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Film Review: We Are What We Are

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We Are What We Are (Somos lo que hay) (2010)
Directed by: Jorge Michel Grau
Distributors: IFC Films (US) Artificial Eye (UK)
Release date: 12th November 2010 (UK) TBC 2011 (US)
Starring: Paulina Gaitan, Alan Chávez,  Francisco Barreiro, Carmen Beato
Review by: Stephanie Scaife

Jorge Michel Grau’s debut feature We Are What We Are is a Mexican cannibal tale that has drawn many comparisons with Let the Right One In, and although this may be slightly unfair as they are both very different and worthy of merit in their own right I can see where the comparison comes from.  The horror aspect, here cannibalism, is secondary to the main themes of the story, that of isolation, deprivation, skewed and deteriorating family dynamics.

The film opens with the family provider and patriarch dropping dead in a bourgeois shopping mall, leaving his 3 adolescent children and unhinged wife to fend for themselves. Traditionally this means that the eldest son Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro) must assume his position as the man of the family and become responsible for putting the food on the table. This would be hard enough at the best of times in a seedy, destitute area of contemporary Mexico City even without the whole hunger for human flesh thing. However, it soon becomes apparent that nothing is as it seems in this film and the real power within the family lies with the sister Sabina (Paulina Gaitan); she is calculating and suggestive, and her control over her brothers ultimately results in their downfall. Closeted Alfredo clearly wrestles with deep-seated guilt, regarding what he needs to do to help his family survive and with his burgeoning sexuality, whilst the volatile younger brother Julian (Alan Chávez) lashes out verbally and physically at those around him and it is hinted at that his relationship with his sister is incestuous, or at least he’d certainly like it to be.

The family here is a literal metaphor for the dog-eat-dog society in which they live, when compared to those around them: resourceful gangs of street children, prostitutes that refuse to be victims and who exact horrific revenge on those who’ve wronged them, and police detectives whose greed and desire to forward their careers is stronger than that to actually bring any criminals to justice.

The performances are all strong and believable, particularly Carmen Beato as the slowly unraveling mother who, despite her family’s murderous habit still lives by her own self-imposed moral code, seemingly resulting from her late husband’s fondness for the local prostitutes. The cinematography is also impressive, giving the film a sense of grim realism and banality even in the most shocking scenes.

Overall I felt that this was an accomplished and original film, especially considering it’s from a first time director, and although it’s more of a slow burning family drama than out and out horror there are still plenty of horrific moments and subtle hints that are far more frightening than blood and gore would have provided, so there is much to admire here for genre fans and art house lovers alike. I’d heard complaints that the film is boring and that it reverts to standard genre conventions towards the end, but I disagree entirely. This is definitely one of the most interesting and unique films that I’ve seen this year, and I thoroughly recommend checking it out.

TV Series Review: Dead Set

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Dead Set (2008)
Production Company: Endemol/E4
Directed by: Yann Demange
Starring: Jaime Winstone, Andy Nyman, Davina McCall
Review by: Keri O’Shea

The idea for Dead Set – one of the only TV series ever dedicated to zombies, in amongst a plethora of recent vampire shows – was developed by acerbic journalist and critic Charlie Brooker, a man who has never shied away from expressing his feelings on ‘reality TV’. He often used his Screen Burn column (which ran in UK newspaper The Guardian) to have fun at the expense of Big Brother in particular, a show which has since come to an end but, for ten years, held an enormous – and some might say baffling – appeal for British audiences. Brooker, as a real aficionado of zombie cinema, found himself thinking: what if this isolated, surveillance-crazy, highly secure environment became the last safe place in the country to hide from the zombie apocalypse?

