002, there hadn’t really been a losable race with the undead since Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City introduced sprinting zombies in 1980. While having great velocity doesn’t make a monster, we can’t ignore Danny Boyle (excuse me, Academy Award winning Danny Boyle) and his contribution to the zombie genre with 2002’s 28 Days Later. From its homages to past Romero films (Dayesque soldiers, Dawnishly undead child filled gas stations) to how it captured a world in the middle of disaster, this sleeper hit revived a subgenre that had spent the last few years in direct-to-video purgatory. 

3. Zombie Cred

Perhaps we’re nearing zombie burnout, but that doesn’t mean we should let a few too many brain flavored treats spoil what has been a pretty interesting decade of literature, films, artwork and video games. The MVP of the era is none other than writer Max Brooks, who put into handbook form what kids that had grown up playing Dawn of the Dead on the playground had been practicing their whole lives with 2003’s The Zombie Survival Guide. Three years later, Brooks gave us a true masterpiece unlike any other with World War Z, a sociopolitical horror show that used a zompocalypse setup to explore international and human relations. It’s hard to believe we’d have Zombieland or Pride & Prejudice & Zombies in the mainstream without the validation brought the genre by Brooks’ 21st century work.

4. Indie Horror

As technology inches closer to taking over our souls (yes, I’ve seen Pulse a few too many times) independent moviemaking has grown in its possibilities to allow unconfirmed artists the freedom and tools to craft their own genuine films. Paranormal Activity will long be remembered for its $15,000 rags to box office riches tale and an inspiration to other do-it-yourself auteurs. Additional strong showings from low budgeted titles like Session 9, May, Hatchet, Zombie Diaries, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer and more proved that one didn’t need a major studio’s permission slip to create a memorable, frightening, or plain ol’ good time .

THE MIDDLES

1. Found Footage Films

The concept of handheld horror is hardly new to the genre. Look to 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust or even Belgium’s faux documentary monster show, Man Bites Dog for older evidence. In a world where anybody’s cat can be a star on youtube, found footage and homemade movies rose to a whole new level of social consciousness, from the blockbuster disaster flick Cloverfield to the refreshing jolt of Spanish zombie action in REC. Even George Romero threw his ponytail in the ring with Diary of the Dead, a messily narrated and sadly out-of-date (but not wholly unfulfilling) reboot to his living dead saga. Following the success of Paranormal Activity, it’s hard to believe this sometimes innovative, sometimes nausea inducing style is going anywhere anytime soon.

2. The State of Franchises

For various reasons, I believe it’s fair to say we’ll probably never see another era so defined by famous franchises as the 1980s and their reliance on Freddy & Jason’s annual outings. In the last ten years, however, we did witness a few interesting--if no real champion--attempts to establish a multi-film series to varying levels of success. Final Destination kicked off the decade and has since provided three more enjoyably twisted popcorn flicks, but without a concrete villain, it’s a hard concept to market for Halloween costumes. Resident Evil tossed out a few fluffy hours of video game style zombie fun (soon to be resurrected and--get this--rebooted), but hardly made its mark on the millennium. The true gold medal goes to Lions Gate’s low budget juggernaut Saw, a series still going strong six films in (blame dwindling box office of Part VI on the Paranormal effect and the terrible taste left by Saw V). Love him or hate him, Tobin Bell’s Jigsaw is the closest this century has yet come to creating a horror icon, and while that doesn’t offend my sensibilities, many a film fan is most likely committing their own form of self-imposed torture porn upon themselves at the very thought. Ah well. I’m sure there’s a market for that...

