Last Blog On The Left

”Running Scared” was released a couple of years back. I´m not sure whether it was a smash hit or not. I know that it didn´t generate much buzz over here on our shores. I´m not even sure if it played in the theaters here. It probably didn´t ´cause we Swedes only like Swedish films about free-spirited people moving into old mansions previously owned by preachers, or films about classically trained orchestra conductors moving back to their hometown to start a choir. Sounds pretty exciting, huh? But not as exciting, exhilarating and all around fucked-up as Wayne Kramer´s “Running Scared”.

Lately I´ve been recommending a couple of movies that aren´t all and out horror movies and I hope that you don’t lose faith in me, fiends. These are all films that I think you´ll get a kick out of because I know as well as you do that you ghouls are equipped with twisted sensibilities and warped tastes. So broaden your mind and widen your horizons, even if that includes watching a film starring that blonde pretty boy from “The Fast and the Furious”.

Yes, it´s true… I´m recommending a film starring Paul Walker! I never thought the day would come. But you know what? He works in this one. When I saw him in “The Fast and the Furious” (you know, the one with those cars that had the green light under them and where Vin Diesel lived his life a quarter mile at a time and didn´t care about his mortgage or whatever the hell he was babbling about), it was obvious that I have owned plants that had more life in them than him. But like I said, he´s actually pretty good in “Running Scared”. Does this mean that the time of miracles ain´t over yet? Well, he´s not that good. I said “kind of good”, didn´t I?

There´s still some things that could´ve been improved. Walker commits the cardinal actor mistake #1: adopting an accent! Unless your name is Hugh Laurie and you have your own TV show called “House” or Daniel Day-Lewis, this is not something you should try. It´s not gonna sound good. However, I have to admit that after a while you kinda warm up to pretty boy Walker´s awful accent, basically because there´s not that much time to think about it. From scene one, director Wayne Kramer (no, not the old dude from MC5) pulls no punches. He doesn´t let you catch your breath. I first heard about this one when it was released in the States and apparently Quentin Tarantino was running around telling everyone how much he loved it. It´s not hard to see why. It has Tarantino´s trademarks stamped all over it. It´s definitely a type of story that would suit one of The Banana Chin´s own movies (told in chronological order, though). Inhabited by lowlifes, gangsters and pimps, it´s a pretty sordid world that Kramer paints for us. But that´s what we love, right? The sleazier, the better, I always say. Walker portrays Joey Gazelle (you gotta love those gangsters and their weird names, right?), who works for the mob in New Jersey. His job is to get rid of the guns they use in their mob hits. I wonder how you go about applying for that job:

“Yeah, hello? Is this the mob? Yeah, I´m calling about the job… My name´s Joey Gazelle. That´s right, “Gazelle”, like the animal. That´s right, the quick one. Qualifications? Well, I´ve worked in an office earlier but everyone was always complaining about how I used to misplace stuff so I´m real good at getting rid of things… I got the job? Great!”

Anyway, when the movie starts I suppose this interview has already taken place cause we don´t get to see it. Instead, Joey is put in charge of getting rid of a gun used in the killing of a dirty cop. But things go pretty pear-shaped when the neighbor kid steals the gun and uses it to shoot his Russian, abusive, John Wayne-quoting father. Now Joey has to find the kid and the gun before the police and the mob find them first. As you can see, this is not a good day for Joey. He´s definitely seen better ones. Before the movie is over, poor old pretty boy Joey have been forced to live up to his last name several times because he does a lot of running around in this one…

I´ll be honest with you: if you don´t like Tarantino´s movies, there´s not a chance in hell that you´re gonna like this one. It´s not groundbreaking in any way but it´s definitely one of the most brutal, violent and more uncompromising crime thrillers of recent years and that´s why you need to check it out. It´s not a realistic film in any way, and if you´ve seen it on DVD maybe you´ve caught director Kramer babbling on about how he wanted to emphasize the fairy tale elements of the story. He succeeds with that. The world that “Running Scared” takes place in is definitely not the same one that the fat gangsters in “Sopranos” live in. This is a much more twisted and sadistic place. For instance, at one time the neighborhood kid who´s stolen the gun (played by the creepy looking Cameron Bright who at one point in time seemed to have exclusive rights to every film that featured a young kid in the cast, from the disappointing “X-Men: The Last Stand” to the entertainingly stupid “Ultraviolet” to the amazing “Birth”) saves a prostitute from her pimp and a couple of hours later he´s kidnapped by a pair of pedophiles. That´s why, when I say that the film doesn´t exactly take place in our realm of reality, I´m not exaggerating things.

It´s also no coincidence that the Russian father is obsessed with John Wayne and the American west. While Kramer shoots the film as a fairy tale gangster story, it is equally as much about legends and myth. “Running Scared” is infused with the mentality of a western, where the good guys have to do what a man´s gotta do. I don´t know about you, but I´m a sucker for this kind of macho-shit. That´s what you get for growing up during the 80´s on a diet of Bruce Springsteen songs and the macho action films of Walter Hill and Arnold Schwarzenegger. You gotta do what´s right, kids! Ok, so that´s a weakness of mine but now it´s out there in the open. Go ahead and berate it. I won´t budge. So why am I trying to get you horrorhounds to check this one out? Well, there are definitely a couple of scenes where Kramer flirts with the horror genre. Especially the ones with the creepy pedophile couple. And then we have the violence. Ah yes, the violence… This is a very violent film and although Kramer insists on using those god damn CGI-squibs that are so common nowadays, he really lets the blood spurt across the screen. This is basically a very vulgar and violent movie and what´s not to love about that, huh? But I cannot stress this hard enough: the scene with the pedophile couple is pretty intense. The female part is played by a woman named Elisabeth Mitchell and she really, really creeped me out! She´s pretty scary in this one. I´m not sure what she´s done besides this but I remember seeing her in season three of “Lost” but she´s nothing like the character she creates here. Scary stuff…

