Parents Just Don't Understand

As I've said, previously, the British have really been stepping up to the plate in terms of horror, lately.  Yes, yes, Hammer and Amicus, blah, blah.  Those films are classics and all but I'm talking about the new blood.

This brings us to today's review of Steven Sheil's 2008 torture horror masterpiece, Mum & Dad.

This movie kind of has that "kitchen sink" feeling to it, in which you can recognize bits of inspiration from everywhere but it is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.

The movie starts out with Lena, an immigrant working at Heathrow Airport who suddenly and inexplicably gets help cleaning the toilets from Birdie, an insufferable chatterbox who, later, turns out to be a complete bitch.  (We're GETTING there. Hush!)  Through the magic of exposition, we discover that Birdie is a klepto and Lena used to have some behavioral issues but she's better, now and she carries around a compact left to her by her grandmother that Birdie takes a shine to.  Also, we discover that Birdie's whole family works at the airport and her brother doesn't talk much.  Since, in the midst of all this exposition, Lena misses her bus, Birdie invites her to spend the night at her place.  While looking around, we meet Dad who proceeds to knock her unconscious and give her an injection.

AGAIN!  Where do the psychos get the injectibles!?!  

What, exactly, is it with Londoners and their wifebeaters, anyway?

Lena wakes up and finds that she's handcuffed to a bed.

It turns out that Mum and Dad are serial killers who have a SERIOUSLY twisted sense of "family" and they've done this before.  Lena's been "adopted" and now she is Mum's personal playtoy and Mum calls her "her little angel" and says if she doesn't behave, she'll have to give her to Dad.  And Mum likes to break her dollies.  And Dad?  He's more of a plushie.  (Do I REALLY have to explain what a plushie is?  Suffice it to say that stuffed animals are not immune to rape and murder.)

 This is the story of Susie and Bill.

Susie likes torture while Bill likes to kill.

Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

One of the nifty things about this movie is that the family relationships are deliberately left vague.  We don't know if Birdie is really their daughter but, apparently she's the best behaved since she's the only one that gets to walk around free.  They also have a very "good cop, bad cop" style to their madness and it's an interesting dynamic to watch.  Well, besides the other weirdness like watching porn at the breakfast table, sorting through stolen luggage and dad making a masturbation sleeve out of human flesh.

The other kind of cool thing about this movie is that you don't know how long Lena is with them.  There's no telling the date when it starts and it's probably Christmas when they celebrate Christmas but these people are whackadoodle so they MIGHT just be exchanging knives and porn and engaging in local human trafficking for the fun of it.

Personally, I think this is one of the best serial killer/torture horror movies out there.  The suspense is tangible and you really learn to hate these people by the end.  They deserve whatever happens to them and I was glad to watch it happen.

Watch it.  Then call your parents and tell them you're glad they aren't completely batshit crazy.

Cut? Paper-Cut, Maybe.

There are times when I miss The Facts of Life.  Oddly, though Tootie and Natalie stole the show (and Blaire ended up being a complete cunt-bag in real life, too, what with being an active member of a known hate group), I miss Molly Ringwald.

And that is why I watched 2000's Cut.

And then I realized that that wasn't such a great idea.

It's not that it's a BAD movie, it's just not a GOOD movie.  It's one of those fair-to-middlin' turn-off-your-brain supernatural slashers that was never intended to make you think.

Not that slashers are EVER intended to make you think but this was seriously all "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, tell me about the rabbits, George."

But, hey, it had Molly Rngwald in it.  And, of all people, Kylie Minogue.

Sorry, straight boys.  She did not dress like this.

But here's some side-boob for ya.

So, here's the story:  There's this cursed film, see, that's never been finished and this film student wants to be the latest in line to attempt to complete the film.  She's warned against it but goes ahead, anyway, managing to get a washed up actress to play the lead.  Enter Ringwald who is playing against type as kind of a mega-bitch.  Good for her.

Did you even READ the contract rider?

I said YELLOW Skittles!

Filming goes on as planned, people start dying, they realize that the killer is coming from the already developed film form the PREVIOUS attempts, yadda, yadda, more people die, yadda, burn the film to kill him, yadda, yadda.

Seriously?  That's it?  Really?

No trip to Mordor?  No fires of Mount Doom?  No hobbitses?

 

Just a gasoline fire?

I mean, I'm all about a lackluster plot and some of the acting was done well, y'know, because Ringwald and Minogue are professionals but dang there has to be SOMETHING to like about a movie and here there just... wasn't.  This isn't even worth remembering.  Even the special effects were just blah.  Like, seriously, just dry white toast.  This is the wallpaper paste of horror movies.  I know Ringwald and Minogue HAD to be all "just pay me so I can forget I was ever a part of this".

Yeah, watch this one if you want.  I don't care.  It's meh.

Meh, I tell you.

Meh.

The Square Route of the Hypoteneuse

Yes, that title is on purpose.

If there's one thing high school Algebra taught me, it's that numbers are out to murder me in the face.

No, seriously.  I absolutely suck at math.  And that is why (what TV Tropes calls) "Alien Geometries" freak my shit out.

Of course, they're kind of meant to.

This is actually just regular geometry.

Created by someone with entirely too much time on their hands and a great lawnmower.

Thanks to everybody's favorite racist, H. P. Lovecraft, we horror fans now get to deal with right angles into nothingness, hallways into walls, cubic mazes that constantly shift, and giant negative space wedgies.
  