3. Refreshing Remakes

While there were no classic revamps to hold a candle to 1980s power players like The Thing or The Fly (or for that matter, The Blob; apparently, great remakes can only be made with the definite article in their title), it would be a lie to say all 21st century remakes have thus far been sins against the foundation of cinema. 2004’s Dawn of the Dead managed the near-impossible by bringing new life to one of the genre’s most deservedly loved films of all time (even if it had to resort to action movie speed to do so). Last House On the Left remains one of the most unnecessary remakes of recent years, but also ended up being a fairly decent and disturbing 90 minutes of its own. And where would studio horror be without the sharp and haunting Gore Verbinski triumph of 2002’s The Ring? Well, it would be a lot more original and not clogged by uninspired makeovers of other Asian ghost stories, but from Naomi Watt’s strong career-boosting performance to Samara’s TV crawl, it’s hard to really deny the striking power of the film that started it all.

THE LOWS

1. Torture Porn

In another ten years, there’s a good chance that this unsanitary subgenre will have become a chuckle-worthy bit of nostalgia along the lines of snap bracelets or rec centers. For a brief period in the mid-00s, however, it was invading every multiplex and firing up censor happy Tipper Gore wannabes with its blatant attempts to shock and disgust. There was certainly merit to be found in its early years--those who’ve read my work before know that I give Saw and its spawn far more credit than most--but when so many studio films hopped on board, it was the the audience that lost with empty violence from films like Turistas or The Collector. Perhaps the biggest offense was 2007’s Captivity, a middling thriller that truly crossed the line by inserting added footage of over-the-top torture post filming to blatantly cash in on the trend. 

2. Lazy Remakes

How hard did the makers of 2009’s Friday the 13th really have to try? Considering some of the dreck found in the middle days of that franchise (Part V, anyone?), and the general lack of any real scare or memorable character in eleven films that spanned three decades, making a decent reboot should have been easier than an open book test comparing Cheetos to Cheese Doodles. Yet somehow, Marcus Nispel’s attempt managed an incredible feat of being so mediocre, uninspired, and hard to actually see, it was kind of impressive in its aggressive blandness. Similarly, 2007’s The Hitcher showed how awful a film can be when its landscape is giving the best performance and The Omen proved that making a film because of its projected release date (6/6/06) is like reading War & Peace just because it’s heavy. And dull. Toss in The Amityville Horror, When a Stranger Calls, Pulse, and a pile of other remakes made with all the energy of a decaf latte.

3. Offensively Bad Remakes

It’s almost hard to pick on Neil LeBute’s laughable remake of one of the greatest genre films of all time, because 2006’s The Wicker Man did in fact have some positive effects; namely, making myself and many a youtube clicker laugh themselves silly for 2 minutes at a time. Still, it’s beyond awful, offensively misogynist, and a true crime against cinema. Similarly, the recent straight-to-DVD remake of It’s Alive was a baffling mess that should never have left a studio (much less a screenplay) and 2006’s Black Christmas managed to remove anything and everything interesting, spooky, and engaging about a landmark film and replace it with hateful characters and a style that literally produced headaches. Guess we were naughty that year.

THE UNFORESEEABLE FUTURE

1. 3D

Having not yet seen Avatar, I can’t really speak to the evolution of this 1950s gimmick originally launched to pry eyes away from that new thing called TV. Two major studio horror films have used it to varying effect: My Bloody Valentine capitalized on what was already darkly camp territory, but The Final Destination seemed to have no clue how to make Death pop behind plastic glasses. Recently, a slew of upcoming horror films have been announced to be receiving that $3 upgrade: Halloween 3, Saw VII, the Re-Animator remake, plus the soon-to-be-released Piranha, so until this lineup proves faulty in ticket sales, it seems like 3D is here to stay. For now. Let’s just hope nobody revises Smell-O-Vision.

2. Twilight

As someone who has yet to sit down and immerse myself in sparkling alabaster skin and flammable hair product, I refuse to make any sweeping generalization of the Twilight saga or how it casts shame upon the horror world. Some of my peers enjoy jumping on its underaged bare chest with a rusty pogo stick of hateful wit, but I like to believe in my Pollyanaish way that moody vampires can be one stepping stone into watching actual drama in something like Let the Right One In or just plain coolness, like Bill Paxton slicing a dude’s neck with his bitchin boot spurs. Generation Aught, prove me right.