So here´s what you need to do, you need to man up and do the right thing; you need to do what a man´s gotta do and that thing is to watch “Running Scared” and like it! Like I said, it´s not a groundbreaking film in any way and it wears its Tarantino-influences proudly on its sleeve but I don´t have a problem with that. There is one thing, however, that I do have a problem with and that is that as soon as a new crime film is released, the name “Tarantino” is always mentioned several times in the reviews. I admit that I´m guilty of this, too but I have seen the error of my ways and I am ready to make amends. Tarantino didn´t invent the gangster genre but you might be inclined to think that if you didn´t watch any movies for the last 15 years and just read the reviews. That´s why we must stop sitting around and whining about Tarantino every time someone releases a new crime thriller! Until he actually releases a new gangster movie, I will make a vow here and now, fiends, to make my part in putting this endless Tarantino-discussion to rest: that is why I will not speak the name “Tarantino”, ever again, when discussing another crime film! It will be extremely hard and I have some trying times ahead of me but then again, a man´s gotta do what a man´s gotta do and this may not be a big thing but you gotta start somewhere, right? I´m doing my part… Until Tarantino has finished shooting “Inglorious Bastards” I shall not speak his name. He´s been dominating the media for way too long and I don´t care how much I loved both the “Kill Bill”´s or “Death Proof”, it has to stop! Media need to focus on some other new, hip director now… How about Wayne Kramer? That´s just off the top of my head but he made this film called “The Cooler” starring William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin and Maria Bello. I don´t know what it is about Maria Bello but isn´t she naked in just about every movie she makes? It´s like her body has become afraid of the dark. I´m not complaining, though. I hope it stays that way for a long time to come. But anyway, Alec Baldwin was actually nominated for an Oscar for “The Cooler” but like expected; he lost out on that one. The cool guys never win. And now, after “Running Scared”, Kramer has a film called “Crossing Over” in the pipeline, where Harrison Ford plays a border patrolman. He´s managed to assemble a pretty good cast for that one. How about Sean Penn, Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, Cliff Curtis and Lee Horsley (!) from “The Sword and the Sorcerer”? Do you hear me out there, mainstream media? Focus your attention on Wayne Kramer for a while. I think he´s onto something…

That´s it… I´m done. I just now realize that this entry wasn´t much about “Running Scared”, the movie itself, but about a whole lot of other things. Hope I´ve managed to pique your interest a bit, anyway. I´m too lazy to change anything now, anyway.

Take scare and stay ghoul, fiends!

Thomas

If you´ve been paying attention to what I´ve been rambling about here you know that “Doomsday” is a movie that would be right up my alley, right? Well, I can be a pretty predictable guy (as many girls can tell you), so the answer to that question is a resounding “YES, IT MOST CERTAINLY IS!” I´m sure you´ve all heard about it and already seen it but you know what? I was never one to follow any trends or trying to be up-to-date about things (here´s another excellent occasion to quote Pee-Wee Herman again: “I´m a loner, Dottie. A rebel…”) so I figured “What the hell, I´ll throw in my two cents worth even if this movie has been reviewed to death”. So here we go… Strap yourself in.

“Doomsday” is directed by Neill Marshall, who will always have a special place in all horror hounds hearts for almost singlehandedly kick-starting the British horror genre again with his two magnificent films “Dog Soldiers” and “Descent”. “Dog Soldiers” was the one with the laughs and “Descent” was the one with the chicks in the cave, where you didn´t laugh (unless you are one cold, fucked up individual) and now we have “Doomsday”. So what is there to say about this film, except the fact that Neil Marshall has a weird obsession about having all his films beginning with the letter “D”? If you´ve been living in a cave yourself or in a closet or in any other way isolated from the rest of society, here´s the story: A deadly plague, known as the “Reaper Virus,” has broken out, killing hundreds of thousands in its wake. In desperation, the British Government evacuates as many survivors as it can out of the infected area, and then builds a wall, preventing the remainder from escaping. Thirty years later, with the wall still up and the victims all but forgotten, the virus breaks out again. The Government decides to send a crack team of operatives, led by Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra, the girl from Christophe Lambert´s awesome “Beowulf”), into the hot zone to investigate the possibility of a cure.

How´s that for a story, huh? It´s about time someone breathed life into the glorious post-apocalyptic sci-fi-genre, if you ask me. I gotta tell ya, I´m a sucker for these kind of movies. I have no scruples whatsoever when it comes to this particular subgenre. I´ll watch anything. Remember “Dune Warriors” with David Carradine? Or “Steel Frontier” with Bo Svenson? No? I thought so. I do. I remember them cause I´ve seen them. I´ve seen every film in this genre that I´ve managed to lay my sweaty hands on. And that amounts to quite a few, I might add. I didn´t have that active an sex life in my teens, so I had plenty of time to indulge in my obsessions. Like a scavenger I roamed the video store-backrooms in this city. Not only that, I even managed to get some kind of enjoyment out of it, too. This might classify me as a cretin in some people´s eyes, but I don´t mind. Life´s too short to worry about what a bunch of wannabe-intellectuals think.

The post-apocalyptic action film just got a King Kong-sized vitamin shot in its arm and that injection spells “Doomsday”. It´s one of the more entertaining films I´ve seen in a long time. It´s not perfect. I mean, it´s not “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior”-perfect but not that many films reaches that level of pure testosterone and excitement in its action sequences. But you know what, it does rival “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” and to me, that´s pretty damn good, too! It´s definitely a lot more fun than “…Thunderdome”.

The first time I saw “Doomsday” I don´t think I even registered what the hell the movie was about. I was too busy noticing all the references and homages that Marshall has thrown into his post-apocalyptic blender. This movie plays like a “Greatest hits” of the genre and if that doesn´t sound intriguing to you, you should stop reading now and go watch a Russian film about farmers with cancer that ponders all sorts of existential angst. “Doomsday” is the kind of movie that´s ideal for a drinking game, while watching it: “Deadly virus? Check. Down another shot. A nihilistic hero? Check. Have another. Lots of leather and Mohawk-haircuts? Check. One more. Cannibals? Check. Come on, you can do it! Pour that sucker down! Countdown to the hero´s death like in “Escape From New York”? Check. Hey, get up! The movie´s only been on for 20 minutes!” I don´t even think that it would lessen your enjoyment of the film, probably the opposite. This is the kind of movie you should see with a slightly drunk audience, who appreciates the genre, at a midnight screening. It´s THAT much fun!

Since I try to be a serious film-appreciating guy here, I have to bring something up something I don´t like about the film. That´s a tough one but I will do it. For you, friends, I´ll do anything… at least once. I guess that it would have to be the choice of letting Rhona Mitra play Eden Sinclair (you gotta love that name). However attractive and good looking she may be, she´s not that good an actress. I know that many fanboys out there will go to the grave for her, since she is one of the original models for the creating of Laura Croft, but you know what? I never played that videogame and I didn´t like the movies so I don´t care! She´s pretty stiff, to be honest. But then again, she does look pretty damn good in that leather outfit so I´m gonna let that one slide. You can´t have everything… But, however stiff the gorgeous miss Mitra may be, it doesn´t take away from the sheer and uncensored teenage-like state of joy in watching her taking on an armored knight on horseback, medieval-style or watching the almighty Malcolm McDowell ham it up as the mad scientist/prophet. I´m telling you, that guy can act up a storm just by reading from the telephone book. McDowell has been in both Rob the Zombie´s “Halloween” and this one in the last year. Good work, Malcolm! Keep it up.