What started as the half-joking germ of an idea became the five-part Channel 4 series Dead Set, a bang-up-to-date pastiche on reality TV which finds a deserved place in the modern zombie genre and really doesn’t skimp on the gore, either. It also enjoyed a close, very forgiving relationship with the real Big Brother series – using the show’s sets, crowds, credits, former contestants and even the show’s presenter (who does a star turn as one of the living dead). It begins backstage on Eviction Night, as a glaring array of stereotypes wait to see who is about to be voted out and a deeply cynical, deeply funny script establishes the show’s tone. Meanwhile, there’s a party for former contestants going on backstage, but executive producer Sophie (Jennifer Aries) is struggling to get back to the studio on time. Meanwhile, runner Kelly (Jaime Winstone) has had to put her personal life to one side in order to fend off the angry, obnoxious producer Patrick (Andy Nyman), who is on the warpath. Things aren’t going to plan this evening – riots are breaking out in UK cities, and escalating so quickly that – shock, horror – the Big Brother special might even get bumped out of its slot.

In a sequence which ratchets up the tension quickly and deftly, a ‘mugger’ enters the eviction night crowds and chaos ensues: people are panicking, some are badly hurt, and by the time the remaining staff realise that this is no normal eviction night, the only safe place to hide is the Big Brother house itself…

The phenomenon of fast-moving zombies has tended to divide horror audiences fairly sharply over recent years, and I have to tell you – the zombies here are runners. However, I think that Dead Set can make even the most staunchly anti-runner audience members forgive this transgression. The pace here is so well-handled; a real sense of urgency and threat builds up, because these people don’t have time to formulate plans, or to really consider their options. They don’t have a chance to work out what’s even happening (and, in a well-written scene, the Big Brother contestants start by thinking the whole thing is all part of the show). Accordingly, the characters here hardly behave like a band of philanthropists. They’re often stupid, pitiable and downright unlikeable (especially Nyman as the selfish, bullying Patrick) but, in the situation they’re in, they’re believable.

Then there’s that Brooker sense of humour – snide, bitter, foul-mouthed and very, very funny. These darkly comic elements twinned with some viscerally-nasty scenes make for a bleak viewing experience, with enough layers both for fans of straightforward splatter and for those who like to see the use of social commentary back in their zombie horror. There is also a host of classic cinematic references for genre fans to spot at their leisure, and, hey, this series also manages to make Big Brother a watchable format…

Smart, sardonic and grim, Dead Set is a must-see series for horror fans, especially those of you who can’t wait for The Walking Dead to hit your screens… zombie TV has finally arrived.

DEAD SET is currently airing on US television for the first time, screening nightly on IFC up to October 29th.

DVD Review: Altitude

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DVD Review: Altitude (2010)
Directed by: Kaare Andrews
Starring: Jessica Lowndes, Julianna Guill, Ryan Donowho, Landon Liboiron, Jake Weary
Review by: Kayley Viteo

As far as supernatural horror thrillers set in an airplane go, Altitude doesn’t exactly crash and burn, although there is some serious turbulence. Still, there’s something about this film that is engaging and thought-provoking, making me really appreciate its multilayered plotline.

Altitude is a film about five teenagers who decide to fly instead of drive to a Coldplay concert because they are just that cool and one of them happens to be a rookie pilot who just got her pilot’s license. Obviously, you can tell they’re already off to a bad start and matters aren’t helped when a supernatural being in the sky appears.

The thing I like about Altitude is how smart the plot is – this is neither your typical survival horror movie, nor a typical monster movie. Somehow, Altitude manages to cross into the thriller, horror and sci-fi genres without seeming too ridiculous, which is a tough thing to do for a relatively small movie. This is an ambitious plotline for a relatively low budget, particularly in the visual effects arena, which number in the hundreds. No matter what flaws Altitude has, it is clearly a labor of love.

Altitude is far from perfect, however. When you find yourself having to struggle to pay attention during a key moment, you know something is wrong with the script. The thing is, with a movie that basically takes place entirely in a small tube (and you know there’s a big monster coming), there’s already some built-in tension. Where Altitude goes wrong is that whatever tension it comes in with goes completely away around the halfway mark. Suddenly, the characters are far less interesting and their dialogue is at times almost laughable, creating human drama within the story that frankly just feels silly. But, although the supernatural drama at times is overwrought, it still manages to be effective and entertaining. The twists in the plot are genuinely surprising and, with exception to a stray comic book sub-plot, everything makes sense.