How to Succeed In Sequels

More than any other film genre, horror has thrived--and sometimes shriveled--with the onslaught of sequels. From forced character crossovers to flashback riddled running times (is there even ten minutes of original content between the first round of followups to The Hills Have Eyes and Silent Night, Deadly Night?), it’s easy to mess up a sequel. But you know what? Pumpkins are in season, I'm high on candy corn, and the positivity is pumping, so let’s instead take a moment to consider some of the smart choices sequels have made in continuing a good story: 

Expanded Mythology

The true beauty of a sequel is that it can take a premise people found interesting the first go ‘round and attack it from a new angle, such as the Cenobite-heavy chambers of Hellraiser II. While it's true that many a sequel runs the risk of revealing too much (thereby negating some of the mystery that occasionally defines a first film) others seize upon the potential. Eli Roth's Hostel, for example, was a better idea than film, but his followup used the now established setup of a capitalist torture show to fully explore what audiences were drawn to in the first place. Instead of wasting time with standard protagonists, Roth gave us a briefer intro to much more likable women, then promptly delved into Elite Hunting and its own financiers. The result was a quick moving and smartly done film that found just the right note to revisit Slovakia.

Other films are less successful, but not always in a sacrilegious way. The philosophically horrific Cube series debuted as one of the most surprisingly intriguing films of the ‘90s, while a few straight-to-cable/dvd sequels attempted to take an incredible concept and try it with a different recipe. Cube 2 :Hypercube plays with the math, hints at its origin, and shoots itself with a horrid title worth of an Atari game while Cube Zero (arguably a prequel) goes behind the scenes to pose new questions. Neither is anywhere near as satisfying as Vincenzo Natali's original, which works precisely because we ultimately know nothing but what our own fears project. Still, if you watch Parts 2 & 3 as if they’re pieces of fan fiction blown up to feature length, both work on their own terms, sort of ‘what-ifs’ to a question that should never actually be answered.

Remakes In Sequels’ Designer Clothing

The world would be a far less groovy place had Sam Raimi ended the adventures of Ash in 1981. Yes, The Evil Dead is a great gooey film, but it's his first sequel that cements Bruce Campbell's status as an icon among the undead. Only quibble? It's not really a sequel if the first half hour retells the original story.

Sometimes, a filmmaker decides that directing a second film is code for second chance. In the case of The Evil Dead, this minor lapse of originality works because Raimi takes the good and makes it better with more money. We forgive the fact that Ash and Linda had already made a fateful trip to that cabin in the woods because even within the constraints of the same story, Raimi uses such a different energy that we end up with a completely different film not only from its original, but from just about every other film that had come before it.

Keep the Story Consistent

Say what you want about the juggernaut success of the Saw series, but has there ever been a 6 film franchise with such an excessively complicated spiderweb of a plot? Haters like to attack Lions Gate’s posterchild for its grisly suspenseless violence and contrived characters, but I continue to argue that this is, in many ways, one of the tightest (at least by script) franchises in the horror genre. With occasional flashbacks (and inventive ways to utilize the now deceased Jigsaw himself), each film has continued the story with something of a six degrees of separation mentality. A minor character from Part 2 returns to head Part 4, while missing characters reappear with believable, if somewhat logistically stretched explanations as to their whereabouts. I imagine the upcoming installment will have two audiences: those that have followed the five previous films and are still waiting for answers about Jigsaw's wife, the contents of a mysterious box, and the protagonists of Part III’s daughter (who’s been missing, but acknowledged in the last two films) while the other half will simply slurp their sodas through exposition and cheer at the latest rusted torture contraption. In a way, everybody wins. Except for oddly vast majority of horror fans who like to brand Saw the antichrist of filmdom. 