Bob Hoskins is also in there. You know, the guy who found out who framed Roger Rabbit. He´s a solid actor, too. In this one he gets to smoke. I like it when actors smoke in movies nowadays. I DO NOT like this gibberish that Disney and other studios are babbling about, that they wanna ban smoking in their movies. Jesus Christ! I say “Keep smoking, Bob! It´s good for you. Not enough people do it. Not enough kids, anyway”. Imagine Clint Eastwood in the “Dollar”films. What if he weren´t smoking? He wouldn´t be as cool with a chewing gum or a damn nicotine patch on his arm? Good call on this, Neil Marshall! More smoking in movies should be rewarded.

As you can see, Neil Marshall knows what buttons to push on a fanboy who´s pushing 30. This movie is the closest thing I´ve come to recapturing that since long gone feeling of happiness, that you felt back in your teens when your favorite director released a new film. I remember a time when John Carpenter still made movies and they played in the theaters, for chrissakes! “In search of lost time”, like that French guy wrote. That´s how I felt when the movie was over. Pretty deep stuff. I´m not saying that “Doomsday” is the best film within its genre but it´s just so much fun to see a big budget genre film like this and that doesn´t skimp out on the violence. It´s obvious that Marshall has been obsessing over the same movies I just mentioned and when he´s finally gotten the big break he deserved, what does he do? Does he play it safe and make “Descent 2”? No (he leaves that to a second unit director or whatever he is, who is in fact directing a sequel to that one), he makes the movie of his (and many others) wet dreams: an 80´s-style-sci-fi-action-flick! It´s marvelous! He even has a John Carpenter-influenced score. If there´s such a thing as a movie heaven, then save a seat for Neil Marshall, Saint Paul! You hear me up there? Don´t give it to Ingmar Bergman or Oliver Stone, that´s Marshall´s seat there! That´s right, Paul, that one, right next to the bar and beside John Carpenter. Thank you very much, Paul… You´re a good guy!

It´s inevitable that you will hear some asshole whining about the lack of originality in a film like this but the thing that those idiots don´t get it is that it´s most definitely an achievement to make a movie like this. There´s not that many directors out there that could create a film in the vein of “Doomsday”. Sure, Marshall draws upon the classics of the genre and you can see which scene he´s lifted from which movie but when was the last time you saw a movie like this? It´s taken its sweet time for it to arrive, hasn´t it? They´re not making that many films in this genre nowadays, this in my opinion makes it a true original. End of discussion… It rocks!

I cannot for the life of me understand why this one got so much negative bad word of mouth on the internet. What´s the world coming to? Who does not enjoy watching a good looking girl kicking the ass of a bunch of Scottish cannibals and their leather-clad gimp? Show me that guy and I´ll gladly talk some sense into him. Have the internet-fiends out there really become so jaded, after spending hours watching real-life deaths on youtube and twisted pornos filmed in a Malaysian village where the girls are beaten senseless, that they can´t enjoy a good old-fashioned style “Mad Max”-riff? If that´s the case, I feel the need to quote Tom Waits: “This world is not my home, I´m just passing through…”

In a perfect world, this one would have been a smash hit and Marshall would have been given Michael Bay´s budgets and free reign to make another Eden Sinclair-adventure… As you might have noticed, we don´t live in a perfect world. Actually, we´re pretty damn far from it. So what happens? One of the more enjoyable films of recent years doesn´t tear the box office walls down and that sucks. But you know what? I just had an awesome idea! Thank you, Brain. Maybe they could start making low budget straight-to-DVD-”Doomsday”-sequels? That would be pretty damn great. Then the genre is back where most of its installments originally came from: the bottom shelf of you local video store. It doesn´t happen very often, but I think that this is a genuinely good idea that popped up in that broken mind of mine. Imagine a sequel where Sinclair escapes Scotland and arrives on the green shores of Ireland, only to find that a cult rules the country, influenced by the IRA, Catholicism and cannibalism? Do you hear me out there, Neil Marshall? I can draw up the storyline for parts 2-5, if you want to but feel free to steal my ideas. Just give me story credit and let me compile the soundtrack for you and I´ll be happy… Part 2 should be called “Doomsday 2: The Garden of Eden” and Vernon Wells from “Mad Max 2″ should play the villain.

Just lay off the quick camera moves and cuts next time, Mr. Marshall (there´s one more thing I didn´t like about it). You need to work on those long, fluent John Carpenter style-scenes. No one wants their post apocalyptic action film to have the rhythm of an MTV-video edited by an epileptic. That´s not sexy… Not sexy, at all.

You remember that song Manowar did many years back, “If you´re not into heavy metal, you´re not my friend”? It should be titled “If you´re not into “Doomsday”, you´re not my friend”. It´s that good, suckers! If you haven´t seen it, turn off the computers, rent it (that´s right, don´t download it! Show Neil Marshall some support, brothers) and then get shit-faced and shout lines from “Escape From New York” while passing out in the gutter…

Okay that´s it for me. I´m burnt out. I have nothing left to say on the topic of “Doomsday”. Besides, I need to start writing the scripts for parts 2-5. No rest for the wicked, fiends. Have a great week and see ya in awhile and until then: stay ghoul, stay sick & stay in touch!

Thomas

Have you ever had the feeling that there is no one else in this godforsaken world that understands how you feel? That you are all alone, the last beacon of sanity in this murky world of confusion and bad taste? I know you have and I feel your pain, fiends. We have to come to terms with the fact that sometimes we are the only ones who knows a good picture when we see one. We are the only ones who can spot quality filmmaking. Who the hell do those goddamn critics think they are, anyway? They wouldn´t know a great film if it jumped up and bit them on the ass cause they would be too busy praising the latest Pedro Almodovár movie or something else that has “arthouse film” stamped all over them. Well, we don´t make that mistake, do we? We know a good movie when we see one, regardless of what the critics say. More than anything, we know a cool movie when we see one. Also, we know a fucked up movie when we see one and “I Know Who Killed Me” is a pretty messed up, fucked up flick… And I love it!