In addition, the acting across the board is generally pretty good, but the clear standout is the lead, Jessica Lowndes. Although I at times questioned her blocking (no hands on the throttle during a thunderstorm?), her flaws are due to the script and/or direction rather than in her acting itself. The rest of the cast is quite frankly forgettable, but again, I feel most of this is due to the script lacking energy towards its middle.

Then, there’s the issue of the ending. This is one of the few endings of a horror film where I really feel torn, but it is utterly fascinating to listen to the behind the scenes extra, where the director, Kaare Andrews, and writer, Paul A. Birkett, discuss the many script revisions the movie went through. I will just say that the writer’s original ending, which was never filmed, was far more intriguing than what we see in the film.

I’ve already mentioned one extra, the behind the scenes documentary of the making of Altitude. There is one other, an audio commentary. I highly recommend the mini-documentary extra, which is pretty lengthy, and features some fantastic interviews with the director and explanation for how the visual effects were created.

R2 DVD Review: Siege of the Dead

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Siege of the Dead (AKA Rammbock) (2010)
DVD Release Date: 25th October 2010
Distributor: Revolver
Directed by: Marvin Kren
Starring: Michael Fuith, Theo Trebs, Anna Graczyk, Emily Cox
Review by: Ben Bussey

When Michael (Fuith) arrives unannounced at the Berlin apartment which until recently he shared with his now ex-girlfriend, his primary concern is whether she will want to reconcile as desperately as he does. Unfortunately, this ceases to be Michael’s primary concern very quickly. On entering the apartment he finds not his estranged love but two plumbers fixing the heating, and barely a moment passes before one of those plumbers starts acting a little strangely. His face turns red, his mouth begins to froth – and then he leaps up and attacks Michael and his young co-worker Harper (Trebs). Forced into an alliance of circumstance, Michael and Harper manage to escape their attacker and secure themselves in a section of the apartment, but looking out of the window into the complex, they see that the situation is much the same everywhere. As ever in these situations, the key question immediately becomes one of survival and escape, clinging to the vague hope that there is still a world to escape to.

If you’re anything like me, I suspect your expectations are not high thus far. The premise reeks of the overfamiliarity I complained of in my review of  The Horde not so long ago, particularly when the film is saddled with such a painfully obvious English title. I don’t know who is responsible for this choice, or why they settled on something so horrendously generic, but they really didn’t do themselves any favours. This is only made worse by cover art shown above, which bears no relation to the film whatsoever: I can assure you, at no point does Siege of the Dead show helicopters flying admist skyscrapers firing rockets into swathes of the walking dead on the ground. I guess apologists might counter-argue that these are typical exploitation tactics, to sell the product as significantly bigger, louder and more extravagant than it actually is; and that, as such, it’s all part of the fun of low-budget cheap and nasty horror. But that would really be selling this film short. That would be to suggest that this low-budget German horror (the debut from director Marvin Kren) is indeed cheap, nasty and derivative, and that it does not have anything of interest in and of itself. This is most definitely not the case here. Siege of the Dead is in fact a very enjoyable, interesting film, and almost certainly the most unusual and effective take on the zombie movie that I’ve encountered since last year’s excellent no-budget Brit-flick Colin.

Not unlike Colin, this is a little film with the smarts to make the most out of what little it has: in this instance, an apartment complex and a small but skillful cast. Lead actor Michael Fuith was a particularly inspired choice; whilst a great many other movies may claim to cast unconventional hero types, there is literally nothing about Fuith that suggests heroism. As well as being physically unremarkable, the character is deeply flawed, clearly lacking in interpersonal skills and utterly unable to accept the failure of his relationship: even in the face of what transpires, he refuses to even contemplate that his ex might not have survived. Theo Trebs’s Harper never seems comfortable in his presence, this sense of unease between these two very different people adding to the tension. And an interesting tension it is, as in the early sequences the film often feels akin to a zombie version of Rear Window, with all the glimpses of the apocalypse seen from a window side viewpoint; the walking dead in the square below, the few survivors in the apartments opposite.