...or Dare To Be Different

Franchises are generally defined by their formula, whether it be pretty teenagers + machetes or redheaded dolls + profanity. Every so often, however, some series take a chance by breaking from the fold (even Chucky changed his act with married life). Though initially panned by critics and ignored by audiences, Halloween III: Season of the Witch has slowly aged to prove itself the most memorable of all those October 31st celebrating films. Admittedly, that’s not much of a feat when its competition included Michael Meyers’ worshipping cults and Tyra Banks, but still: abandoning Meyers for an evil corporation wielding head-melting dime store masks was a daring move well before its time. Likewise, the majority of Elm Street fans tend to use Part 2 as a coaster for their Hypnocil spiked Red Bull, but the sheer fact that such a random entry exists in an otherwise formulaic series is in itself somewhat notable. (Also, it’s one of the most fascinatingly homoerotic/homophobic films of all time, but that’s a discussion save for another day).

Jump Right In

Look, if we’re watching a film with 2, II, or the words “The Return” in the title, you can probably trust that we’ve been here before. Thankfully, the better sequels understand that audiences don’t need heavy exposition to get the kills rolling. Note how starting from Dawn to Land,George Romero’s Dead films never wasted time explaining the oncoming zompocalypse. Similarly, 28 Weeks Later boasts one of the most terrifyingly exciting openings in recent years by immediately thrusting us back into a nightmarish world we know all too well. 

There are plenty more notable sequel rules for continuing a franchise, so add some of your own and let the Freddy Vs. Jason style fights begin!

Don't Feed the Plants

Few things make me happier than discovering a 21st century horror film made well (okay, watching a 1980 cannibalistic martial arts extravaganza is more exciting, but still). The Ruins, a 2008 adaptation of Scott B Smith’s novel, is a wonderful surprise. Dubbed The Killer Plant Movie by the not-so-many that saw it, The Ruins can be classified on the upper tier of the sub-sub genre of postcard pretty tourist horror, sparked by the uneven Hostel and continued with the empty glossiness of films like Turistas.


Quick Plot: Four young Americans (initially appearing to be escapees from an American Eagle catalogue shoot) befriend a strapping German named Mathais (Joe Anderson, the hammer-wielding Max from Across the Universe) while vacationing in Mexico. After a rowdy and raunchy night of drinking, the quintet--accompanied by a token Greek whose very quietness spells expendability--decide to take an excursion to Mayan ruins where Mathias’ brother has been exploring on an archeological dig.

It’s not too long before Very Bad Things begin to happen, not the least of which includes being surrounded by gun-and-arrow-toting, Quechuan-speaking locals. A surprising and grisly first kill drives the cast up an Apocalypto-esque temple while the no nonsense Mayans build a shanty town to keep the young folks terrified and trapped.

As the poster art shows, there is indeed vicious vinery to be found upon that hill, including bratty little flowers that are all too happy to mock you when you’re down. What makes The Ruins such a powerful film, however, is that the greenery is only the starting seed of the terror. Sure, it sets up our young and beautiful cast for a few genuine supernatural (or maybe superorganic) scares, but the real horror comes from watching these friends and lovers caught in a hellish and inescapable situation. Yes, a literal thorn in your side sucks, but it’s the murderous locals, limited water supply, poor cell phone service, and growing suspicions amongst friends that truly rustle the sheltered lives of our vacationers.

High Points
Despite the overprettiness of the cast, the roles are not nearly as stereotypical as one would expect from this kind of a film; even though she’s blonde and briefly naked, Laura Ramsey’s Stacy is not a token slutty bombshell. Likewise, even though she’s brunette and fully clothed, Jena Malone’s Amy is far from the spunky and sweet heroine we’d expect her to be

It’s always refreshing to see sunny days filled with horrors


Low Points
Maybe it’s intentional, but the obnoxious Americanness of the beginning feels like well-worn territory

A few moments of plant attacks (particularly involving a lazily animated corpse) remind us why the special effects are not the highlights


Lessons Learned
Evil flowers are not your friends, but they can be powerful weapons*


Common sense dictates not to wear flip flops on a nature hike


Always include a med student when planning a couples’ getaway

When someone is holding a knife, it's not very wise to approach him/her from behind


Rent/Bury/Buy
The DVD is fairly extra heavy and includes a director commentary (often my make/break to purchase feature), so if you catch a well-priced copy, I say buy. The Ruins is definitely worth a watch. I don’t want to overpraise it by calling it a classic; it’s not. But for people that like to see modern horror made well, this is a refreshing example. Despite a seemingly standard setup, the story doesn’t go where you expect it to. And for those that imagine a killer plant movie sounds less appealing than a middle school production of Little Shop of Horrors, let me reassure you that even the most macabre of drama teachers wouldn’t come close to staging the amputation scene you get here.