Let me just put it this way: I know that you somewhere deep inside that dark, depraved soul of yours always wanted to see a sex scene where Lindsay Lohan plays a hard-drinking stripper who misses a hand and a leg. Don´t try to tell me otherwise. I know when you´re lying. I can smell it. It takes one to know one, friend. Now I don´t want to get your hopes up too much. If you go into this movie expecting a movie plunging the depraved depths usually reserved for Sir David Cronenberg, I´m afraid I´m gonna have to ask you to settle down a bit. The fact is that the sex scene I´m talking about isn´t that much of a sex scene. I said that this movie is fucked-up and one of the most bizarre things about it is that miss Lohan never once takes off her clothes. Not during the sex scene or during the scenes where she supposedly “strips”. What the hell kind of strip joint is that? I´m not saying that I´m an authority on the subject of strip joints but in my younger, more formative years, I visited quite a few when the opportunity presented itself and I have to admit that if I had wandered into the strip joint where Lohan´s character works, I would´ve asked for my money back. I would have NOT gotten one of those private shows, if you get my drift (which I´m sure you do. You´re not retarded, are you?)?

Anyway, I´m sorry if I disappointed anyone of you. It was definitely not my meaning. I´m not sure if anyone of you out there has an amputee-Lindsay Lohan fetish (now, there´s an original sexual orientation) but if you do, this movie came close but I´m sorry, no cigar. But hey, this movie is fucked up in so many more ways than what I´ve already mentioned so don´t write it off just yet. Here´s the plot: Aubrey Fleming, a bright and promising young woman, is abducted and tortured by a sadistic serial killer. When she manages to escape, the traumatized girl who regains consciousness in the hospital insists that she is not who they think she is and that the real Aubrey Fleming is still in mortal danger. She claims to be Dakota Moss, the hard-living, cigarette smoking, bad ass stripper I described earlier.

So, as you can judge from my summary here above, we´re moving into Brian De Palma-territory here. The concept of dual identities is something that he holds very dear to his heart and if it´s dear to De Palma´s heart, it´s automatically dear to what little is left of mine! You have to admire this movie for what it sets out to do. It´s not a gory film in the vein of “Hostel” and all the other “Saw”-clones that have been lumped together as “gore-porn” or whatever they wanna call it this week. Instead, director Chris Sivertson mines the back catalogue of De Palma and 70´s Italian Giallos for inspiration. He uses colors in this movie the way that I think that many of the Italian directors would have liked to do if they only had the budget to do it back then. I think it looks pretty cool but many people have complained about it. I´ve found out that people seem to have pretty strong feelings about this, while cruising down the information superhighway we like to call the internet. I don´t care, those people are nerds (they post things on the internet, after all. That´s not very manly, if you ask me)! But I have a confession for you: I am colorblind. That does not mean that I see the world in only black-and-white (even though I wish it could be like that sometimes, when I see women wearing way too much make up and being suspiciously tanned in the middle of the winter. How do they do that?) but it do mean that I have problems telling certain colors apart. Sometimes I can´t tell the difference. Maybe that´s why I appreciate Sivertson´s color scheme in this one. There´s no mistaking the colors, I´ll tell you that much. The main color he uses is blue and it´s all over the place: cell phones, lamps and at one time there´s even a blue glass-knife and I kinda like that. I like blue. The sky and the sea are blue. At least that´s what I´m told?

Now, you don’t have to worry about this handicap of mine. I am able to function in society (to some extent, some might say) but it did get me into a couple of embarrassing situations in kindergarten when the teacher hung everyone´s paintings on the wall and mine had yellow grass and a green sun. I was a weird kid. Other than that, my life is surprisingly similar to an ordinary human being. I´m not able to become a pilot or a police officer but maybe that´s just as well. Who wants to be a cop anyway? I can get divorced and drink too much with ANY kind of job, hah!

I almost forgot about “I Know Who Killed Me” there. Back to it. This is a weird, weird movie. While watching I found myself wondering if the director hadn´t been joining Lohan in all those crazy nights on the town when she´s barreling down Sunset Boulevard in a limousine while doing a line of coke from the hood, crazy as she is. The general consensus regarding this film is that it sucks donkey balls and is just confusing. It is currently rated 3.6 on the movie database that we find on the internet and that´s pretty damn low. That means that it is in the same league as the god-awful “The Wicker Man”, starring Nic Cage. Wait a minute, that´s another movie that I actually liked and I remember being pretty alone in doing so. I even wrote about it a couple of months back. I´m beginning to see a pattern here… This movie is not nearly as demented as Nicolas Cage´s rampage across the island in “The Wicker Man”, but it is pretty weird and therefore you owe it to yourself to give it a chance. Hell, Sivertson also directed the Jack Ketchum-adaptation “The Lost” and that was a frickin´ masterpiece!

Now, I know that you might get the impression that I am some kind of rabid Lindsay Lohan-obsessive, that is actually not the case. I do kind of feel sorry for her. If you think about it, we´ve all had those nights on the town, drenched in booze and whatnot but the thing is that every move she makes she´s being chased by paparazzis. If I would´ve been famous back while when I was in my early 20´s, they would´ve had a field day. The shit I pulled… She needs to go Cole-Hauser-in-“Paparazzi” on their collective asses. Actually, I´d pay to see that movie. And we tend to forget that she´s actually a pretty good actress. I´ll be the man here: I admit to you, dear fiends, that I have watched the entire “Freaky Friday”-movie with her and Jamie Lee Curtis and Lohan was pretty damn good in that one. I know, I know, what kind of horror fan am I, you ask? The one that has a thing for Jamie Lee Curtis, I answer. She did a good performance in “A Prairie Home Companion”, too. No matter how drunk she gets and how much drugs she crams up her nose, you can´t deny that she´s got some talent and she´s actually pretty good in “I Know Who Killed Me”, too. Maybe all these years of hard drinking is finally beginning to take its toll on me and my senses are numbed, but I buy her as both the timid school girl Aubrey and wild and crazy stripper Dakota. Lohan´s got it going on…

Like so many films I try to force you to see, this is not a groundbreaking film but it sure as hell is an entertaining one. I admire Sivertson for trying to create an original horror film and not retread the same old slaughterhouse where all the “Saw”-clones where shot. It´s pretty clear that early Argento was a big influence on this one and that deserves extra credit in my book… You gotta love this movie for the sheer weirdness and absurdity of it.