Even the children's favorites, Alice in Wonderland and, primarily, Through the Looking Glass made Alice deal with a world that would make most math teachers look sheepishly at the floor and draw designs in the dust with their toe.  Fucking chess.  I hate that game. All makin' me think and shit...  Don't get me started on Doctor Who and that whole "bigger on the inside" thing.

In films from Cube to Labyrinth, filmmakers have been trying to get across a sense that the world just isn't quite right.  Well, to be completely honest, that's USUALLY what they try to do in horror movies, sometimes with hilarious results, but they don't often try to do it with the landscape.

Here's the problem, though.  Contrary to popular belief, it's actually HARD to convey a twisted landscape on film, particularly if the landscape doesn't obey the laws of physics, and very few directors have been able to convey this successfully.

In Anime, though, the rules never apply.

Not the laws of physics, not the laws of anatomy.  NOTHING!

It's CHAOS, I tell you!

Really, the first time we see a filmmaker try and attempt this is in Robert Weine's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and, truthfully, given the special effects of the 1920s, Weine pulls it off beautifully.  Yes, you'll look at the landscape and say "that's impossible" but seeing as how they're representative of the dreamscape of the lead, they're not MEANT to be real.

Now, like I said, only a couple of directors have been able to pull this off and only ONE that I'm aware of has been able to pull it off twice.  Stanley Kubrick, he of the BURN IT TO THE GROUND school of film making (so-called due to his effort to destroy every last prop and design note from 2001: A Space Odyssey so that they wouldn't be reused in other films), not only gave us the "beyond the infinite" scene in 2001 (beautifully shot with 28 precisely timed exposures in a pre-digital Hollywood), but he also made the Overlook Hotel in The Shining into a shambling horror with doors entirely too close together to lead to separate rooms, hotel rooms that overlap each other and windows that can only be seen from INSIDE the hotel.

I'm also concerned about the geometry required for Nicholson and Duvall to have ever had sex...

Seriously.  Girl is ALL angles.

One of my favorites, though, is Dario Argento's 1977 giallo classic, Suspiria.  

One of the cool things about the 1920's Art Deco style is that it's not just clean lines, it's all about symmetry and when you tweak it just a little, it messes with your eyes.  Argento does SOMETHING with it to make you feel like you're not in this world, anymore.  Add to that the... y'know... murders and it really seems like even the architecture is out to get you.

So, if you see something that looks like a wrinkle in the landscape, just close your eyes and walk on by.

No, seriously.  If you walk out of it looking like an inside-out accordion or if you stare too long and go insane I'm totally not responsible.

I have enough crazy as it is.

Happy Horrordays

Well, I hate to break it to you but yesterday was the last installment of the Month of Holiday Horrors.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

I'll be back tomorrow.

All I Want For Christmas Is...

You remember how I totally hated Elves? 

I found a low-budget pun-tastic masterpiece that TOTALLY makes up for it!

In 2006, Jamie Nash and David Sckrabulis apparently OD'd on candy canes and nutmeg and gave us:

TWO FRONT TEETH!

OH.  MY.  GAWD!  This is HILARIOUS!!!

Gabe Snow, intrepid tabloid reporter, just fucking hates Christmas.  Seeing as how he accidentally killed his family with Christmas cookies, I guess he has a good reason.  SO, yeah.  His life just sucks.  It's the holiday season and he's chasing down the cause of the crash of flight 1225 (it had something to do with a flying creature with a red nose).  In the meantime, he's got a kinda crappy boss (who gives him a gun for Christmas... go fig...), a crappy car and a bitch of a wife who's cheating on him with a mall Santa... only not, because she's never actually had sex with the mall Santa.  She's still a raging bitch, though.

So, anyway, in the midst of leaving mall Santa with a delightful shade of  "Jack Frost" blue balls, they get attacked by elves.  Not crappy fuckin' puppets this time, either.  This guy:

Trust me.  This one doesn't like toys, pointy shoes or dentistry.

So, anyway, he grows a pair and goes home to confront his wife and finds that she's been tied up and her paramour has been beheaded and used as part of the train decor.  Now, he has to protect himself and his wife and friends from the elves, who are out to reclaim Rudolph's nose for use in strange and arcane things, and their master, the dreaded CLAUSFERATU! 

Yes, Virginia, there is a Clausferatu.

Those friends, by the way, include Gabe's new buddy, a duster-wearing gunsmith who knows the REAL meaning of Christmas, his boss (really?), and the rubber-clad, sword-swinging nuns, the Silent Knights.

Not kidding.

 

Now, while this movie is DEFINITELY better when seen through a haze of eggnog and hooch, for a microbudget, it's actually pretty damn good.  It's crazy as FUCK, what with it's complete adherence to Christmas puns and being interspersed with cheesy animation that's reminiscent of the Rankin-Bass holiday specials, but it's got good actors and, oddly, as chock full o'puns as it is, a great script.  You can kinda tell it was shot directly to digital which just adds to its charm and the special effects... aren't... special... but, still, they don't take away from the experience. 

Are there better holiday-themed horror movies?  Yes.  Are there better actors?  Yes.  Are any of them going to be more memorable than S&M-clad killer Elves that talk like they belong on the cover of the Necronomicon Ex Mortis and a goofy Mexican stand-off featuring fruitcake?

Absolutely not.  

If you can find this one, watch it.  Watch it HARD.  Be careful, though, it might get you sticky.