*MILD SPOILER: While I think the characters generally made some fairly intelligent plans, they did completely miss the one opportunity they had for escape: throwing the plants at their Mayan captors. If nothing else, doing so may have created a chaotic firing party amongst the Mayans, thus giving the kids some time to make a break for the jeep. Perhaps I’m just a tad spoiled from having recently watched the wonderful Rutger Hauer-headed Flesh + Blood, where the catapulting of plague-ridden dog meat figures into a brilliant climax.

You Can't Fire Me. I'm Dead!

Your co-workers are generally not your friends. Nor are they family or even the people you might share half priced appetizers with over happy hour. Still, what a show like The Office knows is that the men and women you see every day occupy a definite place in your life. There is unwritten protocol for dealing with your manager, who in turn has his or her own understanding in agreeing or disagreeing with the big boss. Temp a bit in any work setting and chances are good that you’ll meet the token kissup, the hotshot who somehow avoids termination despite a bad attitude towards superiors, and the good-looking worker who amasses a batch of unrequited crushes around the cubicles.


Severance, a 2006 horror comedy from the UK, starts with a deliciously ripe premise. Employees from Palisade Defense (the kind of company funded by both the American and British government, hence, in one character’s words, “They’re not going to do anything immoral”) are being rewarded/tortured with a “team building” getaway in the forests of what seems to be Hungary. When their bus encounters a block in the road and the driver refuses to go any farther, the mid-level manager forces his underlings onward to an abandoned home he takes to be the luxury lodge they were promised. Before long, strategically placed bear traps, land mines, and flame throwers force staff cooperation that no paintball game could ever muster.

Having gone on two “management training” weekends (once to a ski resort, once to an abandoned country house not unlike the setting of this film), I identified quickly with the poor chaps in Severance. While my experiences were not quite as bloody, they did include “teamwork” exercises like building egg parachutes and making crayon murals of what our jobs meant to us. The idea was nice, but spending those precious days of the week normally reserved for avoiding all semblances of the workplace with co-workers in their pajamas does nothing to endear your occupation to your heart. Severance gets that.

Also, it’s pretty much hysterical. The actors--mostly British with a token Canadian Faculty alum Laura Harris--have excellent comic timing and genuinely feel like an unhappy office family. Toby Stephens stands out as the snarkiest of the bunch, but every performance rings true. Director/co-writer Christopher Smith consistently balances humor with horror in a way that made me chuckle and wince throughout the running time. There’s gore a’plenty, and since you actually like the characters, the deaths come with added weight.

High Points
A conversation about decapitation gets a payoff that’s kept a smile on my face for two days and counting


Removable shelves should be standard on compact refrigerators; you never know what large object you might need to stick inside

It’s refreshing to see multiple female characters making smart and ballsy decisions throughout the film


Low Points
Perhaps the early talking scenes go on a tad too long for bloodthirsty horror hounds, but it’s all entertaining


No trust exercises?


Lessons Learned
Do not attempt to pry open a bear trap unless you have the strength to keep it opened long enough to dislodge what’s stuck inside

Hold music is crappy in any language


Always read the instructions before firing a rocket launcher


The standard baking time for a found meat pie is one hour


Rent/Bury/Buy
This one belongs on your shelf, preferably next to Shawn of the Dead for a match made in British Horror Heaven (where Peter Cushing guards the gates, of course). Imagine throwing the characters of The Office into the hostel in Hostel, and you’ll get a good idea of what to expect. The gore is high and the laughs are hearty. Pour some tea and enjoy with a scone.