I just now realize that this entry doesn´t deal with the film or how strange it actually is that much but instead with a lot of other shit like Lohan´s drug habits and my color blindness, but I don’t care! It´s too late for me to change it and I had fun writing it. I hope that you have fun reading it. The weekend´s coming up and I hope you have a good one…

See ya next week and until then: stay ghoul, stay sick & stay in touch,

Thomas

You have to admit that living in the future seems to suck, doesn´t it? Just think about it: have you ever seen a sci-fi movie where they depicted the future in a way that you thought “Christ, it would be awesome to live there”? I´m sure that there have been many movies but I can´t think of any right now. Just think about the sci-fi classics of recent years: “Children of Men”, “Starship Troopers”, “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” (just kidding!)… And Richard Stanley´s “Hardware” is no exception. I can´t even begin to describe how much it would suck to live in the city where this one takes place. It´s an absolute mess! It´s the standard deal for these kinda movies: there seems to have been some kind of nuclear war or something so the decaying city is surrounded by a wasteland where only the hardest badasses , like Moe (played by Dylan McDermott), dare to venture.

In the first scene Moe is hanging out at a weird-looking pawn shop, run by a freaky-looking dwarf (yes, it´s THAT kinda movie). While Moe´s making small talk there, a “Nomad” wanders in (surprisingly enough, played by near recluse Carl McCoy, singer in Goth rockers Fields of the Nephilim). He sells Moe the remains of a warrior robot called MARK 13. Moe buys it for his girlfriend Jill (Stacy Travis, who is one of the few women in sci-fi history who I actually believe could kick Linda Hamilton´s ass), who´s into making strange metal sculptures. He brings it home to her, she´s ecstatic, which is a good thing for us cause that means we get a dirty looking sex scene in the shower. But then the infamous shit starts to hit that old fan… Whenever you buy a used warrior robot for your girlfriend you can bet your ass that it´s gonna start re-assembling itself when you´re not there to protect her, right? I hate it when that happens. Actually, I wouldn´t know. I once briefly dated an art-chick and while I tried very hard to get her a killer robot, I couldn´t find any. Maybe that was why it didn´t work out. But maybe it was for the greater good cause then she would´ve been forced to get out her old chainsaw and go Leatherface on the poor old robot´s ass… That can´t be good for any relationship. “Hardware” was written and directed by Richard Stanley. It was his debut film and that´s pretty impressive, by any standards. He wasn´t that old either. About 25, I think, and that´s a hell of a lot more than I had accomplished when I was 25. I´m pretty embarrassed now.

Although the film is pretty dated in some places, I still think that it holds up. Stanley really manages to create a believable “Mad Max”-type kind of world on the low budget he had to play with. However, there is one thing that bothers me. He decided to shoot the whole thing through a red-looking filter and this is the main objection I have when watching the film today. I remember thinking that it looked awesome when I saw it the first time but this effect was used to death during the 90´s. It´s kind of like the filters they use on those damn “CSI”-shows. You know, in the “New York”-one everything has a blue-tinted feel and the one that´s set in Miami has the same color as David Caruso´s hair. “Hardware” kind of looks like that and that can get to be quite a burden for the eye. Other than that, it´s top notch! The future in “Hardware” is dirty, clothes and vehicles are worn-out and everything feels used and lived in. Not like the god damn CGI-movies they make nowadays. Oh wait, there is one more thing that kind of sucks and that´s the soundtrack. It´s pretty dated, too. There´s this weird song that keeps playing throughout the film, where everything they seem to be singing is “This is what you want, this is what you get”. I have no idea what that´s supposed to mean! Did she WANT to get locked in an apartment and chased by a bloodthirsty, horny robot, so that´s why she got it? It has to have some significance cause it´s not that great of a song for Stanley to include it otherwise. I´m sure it means something but hey, I´m no Dr. Phil!

As you can see, the future of “Hardware” is a pretty grim and depressing place. The film is bookended by a radio DJ, Angry Bob (voiced by a rabid Iggy Pop), who spews doomsday-propaganda and let me tell you: I´d hate to wake up to that in the morning. Not a good start to the day. Not only that, just to illustrate exactly how grim and hard the future is, there´s a scene where Moe and his friend Shades grab a water-taxi, driven by none other than Lemmy! They don´t call him Lemmy or anything like that (he´s credited as Taxi Driver) but during the ride he says “Check this out” and plays a tape with Motörhead´s “Killed By Death”. Now, it comes as no shock to me that Lemmy would survive a third world war. I can picture it: after the dust settles and the cockroaches come crawling out, it wouldn´t be long before Lemmy and Keith Richards would be right there beside them, snorting whisky and shooting cocaine. I mean, they´ll never die! If they´ve survived this far, NOTHING will kill ´em! So Lemmy managed to survive the blastwave but not even a bona fide rock´n´roll legend like him is able to make a living on his music in this cruel future world? He has to drive a cab, for chrissakes! That´s just wrong. I mean what´s next: Glen Danzig driving a bus? It´s every man for himself, kids…

Also, there´s this whole part with Jill´s extraordinarily creepy neighbor who has drilled small peepholes through the bathroom wall, Norman Bates-style, so he can watch her shower and stuff like that. He´s played by the late, great William Hootkins, who some of you might recognize from the original “Star Wars” as Pilot Red Six at the end when the Death Star goes to smithereens. He gets to say some pretty obscene lines but I´ll let you see that for yourself. If I´d write them here, I´d probably get flagged by some government official.

At the time of writing this, there´s really no good edition of “Hardware” available on DVD. I have a German import that´s pretty crappy but at least it beats VHS. Until they release a 5-disc edition, like they did with Stanley´s sophomore effort “Dust Devil”, it will have to do. One of the great tragedies of our time is not the Vietnam War or even the Second World War, as some of you might think, but the fact that Stanley never got to film his sequel. I´ve actually read the script, it´s available online (that´s how big of a nerd I am!) and it would´ve been absolutely frickin´ awesome to see it on the screen. It´s a pretty crazy script and Stanley´s talked about it in interviews and how he envisions it as an apocalyptic sci-fi western influenced by Sergio Leone´s “Dollar”-trilogy. If that doesn´t get your pulse racing, you my friend, is one cold and cruel individual. Once again I find myself wishing that I was a drug kingpin, just so that I could bankroll Stanley´s film. This man has a unique vision of the world and anyone who´s seen “Dust Devil” can testify to the fact that he´s able to pull off the scope of a Leone-film. Just check out the opening scenes where Robert John Burke´s hitchhiker invokes the spirit of Clint Eastwood´s Man With No Name.