For the sake of the zombie purists, however, I should add that this movie probably belongs more in the 28 Days Later infected category. This is not the dead rising from the grave but a virus which, while transmittable by bites and scratches, is not limited to this. Intriugingly, here the virus may lie dormant until activated by adrenaline, hence the radio advises survivors more pointedly than usual to remain calm, and tranquiliser pills became a highly sought after commodity. And before you ask: yes, these guys are fast. Not that any of this is too significant in my book – an apocalypse in which people turn into mindless cannibals will always be just that, regardless of the whys and wherefores – but I know a lot of zombie lovers take that stuff to heart a bit more.

Also, when I said this was a little film, I wasn’t just talking about the scale and budget. With a running time that comes a couple of minutes shy of an hour, this is one of the shortest feature films I have seen in recent memory. But even so, it feels about right. Additions could easily been made which would not have felt gratuitous; fleshing out the secondary characters, or giving some flashbacks to Michael’s failed relationship perhaps. However it is ultimately this brevity, the sparseness of the dialogue and the simplicity of the action that make Siege of the Dead so appealing a film, and in a peculiar way reminscent of the great horror movies of the 30s and 40s which similarly tended to run at about 60 minutes. It’s very refreshing to see a modern genre film that does not lapse into backstory overkill and is content to leave a great deal left unsaid.

As with the innumerable zombie films of recent memory, Siege of the Dead does not significantly reinvent the subgenre, but unlike a great many it manages to inject just enough new life and new ideas into proceedings to stand apart. More importantly, it makes sure that we actually give a damn about the characters involved. The net result? A genuine breath of fresh air that’s definitely worth a look.

R2 DVD Review: XII (Twelve)

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XII (Twelve) (2009)
R2 DVD Release Date: 27 September 2010
Distributor (UK): Chelsea Films
Directed by: Michael A Nickles
Starring: Mercedes McNab, Steven Brand, Emily Hardy, Jeremy Fitzgerald
Review by: Ben Bussey

Five years have passed since Leonard Karlsson (Fitzgerald) was sent to the big house for child abuse. As we all know, kiddie fiddlers don’t tend to do well behind bars, and this guy was no exception; his fellow inmates beat and slashed him up beyond all recognition, leaving him without a face. Now a free man, Karlsson has only one course of action in mind; to track down all twelve members of the jury that found him guilty, and get his revenge by taking from them that which was taken from him: namely, their faces. And given that all twelve live in the same sleepy one-horse town, tracking them down and taking them out isn’t going to prove too tough a job.

A more difficult task, however, would be to convince the viewer that there is anything of value to be taken from this run of the mill, psuedo-edgy slasher. Sure, XII is by no means inept enough to be offensive, but neither does it have any ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ charm. It’s just breathtakingly bland, almost a masterclass in mediocrity. It’s a film so low on atmosphere and personality that, even when efforts are made to break with convention, it’s pretty much impossible to care.

Writer-director Michael A Nickles may well be striving for something more than your typical low-budget DV schlock-horror, and to be fair to his efforts are not entirely in vain. For one thing, XII does boast a somewhat stronger cast than we tend to find in direct-to-DVD cheapies, with the likes of Steven Brand (the big bad in The Scorpion King) as an FBI agent on the killer’s trail and Mercedes McNab (of Buffy/Angel and Hatchet fame) as a waitress and former juror on the killer’s shit list. Particularly strong is newcomer Emily Hardy as the fellow waitress/juror who, it rapidly becomes apparent, is set to be the final girl of the piece. But whilst her status in the narrative might not be hard to fathom from the get-go, some of the deaths are less than expected, and the film deserves some credit for this. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call such moments surprises. To be surprised necessitates a degree of emotional involvement, and try as it may XII never manages to be involving.

Matters may have been significantly improved if there was anything interesting about the film on an aesthetic level, but here too XII falls short. If said it before and I’ll say it again, DV simply doesn’t look as good as film, and as such DV filmmakers need to try doubly hard to make their work interesting to watch; to make things that bit more creative with the camerawork, the editing, the soundtrack. But on all counts, XII is never anything more than generic. Even when it comes to the face removal scenes and the various other ways in which the killer gets his vengeful freak on, it all just feels tepid, routine, seen-it-all-before.

And now the defendant will rise: the jury having delivered a unanimous verdict, I find XII guilty of being a mundane, boring, lifeless piece of filmmaking. I sentence you to be instantly forgotten by everyone that watches you, and may the movie gods have mercy on your soul. Next defendant please.

DVD Review: Lake Placid 3

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DVD Review: Lake Placid 3
Directed by: G.E. Furst
Starring: Colin Ferguson, Yancy Butler, Michael Ironside, Kirsty Mitchell, Kacey Barnfield, Mark Evans
DVD Release Date: October 26, 2010
Review by: Dustin Hall

I tried. I really, really did. I wanted so bad to give Lake Placid 3 a pass.

Its not because I harbor any affection toward the rest of the Lake Placid series, oh no. But this is a movie with a lot of hope behind it. It’s the first film directed by G.E. Furst, it’s the first screenplay of SyFy Channel (who produced the film) stock-writer David Reed, and it’s the return of film vets Michael Ironside (Scanners) and Yancy Butler (Witchblade) to the screen in some fun, meaty roles.

And, on a personal note, this is the first time Sony Pictures has sent me a movie to watch, and I really hoped to start a positive relationship with them. Now, I’m still willing to say that I love Sony and many of their fine movie products. But, man, this was a rough start.

I try my hardest to judge every movie, not by what it is, but by how well it accomplished what it tried to be, and how well the crew met that goal with their resources. You can’t, after all, try to compare Evil Dead to Citizen Kane. Unfortunately, you can compare Lake Placid 3 to something like ‘Wedding Videos of People I Don’t Know’, and the entertainment values come out about the same. And ultimately, the wedding video is probably scarier and more grueling.

I just felt lied to. The description on the back of the box promises adrenaline-pumping fun and a high body count. The press-release promised me gruesome gore and scads of bare breasts. Scads. This is, after all, the Unrated cut. Lake Placid 3 starts out with promise, sure. Within 2 minutes, I’ve got a girl running around naked, and some sex on the lakeside. Beautiful. After that, I’ve got two pairs of boobs for maybe 30 seconds of the entire running-time? Hardly the steamy action I was promised.

I can forgo boob-age if perhaps the film delivers some fun death scenes? Maybe some cool looking, innovative gore FX, or some fun creature work?  My hopes for any of those were pretty well dashed by the shoddy CG, used for every aspect of the alligators, the deaths they caused, or the blood they shed on the ground. Little effort was made to even correlate the location of the CG ‘gators with the objects they were dragging around. Michael Ironside’s car just kind of floats down into the water, in the vicinity of a gator’s mouth, but it’s pretty obvious that the two aren’t connected in any way. These guys just didn’t give a shit.

I don’t want to give the notion that I only judge a horror flick by its contents of nudity and bloodshed. Not true. But I don’t hope for great writing or suspense in a movie about a boy who feeds alligators in his backyard beef jerky, for two years, without either of his parents ever noticing these gators live 20 feet from the house, until they grow to massive proportions. I’d be a fool. Any suspicions of quality writing are tossed right out the window as soon as Mom yells “Stay away from the window! They can smell you through the glass!” But in place of quality or chills better be some of the tenants of what makes a horror movie fun. Nudity, some funny jokes, and a lot of shocking, often funny deaths.

Lake Placid 3 promised me all of these things, but only gave just enough of any to earn a cursory mention on the DVD box. This should have been the Friday the 13th of ‘gator movies.  Alas, in its attempt to be a ‘fun horror’ movie, it’s failed completely

The High: Michael Ironside and Yancy Butler get big roles, with a lot of guns, chewing up the scenery and cracking wise while battling against their poorly CG’d foes. The Low: Pretty much everything else about this film.