That´s it, fiends! I´m washed out and the weekend is starting to take its toll on me. See ya and until then: stay ghoul, stay sick & take scare, fiends!

Thomas

Our odyssey through the seedy underbelly of urban life continues, fiends, and I know I´ve been holding out on you a bit lately. I haven´t been ranting about horror movies. Well, at least not real horror movies, like the ones you´re used to me babbling about. So, I figure it has to end… for now. I will continue to try to widen your horizons, you denizens of horrorland. With that pleasant introduction, let me tell you this: It´s not easy getting by in a big city. I live in Gothenburg, Sweden and it´s the second largest city in our country and sometimes it´s a living hell. Then try to imagine what it´s like in a city like New York. If I were to compare the two cities in size, I´d say that Gothenburg is like John Leslie and New York is John Holmes but still, it can be a pretty cruel place (when was the last time you heard a porn-film analogy? I even got the word ANALogy in there, too. I´ve just made your day, right?) Just look at one of the more recent films I recommended to you; “MS. 45”. If you were to ask the main characters in that movie, I´d bet my right nut that they would answer: “Urban life is hell!”

I´ve often thought about how people found it to be living in a big city during the 80´s. If you look at the horror films from that decade, it looks like the filmmakers hated every minute of it. Big cities are portrayed like a big melting pot of depraved lunatics and perverts. If you look at the action films, it seems that you weren´t able to go into a convenience store without getting mugged and/or shot dead on sight. It must´ve been pretty rough back then…

Well, I´ll tell you one thing: it couldn´t have been easy being a cop back then. Just ask Frank McRae (played by the insanely cool Tom Atkins) in “Maniac Cop” (1988): “The whole city´s goin´ to hell. You can´t take a pee anywhere anymore”. If there´s one thing we judge the decay of the western civilization by, it´s the fact that we cannot urinate in the open streets anymore. Just think about Frank! He´s a cop on the beat! He´s out there on those godforsaken streets all day with no chance of relieving himself! What kind of world is it that we live in? Not only that, innocent people are being brutally murdered on the streets of New York by a uniformed police officer and as the death toll rises, City Hall attempts a cover-up and Frank gets to head the investigation. This looks like a hard nut to crack but they get a chief suspect in Jack Forrest (the one and only Bruce Campbell), a young cop who has been set-up by the real killer. Now it´s up to McRae and Forrest to prove his innocence…

If you´ve read this far, you´ve realized that this film has both Tom Atkins and Bruce Campbell in the leads, which means that this film is automatically going to rock your damn socks off! But hey, it doesn´t end there! It´s directed by the awesome William Lustig (“Maniac”, “Vigilante” and “Uncle Sam”) and written by the impeccable Larry Cohen (“God Told Me To”, “Q: The Winged Serpent”, “It´s Alive” and “The Stuff”). These guys really know their exploitation movies. If you ask me, they´re like the Lieber & Stoller of exploitation-flicks (for you kids out there, Lieber & Stoller were a couple of guys with funny names who wrote a bunch of songs for Elvis that made tons of money but they haven´t gotten the respect they deserve. In other words, kinda like Lustig & Cohen). “Maniac Cop” is a fun movie, the kind of fun that they ain´t making anymore. This is basically an action movie with some horror elements to it and it´s a shame that no one is trying their hands at these kinds of movies nowadays. Back in the 80´s we got a whole slew of horror-tinted action films, like “The Hidden” and Kevin Tenney´s forgotten masterpiece “Peacemaker”, but that genre has sadly died a lonesome death. The last really fun action horror movie I can remember was when the governator of California, Anhuldt Schwarzenegger decided to take on the Devil in “End Of Days” back in ´99. Other than that, the genre has been pretty extinct, from what I can tell. That´s why, on those long and lonely nights, I seek comfort in the exploitation films of yesteryear and it doesn´t get much better than “Maniac Cop”, fiends!

The majority of the movie going public will definitely argue that this is NOT a work of art, but it definitely is excellent craftsmanship. Lustig knows his way around a camera and what comes out of this is a solid exploitation-flick where Larry Cohen´s excellent script is filled with great lines and also manages to combine a cop movie with the slasher genre. Lustig also has the great taste to populate the film with some great B-movie veterans like William Smith, Richard Roundtree, Sheree North and Robert Z´Dar. Let me just mention this fella Robert Z´Dar. I don´t know if you´re familiar with him but he has one of the strangest faces ever. He´s the guy that Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell have to escape from, when they´re in prison in “Tango & Cash”. You know, the guy with the insanely big jaw. He has to be seen to be believed. And then there´s Tom Atkins… Tom Atkins from “The Fog”. Tom Atkins from “Halloween III”. Tom Atkins from “Night of the Creeps”. Tom Atkins from “Lethal Weapon”; one of the coolest actors to ever walk this earth, like a mortal. I don´t know what it is about him, but he´s got this thing like he just doesn´t give a shit about anyone else. His style of acting suits movies like this perfectly. Anyone remember “Halloween III”? I remember thinking that he seemed to be drunk the whole movie. You gotta love a guy like that. Just watch the scene in “Maniac Cop” where he utters the unforgettable line “He´ll kill again… He enjoys killing!” Now that´s what I call showmanship, Lieutenant!

This film is actually sort of a rare bird. Since it was written by Larry Cohen it manages to both pretty dark and scary at times but also pretty silly and camp. Cohen manages to work some themes of a corruption in there, without the script getting too heavy handed. The film doesn´t takes itself too serious but it doesn´t skimp out on the scares, either. God, I wish Lustig and Cohen would make more movies together. It´s been eleven long years since their last effort, the enjoyable “Uncle Sam”. After hearing what I´ve told you about this movie, you´re not surprised that the movie was a success, right? That´s why Lustig & Cohen made two sequels, “Maniac Cop 2” and “Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence”. I will admit that they´re not as good as the first one, but they are a lot of fun! It´s been a long time since I´ve seen them (in fact, I just ordered the German DVD´s, which are supposed to be uncut) but I especially remember part 3 being very over-the-top, which is always fun. So here I am, sitting alone in front of the computer trying to convince you to watch a twenty year old movie that no one cares about, except your fellow horrorhounds, and what do I stumble upon? Here´s what fangoria.com wrote a couple of weeks ago:

“At this past weekend’s Anthology Film Archives screening of the first two films in the MANIAC COP series, director William Lustig broke the news that the franchise, on which he teamed for three movies with screenwriter Larry Cohen, will soon see a rebirth. “Larry and I have gotten the sequel rights back for MANIAC COP, and we’re preparing to do a MANIAC COP 4,” Lustig tells Fango. “I don’t have any more details other than that; this all happened within the last month, so it’s so fresh… When I get back to Los Angeles, Larry and I are going to sit down and work on something.” No doubt Lustig will be seeking more creative control than he had with the last installment, 1993’s MANIAC COP 3, which ran afoul of producer interference.”

Jumpin Jesus Christ! This can´t be happening, can it? Lustig & Cohen, together again! Forget Lewis & Clark, Batman & Robin, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, this is the original dynamic duo! This could be the straight-to-video-flick of the century, fiends! Sometimes, not always, not even often, but sometimes life is sweet. This is one of these times… Keep your eyes open and ears peeled for more news. In the meantime, go back to the source and you´ll understand why I´m so excited. Wouldn´t it be embarrasing if part 4 is released and everyone´s going crazy for it and you haven´t even seen the first one? Avoid the long face and seek it out. You know you got the time to kill…

Until next time: Stay ghoul & take scare!

Thomas

If you would ask me ”Who is the greatest human being who´s ever lived?”, I know who I would answer… hands down! The answer would be “Clint Eastwood”. I´m not joking. When it comes to Clint Eastwood, I never joke. Ever. I´m dead serious. Every boy, guy, or man has at one time watched a Clint Eastwood-movie and wished “Why can´t I be more like him?” If they tell you otherwise, they´re lying! I know I have wished that. I still do. I wish I could squint like him, have a gravelly voice like that and be a lot more stoic in real life. The thing is that I can´t. I´ve tried and I can´t keep my mouth from running. If I tried to act like Eastwood: squinting, raising my eyebrow and quietly mumbling, people would probably think that I had become retarded or something.

But anyway, I think that Eastwood´s managed to build an incredible body of work. One of my earliest movie watching-memories is watching “Dirty Harry” after my mother had fallen asleep. I basically grew up watching his films and I can find something I like about each and every one of them. He´s managed to steer clear of the horror genre, however. He´s flirted with the serial killer genre in movies like “Tightrope” and “Blood Work” but those films are definitely more thriller than horror. However, there is one film in Eastwood´s filmography that stands out. When I saw it in my early teens, I was pretty confused afterwards. Well, I was pretty confused before watching it too, come to think of it. After all, puberty was taking its toll on me. The film I´m talking about is “The Beguiled” and it´s as close as Eastwood´s ever come to make a horror film. It´s quite a bizarre film and I think it´s safe to say that it was ahead of its time. After all, this sucker was made back in 1971! I´m not quite sure what the term “psychosexual” means but I know it has something to do with Freud and he was a pretty weird guy, so I´m gonna use that term about this film. It´s psychosexual! I know that the term has something to do with our sexual drive but I´m too lazy to look it up but let me tell you: there´s a whole lot of sexual drive or libido going on in this movie!

Here´s the deal: During the civil war, injured Yankee soldier, John McBurney (played by Eastwood, who despite fighting in the civil war back in the eighteenth century manages to maintain a hairdo that is suspiciously 1970´s) is rescued on the verge of death by a teenage girl from a southern boarding school. She manages to get him back to the school, and at first the all-female staff and pupils are scared. As he starts to recover, one by one he charms them and the atmosphere becomes filled with jealousy and deceit.

That dirty old bastard! Basically, Eastwood treats the boarding school´s girls like a smorgasboard of females in different ages. Some of these girls are definitely jailbait, but that doesn´t stop a bedridden, horny, Yankee soldier. Anything goes. But wait a minute, this doesn´t sound like an Eastwood movie at all! And it´s directed by the guy who did “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and the first “Dirty Harry” movie? That´s right, fiends. This makes it all the more bizarre. Imagine the audience wandering into this one back in ´71. Apparently, the movie was marketed as a western so probably the masses were expecting something along the lines of Eastwood´s “Dollar”-films. What they got instead was a creepy-as-hell, Gothic western steeped in repressed sexual tension, where almost nothing happens, with almost no likable characters and a pretty bleak and downbeat ending. It´s a pretty nasty film, actually. There´s a sense of dread and creepiness that runs through the whole film. It never lets up and that is one of the film´s strengths. The opening scene is unforgettable: the girls carry the wounded Eastwood back to the school while we hear Eastwood´s voice on the soundtrack, singing some weird, old funeral hymn. It´s one of my favorite opening scenes ever! It sets the tone for the whole film to come. This is a film that actually manages to be both erotic and perverse at the same time. A warning: you may feel the need to take a shower after viewing this film. I know I did when I saw it the first time, but like I mentioned: puberty was raging, so give me a break!

This proves that while Eastwood is one of the few filmmakers working in Hollywood today that has the guts to make adult films, he did the same thing way back then. This is a very adult film and that´s why I like it. I´m not saying that to brag. I´m not particularly adult. There are many aspects of my life that have something obscenely immature about them, but I think I´m qualified enough to say that this is an adult film (not in the “adult”-way I know you´re thinking of, you pervs!). After all, I have managed to sit through almost all of Ingmar Bergman´s films and actually liked some of them. How´s that for adult, kids? You remember that book that was so popular a couple of years back, “Women are from Venus and men are from Mars”? After watching this movie, it is obvious that the guy who wrote that book didn´t have a clue. I´d rather trust the Clintster when it comes to life lessons and according to him and hard-guy director Don Siegel, you can´t forget about Venus. It´s a god damn battlefield, fiends! There´s a battle of the sexes raging and you better get in the trenches or take cover. What´s it gonna be? I´ve been missing in action in that damn war since the middle of the 90´s so I´m not gonna be able to help yout on that one…

So why did I bring this film up here? It´s not a horror film, is it? Well, it kinda is. It´s creepy enough and if you have the energy and willpower to sit through a film that was made before the nineties (I´m looking at you, Dr. Bonzzo!), you should definitely give this one a chance. I´ll guarantee that it is unlike anything you´ve ever seen. You gotta admire Eastwood´s guts for making the film. Instead of this one he could´ve just made another western along the lines of “Hang ´Em High”. I´m very happy that he didn´t choose that route. When you look back at Eastwood´s career, it´s pretty obvious now that “The Beguiled” was a turning point for him. After this one it seems that he tried to choose more mature films. For instance, that low-key drama where he travels around the United States, listening to sad country songs with his only friend, Clyde the magnificent ape (or orangutan or whatever he is)… Heavy stuff! All kidding aside, he really did make more mature and darker films after this so this actually an important film in American film history. Shortly after this, Eastwood and Siegel did “Dirty Harry” together but if I´m gonna be honest with you (which I always try to be, dear readers), John McBurney is a much more interesting character than the classic Harry Callahan. McBurney is not a nice man. He´s pretty conniving, his moral compass is waaay off center and he seems to be too horny for his own good. You never saw Harry Callahan in a situation like this, even though he was the one who earned the nickname “Dirty”. Hmmm… weird!

Whenever I watch this one, I´m always reminded by Peter Weir´s classic “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (1975). He must´ve watched this one before setting out to make his eerie tale of boarding school girls tangled up in weird shit. So give it a go, fiends! I think you might enjoy this off-beat, creepy, semi-horror tale. It wouldn´t hurt to give it a try. It´s worth seeing for the final scene alone (which I won´t spoil for you here). One thing is for certain, however… that southern hospitality that you keep hearing about is obviously a big bowl of bull!

Until next time: take scare & stay ghoul, fiends!

Thomas

One of my favorite filmmakers working today is without a doubt David Fincher. In my opinion, he hasn´t made a bad movie yet. And when I say that, I also include the much maligned “Alien 3”. As a matter of fact, after the first one, part 3 is my favorite in the “Alien”-quadrilogy (I didn´t even know there was such a word as “quadrilogy” before I bought the DVD box set). I think it´s great and the main reason is because it´s definitely the darkest film in the series. The first one was pretty harrowing but the second one is just a straight-up shoot-´em-up-in-space and I´m not too excited about that. The third one, however… It´s so dark and bleak that I am certain that it could drive even that horribly happy preacher family from that creepy show “Seventh Heaven” into a state of alcoholism and depression. That´s how dark it is, fiends! And that´s why I like it. ´Cause I´m a pretty dark guy. “A loner, Dottie. A rebel”, to quote Pee Wee Herman (not very often you get the chance to do that).

However, “Alien 3” is nothing when compared to Fincher´s magnum opus, the amazing “Seven”, or “7even” or whatever the hell they insisted on calling it when it was released. I hate it when they try to incorporate a number into the title. The worst example of this has to be the British gangster movie “Layer Cake” which was promoted as “L4yer Cake”! What the hell was going through their minds when they came up with that one? “People love numbers, don´t they? We should try to get the number 4 in there somewhere… Why, you ask? Because the cake has 4 layers, stupid!” I hope somebody was fired because of that campaign.

Anyway, I went off on a tangent there. Sorry about that. Back to “Seven”. It really is an amazing film and it is easy to forget that because your mind and memory has been polluted with all the rip-off´s and bad imitations it spawned. I don´t need to explain anymore. You all have seen it. If you haven´t, you shouldn´t be sitting here reading about it. In that case, you should get off your internet-surfing butt and watch it! The reason I´m rambling about it here is because recently I saw a movie that reminded me of it: “The Killing Gene” aka “W Delta Z” aka “WAZ”, depending on where you live in the world. A movie that was pretty damn good. It´s not a masterpiece by any means, but it´s definitely a worthy addition to the serial killer genre. Before watching it, I thought it was gonna be a mediocre mix between “Seven” and “Saw”. I bet you too will think that after hearing what it´s about: A series of deaths have started occurring in New York; Some are being found mutilated while others have an equation wΔz = Cov (w,z) = ßwzVz carved onto their skin. As police investigate they discover each victim was forced to choose between sacrificing their own life or a loved one´s life.

Doesn´t sound that great, huh? But one thing that tipped me off to that this one may actually be above the standard straight-to-video-serial-killer-fare was the fact that the lead is played by fellow Swede Stellan Skarsgård and he´s actually one hell of an actor. He´s managed to carve out quite a career for himself in Hollywood. He alternates between appearing super-serious arthouse movies like Lars Von Trier´s “Breaking The Waves” and “Dogville” and then popping up in the REAL masterpieces of the world, like Renny Harlin´s fantastic giant shark movie from 1999: “Deep Blue Sea” (I´m serious. If you could see my face now, you´d see a stone cold man. It´s great!) and John Frankenheimer´s “Ronin”. In other words: a pretty sweet set-up. In this one Stellan gets to show us how a crooked cop should be played! One of the best things about this film is definitely his performance as Eddie Argo, the cop who gets a new partner (Melissa George, who´s definitely carving out her own corner in horrorland after appearing in both “The Amityville Horror” and “30 Days of Night”) assigned to solve the case. I dare you to take your eyes off Skarsgård! It´s impossible and he´s smart enough to know what it is that makes a character interesting. You´re never quite sure on which side Argo is. He plays him as he´s carrying a tremendous weight on his shoulders and he has no problem in allowing criminals to be killed by other crooks. Turning the other way isn´t a stretch for Argo and this hint of crookedness suits Skarsgård perfectly! He´s bitter, it´s hard to hear what he´s saying because of his extremely raspy voice, which comes from a life of too much whisky, loneliness and cigarettes. In other words: your friendly neighborhood cop.

The other thing that makes “The Killing Gene” worth watching is the world in which it takes place. It´s supposed to be New York City but it is slightly more surreal than the New York we´re used to seeing (after watching the “Making of” on the DVD I was pretty impressed by the fact that for a few location shots, the whole film was filmed in Dublin! Good job, I say!). Many streets are empty and the darkness seems pretty damn oppressive. It´s definitely in the vein of “Seven” in that it portrays the city as a god damn living hell! You kinda get the feeling that every citizen here is either dealing crack, smoking it, raping someone and/or killing them. The cinematography is great! Apparently, it´s a Danish fella that´s responsible for it, which is nice to know that there´s still hope for Denmark. They can´t be riding on that tired “Dogme”-hype forever. Naturally, there are some twists and there are some turns (as there always are in these “Seven”-type of movies) and I´ll admit that they´re not that hard to second guess but hey, you can´t get everything! You can´t expect them to catch the killer halfway through the film like Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman did. “The Killing Gene” at least manages to keep the momentum going and it never gets boring.

So, if you find yourself waking up a day with that damn irritating sun shining in your eyes or if you find yourself outside, holding hands with your girl while whistling “Raindrops keep falling on my head” and picking flowers, this is the film to see! It´s got everything to bring you out of that happiness-fluke: crooked cops, drugs, drug dealers, murdered senior citizens, gang rapes and torture… That´s more up your alley, right? So, check it out. You owe it to Stellan. After all, he was in “Deep Blue Sea”. Did I mention that?

Until next time, fiends: stay ghoul & take scare!

Thomas