I’m not surprised about any of this. SyFy can’t cobble together a good original film to save their souls these days. And yet, I come away disappointed regardless. SyFy needs to realize something. The story of the film is what really draws us to it. We like suspense and drama and ideas. Lacking that, we need visceral, naked, funny things to keep us occupied. But people are only going to keep buying your stuff, SyFy, if you start trying harder. When there’s no thought or effort put into the movie, like Lake Placid 3, it’s obvious. The audience demands more. And honestly, it wouldn’t have taken much time to deliver that.

R2 DVD Review: Not Like Others

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Not Like Others (AKA Vampyrer) (2008)
Distributor (UK): Chelsea Films
R2 DVD Release Date: 25th October 2010
Directed by: Peter Pontikis
Starring: Jenny Lampa, Ruth Vega Fernandez
Review by: Ben Bussey

At a glance, twentysomething sisters Vera (Lampa) and Vanja (Fernandez) look like any other young women hanging out in a club on a relatively quiet night. But when a predatory biker tries to force himself on Vera, things don’t turn out quite the way he expects; within minutes he’s lying dead in a toilet, drained of blood. Yes, though they might look like normal women, Vera and Vanja just so happen to be vampires. Casually exiting the scene of the crime, they head out into the empty city streets in search of ways to pass the dead hours before sunrise; but the remainder of the biker gang is hot on their trail.

As it’s another Swedish vampire film, it may at first seem a little contrived that Not Like Others is being promoted as a sort of spiritual cousin to Let The Right One In, but to be fair the similarities don’t begin and end with the nationality of the filmmakers. Much like Tomas Alfredson’s modern classic, this debut from writer-director Peter Pontikis is interested more in the relationship between the central protagonists than the gory details of their bloodsucking shenanigans. Comparisons with Romero’s Martin are even more appropriate, as the film is shot and performed in a starkly realistic fashion, with the supernatural never coming to the forefront. Indeed, as with Martin we may well question whether Vera and Vanja are in truth vampires at all, or simply conditioned to believe themselves to be; like the title character of Romero’s film, they draw blood with blades rather than fangs.

Set over the course of a single night, Not Like Others is a very intimate, character-based piece in which the vampire is not an object of fear or revulsion but the embodiment of  the outsider, as should be apparent from the title alone. Loosely structured with little in the way of plot, the centre of attention is the interplay between Jenny Lampa and Ruth Vega Fernandez, both of whom give captivating performances. As we follow the sisters numbly finding ways to fill their time, we get the impression this is the way things are for them every night; but whilst Vera at least claims to be content with their way of life, Vanja is clearly exhausted with it. Hints of existential angst and long-standing sisterly tensions bubble under the surface throughout, and this pessimistic mood is only enhanced by the few brief encounters with others; it’s not giving too much away to reveal that the biker isn’t the only would-be rapist to cross paths with Vera. The sensitive can rest easy, though, for while Not Like Others may well be raw and open on an emotional level, the physical horrific details are largely left to suggestion. 

Indeed, Not Like Others is so sombre and restrained – both in terms of performance and aesthetic, with little music and simple yet beautiful cinematography – that for the most part we might not regard it a horror film at all; the presence of (possibly) supernatural beings does not necessarily warrant instant genre status. That said, Not Like Others does feature a monstrous threat, not in the vampire sisters but the ominous biker gang hunting them down. Faceless, voiceless shapes in leathers and black crash helmets, with an unnerving tendency to predict where Vera and Vanja will show up next, the bikers are an evil presence of the sort John Carpenter specialises in. This, of course, leaves us in no doubt that the film’s sympathies lie with the vampire sisters themselves.

In these days of True Blood and Twilight, we are well accustomed to stories which cast vampires as social outcasts attempting to integrate, or at least achieve a certain harmony with ‘mainstream’ society. Not Like Others approaches this idea in a far more understated manner than most, and is all the stronger for it. Any ravenous fangbangers seeking ample blood, sweat and guyliner would be better looking elsewhere, but those open to something more subtle and sensitive could certainly do worse than Not Like Others. It’s an involving, thought-provoking and surprisingly tender take on vampirism, well worth checking out.

Trailer: