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Review by Stephanie Scaife

I have to admit that I did not relish the prospect of having to sit through a double-bill of The Human Centipede when the screeners came through my letter box. I’d seen the first film at FrightFest in 2009 and hadn’t been particularly impressed, and when I heard about the sequel I actively avoided it as it just didn’t seem like something I’d want to watch. Turns out I was right.

Re-watching The Human Centipede (First Sequence) I had much the same feelings about it as I did the first time: that it’s an outlandish concept that would have made a great short, but when dragged out to feature length it becomes somewhat tedious, and once you’ve gotten over the central idea it’s a fairly predictable and bog standard genre staple. We have our mad scientist, Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser) who has become obsessed with the idea of creating a “human centipede” by surgically joining 3 people together ass to mouth, thus creating a singular digestive system. As luck would have it 2 American tourists, Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie), turn up at his house one evening after their car breaks down nearby. Not one to miss an opportunity when it arises, Dr. Heiter immediately drugs the girls and confines them to the makeshift operating theatre that he has in his basement. With the addition of another hapless tourist in the form of Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura) he now has all of the pieces of his centipede in place, so he sets about attaching them together.

Obviously this is an outlandish and bravura concept that is as wince-inducing as you would imagine, but once you get past that we’re given nothing more than a standard sort of slasher film where our victims and Dr. Heiter embark on various games of cat-and-mouse around his palatial home. Predictably, it doesn’t end well for anyone involved. What worked about the first film was its pitch black sense of humour; it knew it was ridiculous and had fun with it, making it far more watchable that I’d initially thought possible. But overall the film is let down by its predictability and reliance on genre constraints. It’s worth a watch for sure, even just out of sheer curiosity, but it’s definitely not something I would consider buying and revisiting through choice.

The Human Centipede (Full Sequence) is an entirely different kettle of fish, and I found it to be exceptionally dull and tedious. It was like director Tom Six sat down and thought to himself, “what are all the most degrading and disgusting things I can think of that will offend as many people as possible?” and then proceeded to put all of these things into a film that is barely strung together into any sort of tangible plot. Martin (Laurence R. Harvey) is a vile little man who is obsessed with watching The Human Centipede (First Sequence), which he does ad nauseam, oftentimes whilst masturbating with sandpaper. Martin has become so obsessed with the film that he decides to make his very own human centipede, this time with 12 people instead of 3. This is after all a sequel, so everything has to be bigger and more extreme. So Martin, who works as a security guard in a car park, sets about capturing unwitting victims and storing them in a warehouse until he has his perfect 12. This is interspersed with scenes of Martin at home, having nightmares about being sexually abused as a child by his father whilst his vulgar mother continually threatens to kill him and herself.

As Martin is a twisted man with no medical experience, his creation of the human centipede is much messier than Dr. Heiter, providing the opportunity for some pretty disgusting things to happen, which is the sole point of this film. There really is nothing more to it; there is no real plot to speak of just a series of incidences stung together to tie up everything from child abuse to Martin raping his newly created centipede whilst his cock is wrapped in barbed wire. To me this isn’t shocking, it’s just boring. All of the humour from the first film is lost, leaving nothing to like at all. I’m not a fan of censorship, I believe that as adults we should be able to choose what we watch, but on this occasion I was glad to watch an edited version of this film. Mostly because it made it shorter.

It’s a shame really, because Tom Six always comes across so well, an enthusiastic and charismatic guy who really wants to push boundaries within the genre. It’s a problem that he doesn’t spend as much time on plot as he does on creating completely outlandish concepts. For me the highlight of this experience was a DVD extra of the Foley session, which proved fascinating. How did they create the barbed wire rape noises you may wonder? By stabbing a pig carcass. So there you go, you learn something new every day.

Released for no other reason that I can fathom other than it being Halloween, I see no reason to own special collector’s edition of these films. I honestly have no issue with films containing extreme content, but I think that ultimately they have to be more than just that. You only have to look so far as Gaspar Noé or Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs to realize that it is indeed possible, which is what I’d recommend doing instead of watching The Human Centipede.

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) & (Full Sequence) Boxset is out now on Region 2 DVD and Blu-Ray from Monster Pictures.

Review by Stephanie Scaife

The Hunter may not be the typical sort of film that you see us discussing here at Brutal as Hell, as although it treads into thriller territory at times it isn’t technically a genre film. It is however a haunting and memorable film that has an undeniable air of uncanniness about it. Also I really loved it and feel that it was criminally underseen in theatres so I welcome any excuse to recommend it to others.

Based on the novel by Julia Leigh (who wrote and directed Sleeping Beauty) The Hunter stars Willem Dafoe as Martin, a cold-hearted mercenary hired by a mysterious and undeniably dubious pharmaceutical company to travel to Tasmania to follow up on a number of reported sightings of a Tasmanian tiger, which is believed to have been extinct since the 1930s. His orders are to hunt this elusive creature and gather tissue and organ samples. Martin arrives in Tasmania posing as a university professor and is immediately made to feel unwelcome by the hostile local community that is primarily made up of loggers who feel that ‘greenies’ are to blame for them losing their jobs. His position isn’t aided any by the fact this he’s staying with local single mother Lucy (Frances O’Connor), whose missing husband was a noted environmentalist targeted by the locals.

Lucy lives with her two young children, who have renamed themselves Sass and Bike. Sass is a precocious little girl that swears like a sailor and her younger brother Bike is practically mute and likes to draw pictures. They run wild as Lucy stays in bed, presumably doped on prescription meds and pining for her missing husband. Initially Martin is fairly put out by these living conditions; annoying children, no hot water, a broken generator etc. But he is there to do a job, so along with the dubiously motivated local guide Jack (Sam Neill), he heads up into the wilderness to begin his work.

This is a difficult film to discuss without giving too much away. It’s so odd and beautiful, and although at some points it veers into a traditional and slightly predictable the-hunter-becomes- the-hunted narrative, it never loses your attention and will keep you guessing until the end. The two children aside these are a complex bunch of characters with questionable motives and you never know quite what anyone will do next. This is a slow burning thriller that is oftentimes tragic and well worth persevering with as ultimately it pays off and I’m not ashamed to admit that I shed a tear both times that I saw it.

The first feature film of TV director Daniel Nettheim, this is an odd yet assured debut that looks handsome, is very well acted (particularly by Dafoe) and quite unexpected. I knew nothing about this when I caught it recently on a flight but I’m really glad that I did and it will undoubtedly make my top ten of the year. The blu-ray looks fantastic, the otherworldly Tasmanian landscapes practically form a character in their own right, and I’d definitely recommend checking this out if you fancy something a little different.

The Hunter is out now on Region 2 DVD and Blu-ray from Artificial Eye.

Review by Nia Edwards-Behi

Superficially, you might think ‘oh god, not another found footage film’ when reading about Entity in synopsis. From the outset let me say – it’s not found footage. First time feature director Steve Stone cannily explains the hand-held elements of the film as a ‘motivated camera’, and he’s spot on. While other horror films might use the conceit of a paranormal investigation as a basis for making an 80 minute ordeal of shaky cam and little else, Entity is a refreshingly narrative and character driven piece which is effectively frightening.

In 1998, over 30 unidentified bodies were found in shallow graves in a remote Russian forest, and with no explanation the case was soon closed. Now, a small English TV crew is investigating the discovery, led by a local man interested in the case, and aided by a powerful psychic. The crew soon discovers that this is no ordinary investigation and that escape might be impossible.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Well, don’t let that be off-putting.

It’s almost inevitable that Entity will be lumped in with the found footage subgenre that we’re all become so very, very sick of. The film combines third person shooting with sequences filmed by the TV crew on site. This motivated camera is, in fact, key to the film’s effective sense of dread, foreboding and fear, often denying us the release of seeing what it is that’s so terrifying the protagonists. There’s one spectacular moment of violence which is all the more powerful for offering us no clear view of what is taking place. Director Stone has taken a fairly high concept and done something refreshingly untypical with it.

There’s a wonderful and purposeful attention paid to the film’s sound design too, which, without a doubt, helps contribute to this sense of ambiguous terror. We very often hear things without seeing them, which again allows a viewer’s imagination to run wilder than perhaps what a filmmaker might be able to put on screen. The film’s pervasively unnerving soundscape makes the fantastic location come to life, too. Or perhaps, come to life is not the right way of putting it – the massive, abandoned industrial-looking building is all pipes and chains and dirt and wetness. It’s industrially desolate, an empty shell in the middle of a stark, empty forest.

The characters are also refreshingly not stereotypes. Kate (Charlotte Riley), producer and presenter of the TV show is attractive and maybe a little ruthless, but she is not inhuman. Matt (Rupert Hill), a cameraman, is cynical, but not a complete dick about it. Do these two have a thing for each other? Have they had a relationship in the past? We – brilliantly – don’t know, as very little unnecessary exposition is offered. Instead, the actors get to actually act with each other, and offer a chemistry about which we, as an audience, may or may not be interested in speculating. Dervla Kirwan plays the psychic Ruth, who is decidedly workman-like and unmystical about her ability. No time is wasted on arguments over whether she can really do what she does – these are television professionals, and they’re doing their jobs. This cast is uniformly excellent, but I must draw particular attention to Michael David Worden as Mishka, one of the beings that inhabits this desolate place. Making his feature debut, Worden is spectacular in a dialogue-free and physically challenging role. It’s a small role, really, but it’s one that’s absolutely essential to get right.

It’s truly refreshing to watch a horror film that is actually frightening and also puts some effort into proceedings rather than churning out the same old drivel we’ve all seen elsewhere. Consider then, that Entity was independently made on a low budget by a first time director and it’s really something special. Entity is a technically brilliant feat of independent filmmaking, and Steve Stone is without doubt a director to keep our eyes on.

Entity will be released in the UK early next year and hits AFM 2012 next week.

Review by Annie Riordan

Every photograph leaves behind a negative image of itself, an inversion of darkness on light and shadow on sun. Can the same be said for photographic memories? And if so, where are those negatives stored?

October – much like his namesake – is beautiful but melancholy. Returning home after a long estrangement, he’s doubtful that any good will come of his reunion with his dad, Russell. The old homestead in the Texas back country holds too many bad memories, and the passage of time hasn’t changed a thing. October’s return is more like a step back in time. The house is just the same, his dad hasn’t aged a day and his sister Iris is still dead, still sleeping beneath the headstone in the yard.

Iris’s death is the one thing that October and Russell do not discuss, but which neither of them can forget. It stands huge and silent between them, eating away at them, but they talk around it, pretend it’s not really there. Russell suggests a hunting trip. October agrees. They talk about October’s time drifting around the United States and studying medicine. They bond over a sweet, fast car. But the subject comes up sooner rather than later, and it’s clear that October very much blames Russell for Iris’s premature and violent death. If Russell hadn’t been such a goddamned drunk, maybe he could have saved her. But if October blames Russell, he blames himself even more. Iris was not his sister by blood, and it was their blossoming love for one another that brought about her death in the form of a jealous and psychopathic suitor. October couldn’t save Iris either, and he reminds himself of this fact every single day, adding another cut to his already horrifically scarred body.

Deep in the woods and miles from civilization, Russell takes a bad fall that snaps his leg. Stranded, October must put his survival skills to the ultimate test. His photographic memory provides him with the medical knowledge he needs to care for Russell’s wounds and keep them safe through the long, cold night. But those photographic memories of Iris and her tragic end are still there too, and seem to have spawned a negative afterimage. There’s something in the woods, circling both father and son like vultures around roadkill. Is it a ghost? A monster? A genius loci? Is it the imprint of violence taking physical form and forcing October to confront it? Or is it something October himself has produced, quite unintentionally, from his deep reservoir of guilt and anger? Whatever it is, it has claws. And it’s hungry.

Much like 2001’s seriously underrated psycho-thriller Session 9, It’s In The Blood is a horror film in which the horror comes from within the characters, swallowing them whole like a cancer. Each character is their own protagonist and antagonist. Yes, there are monsters and yes, we do get to see them and they are scary, but how much of them comes from the negativity stored within October and Russell’s dark memories? Would they even exist if not for the return of the prodigal son? It’s doubtful. Of all the predators that pose the most threat to humans, our own memories are the most heartless and do the most damage.

But that’s not to say that It’s In The Blood is an hour and a half of dry therapy sessions. It’s a brutal survival film wrapped around a hard paranormal seed. No matter where the monsters came from, they must be dealt with: by fire, by shotgun, by elaborate booby traps, by whatever October can toss together out of the raw material he has to work with. And when that busted leg of Russell’s starts to go bad…well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m pretty well desensitized to blood and gore, but man…I had to look away for a second or two. I damn near launched my lunch.

The majority of this film is a two man act, and both veteran Lance Henriksen and relative newcomer Sean Eliot carry it off well. More than well, actually. They shoulder this shit better than Atlas himself could have done. I will go so far as to say that this is one of Lance Henriksen’s best performances ever. Watching him fake an orgasm was one of the very few highlights of my horror movie watching year. He’s funny, he’s pathetic, he’s endearing, he’s an asshole, he encompasses Russell like no other character he’s ever played and disappears into the part entirely. I love Lance Henriksen and have been a mighty big fan of his for years, watching anything and everything he’s been in, from the awesome (Pumpkinhead, Aliens, Near Dark, Powder – stfu, I liked that movie) to the not-so-awesome (The Horror Show, mostly) and he really seems to be having fun living in Russell’s body, so much so that I actually forgot it was Henriksen a couple of times whilst watching. No slouch either is Eliot, who smolders with an intensity that damn near burns the film off its reels.

This is a very rare breed of horror film, one driven by characters and emotion, rather than blood and body counts. If you’re looking for the standard insipid slasher churning out the bodies of one-dimensional, sex obsessed teenagers, yeah, you’re probably going to hate this movie. Those looking for some substance would do well to check out It’s In The Blood. It may well appeal to fans of Session 9, as well as Predator and maybe just a little bit Blair Witch, but it also stands very well all on its own in a class by itself.

Don’t be afraid to invest your brain and your heart as well as your time into this one. It’s well worth the effort.

Review by Ben Bussey

When a seasoned director of note steps back behind the camera, it puts an inevitable slant on the viewing experience. We can’t help but reflect on past glories and relate them to what we see before us now. Sometimes, if the latest work does not stand up well in comparison with that of days gone by, then it all winds up a bummer of epic proportions: take the walk of shame, George Romero, Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, Dario Argento, Robin Hardy etc. But then there are the occasional exceptions whose passion and skill do not seem to have atrophied with age, and whose contemporary work – though perhaps far removed from their most celebrated earlier output – is fascinating and compelling in its own right: take a bow, David Cronenberg, and… um… well, mostly it’s just Cronenberg. Or perhaps not, given that a certain other legend of high-end genre filmmaking, one William Friedkin, has come back from recent obscurity with Killer Joe, a relatively low-budget film that has had tongues wagging all over the shop, demonstrating that – as Steph put it back in July – “Even at 76 years of age Friedkin… has still got what it takes to get the censor’s panties in a twist.” (Incidentally, as Steph’s review gives a good summary of the plot, I’ll skip over most of that here and assume the reader knows the essentials – check out her write-up at the link above if you need filling in.)

Another thing that can colour the viewing experience is the knowledge that the film you’re watching is adapted from a stageplay. At the time of writing, I haven’t seen Friedkin’s previous collaboration with playwright/screenwriter Tracy Letts, 2006’s Bug, though if I’ve read correctly it wears its stage origins on its sleeve with a single location setting and small cast. That’s certainly the case here; a few brief moments aside (notably a small car chase of sorts), the action is typically restricted to a few interior locations, with the dialogue very much the focal point. Consequently a great many stage adaptations wind up with a somewhat stiff, blunt, vaguely unnatural atmosphere that puts off some viewers; Glengarry Glen Ross is a prime example. Killer Joe also falls into this trap, but in so doing it does bring an interesting question to mind: which is, as much as we hold up Friedkin as a great director, does he necessarily have a distinct directorial style? Unlike most of his peers whose work can be easily identified as their own at a glance, I struggle to think of any particular directorial tropes that immediately single out a film as Friedkin’s, outside of maybe his signature car chases (and even those only occurred in, what, three of his films? I’d hardly say the one in this film counts.) That being so, Killer Joe is surely as good a representation of Friedkin as any, given that it does what all his best films have done – put the story first. Well, that and the whole pushing the boundaries of taste and decency thing.  

From the off, Killer Joe sets out to explore seedy territory in an unflinching manner: Gina Gershon’s introductory shot alone goes some way to setting that tone (mild spoiler – it’s not her face we see first).  The story itself is the kind of thing we’d expect to hear told by the protagonists in retrospect, on the Jerry Springer Show. It’s an epic, classical tragedy played out in a rundown trailer park, with barely a sympathetic character in sight aside from Juno Temple’s Dottie – and even she might leave you wondering. These characters are low on hope, but also low on wits, and when the chips are down they’ve all got their own interests at heart, family ties be damned. Joe – he’s just the Yoko of the equation, stepping into the heart of the shitstorm and exposing the cracks that had already long since formed. His presence just makes the inevitable breakdown that bit uglier.

Initially I was skeptical of Friedkin’s decision to use such a relatively high-profile Hollywood ensemble for his cast of impoverished, drug-addled, trailer trash fuck-ups, but in truth this works in the film’s favour, and not only because all involved do such sterling work. The thing is, if we weren’t so accustomed to the sight of Matthew McConaughey degrading himself in endless half-witted rom-coms, there wouldn’t be quite the same subversive edge to the distinctly non-rom-com behaviour of his character here. It’s particularly satisfying given that – not unlike Brad Pitt in Fight Club before him – McConaughey takes on this twisted, confrontational role without actually making any drastic alterations to his usual screen persona, outside of a slightly lower tone of voice and a steelier gaze. And for those of a more sensitive disposition (i.e. presumably not most BaH readers) the familiarity of the leading man may help remind that – as we’ve oft been told before – it’s only a movie. Thereby, no matter how unpleasant and bizarre things get, the edge is taken off ever so slightly, and we are able to take that bit more pleasure out of proceedings.

And that really is the point to be emphasised with Killer Joe – when all is said and done, it’s really just a bit of a laugh. There are without doubt a great many who will take exception to that idea, liable to complain loudly that there can be no humour in such a relentlessly bleak representation of human nature, not to mention the sadistic and sexually deviant content. But whilst Friedkin and his cast may play their cards close to their chest, this is clearly Killer Joe’s true nature. It isn’t a hard-boiled thriller or a gritty kitchen sink drama, it’s an almost Coens-esque black comedy of the harshest and nastiest kind. Anyone with a taste for that brand of humour should definitely have a good time with Killer Joe, and may well be liable to a fit of so-wrong-but-so-right hysterical laughter come the grand finale – particularly once the end credits music kicks in.

Killer Joe is released to Region 2 DVD and Blu-ray on 5th November, from eOne.

Review by Kit Rathenar

When a film runs to a full two hours and inside the first half hour has already managed to demolish a church and stage a funeral for an elephant, you know you’re dealing with a director of remarkable if somewhat skewed vision. Alejandro Jodorowsky’s extraordinary Santa Sangre (“Holy Blood”), originally released in 1989, is a surrealist classic of beauty, violence and tragedy. The narrative follows the story of Fenix, the son of a gringo circus-master and his beautiful but religion-crazed Mexican wife; traumatised in childhood by witnessing a brutal exchange between his philandering father and jealous mother, Fenix is committed to an institution. As a young man, he escapes and finds himself in the care of his now crippled mother, only to become enslaved to her seemingly insatiable need for vengeance upon the memory of Fenix’s father and his father’s mistress. As the coils of madness, tragedy and bloodshed tighten, through them moves the mysterious figure of the deaf-mute girl Alma, Fenix’s childhood sweetheart from his days in the circus. Can her innocence, courage and love save her former playmate from his fate? The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is by no means straightforward.

But this is a movie whose plot is only one of its several raisons d’etre. It’s also an exuberant indulgence in pure spectacle, a celebration of colour and light, music and costume, dramatic violence and inspiring grace. Jodorowsky’s chosen settings for his narrative – from circus to madhouse to carnival to theatre – all lend themselves to larger-than-life depictions of both characters and scenes and he seizes every opportunity, presenting the viewer with a breathless procession of startling images. The soundtrack is especially cleverly integrated: consisting almost entirely of Mexican popular music, for a large part of the film it’s being performed on-screen by the circus band, blurring the viewer’s sense of which perceptions they’re sharing with the characters and which are purely on our side of the fourth wall. There’s one particularly striking scene in which Fenix’s parents are quarrelling violently and the band begin to play behind them, subliminally recontextualising their fight into something halfway between a circus routine and a dance; it’s both powerful and all the better for not being made explicit. Indeed, this film is short on explanation all around, keeping the dialogue to a needful minimum and expressing everything it can with visuals, body acting, and implication, which for me is another point in its favour. It’s a pleasure to encounter a director who obviously trusts his audience to be capable of joined-up thinking.

There’s also a level of metatextual filmmaking going on here, as Santa Sangre’s theme of family ties reflects its director’s own preoccupations and goes so far as to influence the casting. Jodorowsky gave the part of Fenix jointly to two of his sons, Adan who plays Fenix as a boy, and Axel who plays him as a young man. I’m normally chary of a director casting his nearest and dearest, but the two junior Jodorowskys both do their father proud; Axel in particular gives an extraordinary performance, by turns charismatic, vulnerable, touching and frightening. Despite the violence we see Fenix forced to carry out under the influence of his demented mother, he never lets the audience lose compassion or sympathy for the character and his fervent and emotive handling of the very final scenes is truly affecting.

While Santa Sangre is a magnificent film, it’s only fair to warn potential viewers that it does demand some intelligence, an open mind, and a relatively strong stomach – while the violence here isn’t excessive by modern horror standards, it’s still impactful, and at times imaginatively macabre enough to make even a hardened gorehound wince. On a purely artistic level meanwhile it feels a little unwieldy during its second half, scattering its plot strands perhaps slightly too far afield before it gathers them back in for the ending, but this is a minor criticism. Highly recommended; see this one if you can. Ideally on a big screen, as I imagine it’d be absolutely spectacular there.

As a final footnote, this new DVD release also comes with a mishmash of extras. There’s Adan Jodorowsky’s short surrealist farce “Echek”, in which the younger Jodorowsky demonstrates a directorial inclination rather more playful than his father’s; a longish deleted scene; a somewhat annoyingly hagiographic French documentary that consists of various close associates of Jodorowsky enthusing about the man himself; and a discussion session with Jodorowsky filmed at the ICA in 2002 which is by turns profound, funny and vulgar, and occasionally all three at once. There’s also the remarkable 90-minute documentary film La Constellation Jodorowsky, which is well worth watching as in seeking to understand Jodorowsky’s worldview it becomes an intriguing study in the search for self-identity, culminating in a wonderful reversal of roles as director Louis Mouchet comes in front of the camera himself as the focus of one of Jodorowsky’s “psycho-magic” sessions. Finally there’s Jodorowsky’s own commentary on the film itself, making this a pretty complete package. I’ll definitely be watching this one again.

Santa Sangre is released to Region 2 DVD and Blu-Ray on 5th November, from Mr Bongo Films.

Review by Marc Patterson

César (Luis Tosar) is a perpetually unhappy man. Everyday is a waking hell for him. However, to the residents of the apartment building he works in, they would never know it. This faithful doorman is the embodiment of polite servitude, a man whose character you’d never question. Underneath his polished exterior is a psychotic madman. In extreme stalker style César keeps detailed notes about every resident, and one particular resident has caught his attention.

Clara (Marta Etura) is everything that César is not. She’s a young, beautiful, happy-go-lucky gal who wakes up every morning to an upbeat tune. If bluebirds flew through her window to happily chirp along with her as she’d danced her way through her morning routine I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised. And César both loves and hates her for it at the same time. He harbors deep resentment, which he speaks of to his bedridden mother – a woman who seems to be in some sort of coma, giving the film an obvious nod towards Psycho. As César plots against Clara we witness the depraved darkness in which he continuously wallows, as his madness spins maniacally out of control towards an unpredictable ending.

In Sleep Tight Jaume Balagueró showcases to fans just how effective a filmmaker he is. His first solo directorial piece since the [REC] films, Balagueró sticks to the basics of the genre, delivering up a dark vision that doesn’t break convention, but rather proves there’s much that can be done within the confines of one of the most tried and true formulas. In doing so he manages to bring to the forefront enough of his personal flair make this film truly his own creation.

Balagueró’s signature style is carried over from the [REC] films, as he keeps all of the action set within the confines of an old apartment building in Spain. The atmosphere practically emanates the spirit of Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy with nearly no shots taken outside of the building. In doing so, Balagueró keeps the sets minimal and tight, if not a tad bit claustrophobic; an effective detail that is not only practical from budgetary standpoints, but also ensures the audience remains centrally located in the midst of the action and firmly rooted in César’s point of view.

What I thought was truly masterful was how Balagueró manages to trick the audience into sympathizing with César. One of the most nail-biting scenes of suspense occurred when César managed to get himself trapped inside of Clara’s apartment. We watch as he frantically attempts to get out of the apartment without being caught, and it was in this moment of pure dread that I realized I wasn’t afraid for Clara. The suspense and anxiety I was experiencing was for César. I should have been jeering at the screen, hoping he’d get caught, glad he finally was about to get his comeuppance. But that wasn’t the case. And it was in that instance I knew I was watching something really powerful.

And it is the performance of Luis Tosar that gives this film its power. His sheer presence and posturing is enough to get audiences creeped out, even before he commits a single atrocious act. The monologue of his mind is clearly spoken out loud, creating a villain we equally despise and yet sympathize with. The dynamic he shares with Marta on screen is vital to the story and while Marta’s performance as Clara comes across as almost a support role to Tosar, it is not to be underestimated. There is a clear energy at play with their performances that sells this film.

One part Hitchcock, one part Polanski, Balagueró has crafted yet another unbelievably creepy film that deserves to be watched. If Sleep Tight doesn’t make you search every inch of your home to ensure you’re intruder free then I don’t know what movie will.

Sleep Tight is on limited US release now.

Review by Nia Edwards-Behi

Lovely Molly was not the film I expected it to be. I purposefully avoided reading too much detail about it, as I often do, but I was expecting a tale of a haunted house, or of a woman’s possession. That’s not what I got. The film’s got ghosts and demons, in a way, but this is not your typical ghost story. Happy newlyweds Molly (Gretchen Lodge) and Tim (Johnny Lewis) start their new life together by moving into Molly’s old family home. Tim, a trucker, spends long periods of time on the road. Often left alone, Molly finds herself facing an unbearable forces from her past in the old house, and contending with such forces alone soon drives her and those around her to dark, dark places.

My heart initially sank somewhat to see the first few sequences are shot on a camcorder, but the way the device is used through the rest of the film is integrated with the narrative and used to good effect. The way in which Lovely Molly plays with familiar tropes but in a more or less completely uncliched way is by far the film’s main strength. Primarily this is seen in the treatment of the house itself, and in the characters. There’s a certain tendency in horror films set in houses to come across as being a bit overly-obsessed with affluence. Large, well-decorated properties creak and moan and are crept around in a way that verges on the uniform. There’s something nice about the house in Lovely Molly, in that yes, it is quite big, but it’s incredibly well-designed to look like a former family home. The decor is all out of time and out of place, down to the bedding. Molly works as a cleaner, while Tim is off driving trucks, so there’s none of that ‘I need to stay at home and work on my music/novel/painting while you work, dear’ that can be found in such films. Likewise, the characters are well-developed without being bogged down by exposition. Molly and Tim are clearly a happy and caring couple at the start of the film. They’re not twee, though, and these are flawed characters: Molly over-reacts a little when Tim has to work on her birthday, and Tim might be a little insensitive. They make up, though, and there’s no melodramatic argument between them.

Even as things get worse for Molly, the characters are refreshlingly uncliched. The husband stands by her, the pastor doesn’t take advantage of her deranged come-ons, her sister is desperately supportive. For a film in which the horror is potentially wholly un-supernatural, that the characters aren’t cutouts from every other domestic horror film is vital to Lovely Molly being incredibly engaging. You care for the people around Molly as much for Molly herself. The performances are excellent, with Gretchen Lodge wholly convincing as a normal woman haunted and cowed by demons literal and otherwise. Alexandra Holden is worth a mention too as Molly’s sister Hannah, central to the childhood that haunts them both and yet unable to offer the help she wants to give her sister.

This backstory that is, essentially, the ghost or monster of the film, is delightfully ambiguous. It’s never revealed outright what has happened in Molly’s childhood and this perhaps works for the best – the horror she has already experienced is never heavy-handed, as so often can be the case. The new terror that Molly experiences is pleasantly free of jump-scares (though there is one great one) and musical stingers. Rather, Sanchez successfully creates a creeping tension, whereby the more we learn about Molly the more we worry for her, for what’s happening to her, and for what might happen to the people around her. There are some great Kubrickian shots that follow Molly around where she works, or as she wanders aimlessly once she’s fired. The ambiguity of what has happened or what is happening to Molly is helped along by the many sequences where we don’t see her face.

There is a point in the film, however, where this brilliantly refreshing film starts to slip slightly into more familiar territory. The husband experiences a moment of weakness. The pastor is tempted (and punished). These moments don’t ruin the film, by any stretch, nor are they mishandled, but because of just how refreshingly good these characters are earlier, that their expected falls from grace do happen almost seems a shame. Similarly, the very ending of the film feels jarringly typical, by comparison to the rest of the film. Again, this isn’t enough to ruin the experience of the film as a whole, but rather a misstep that feels like one scene too many after the climactic action. The violence in the film is thankfully restrained, with Molly’s first act of violence being grossly effective, turning what appears to be a sweet moment of reconciliation into something else entirely. From that moment on the film descends into the madness and depravity that has threatened to emerge through the rest of the preceding action. There is a truly horrific moment in which Molly commits a horrendous act of violence, but seems to be completely and utterly not in control of her actions. This is played so subtly by Gretchen Lodge that it really stands out.

There’s much more to be said about Lovely Molly – about its themes, its intricacies – but I don’t want to discuss them in this sort of a review. It’s a film that deserves to be seen without preconceptions or expectations, but likewise it’s a film I know I’m looking forward to seeing again, and even again, for a full dissection of just what happens to Molly.

Lovely Molly is out now on Region 2 DVD from Metrodome.

Review by Ben Bussey

Sharks have had to put up with a lot over the years, haven’t they? Kept as pets by Bond villians; blown to smithereens and/or electrocuted by Roy Schieder; facing the wrath of LL Cool J after eating his bird. So how do they fare when pitted against Academy Award® winner Halle Berry? Schieder had the oxygen cannister and the harpoon gun, LL had the gas and the lighter, but Berry has… her motivation!

I wonder what it is with director John Stockwell and sea movies. He seems to do little else. First it was the Kate Bosworth/Michelle Rodriguez surfer flick Blue Crush, then the Paul Walker/Jessica Alba free-diving treasure hunt movie Into The Blue; and now this, which I can only assume would have been entitled Dark Blue were it not for fear of being confused with the Kurt Russell/Ving Rhames police drama from a few years back. Oh, and let’s not forget his partially beach-bound torture movie Turistas (AKA Paradise Lost) with Melissa George. What can we gather from the similarity of this guy’s projects? Does he have a fondness for exotic locations? Does he relish filming attractive women in swimsuits? Or is he just repeatedly typecast as a director? Whether it is some of those things, all of those things or none of those things, we would have no cause for complaint so long as his films delivered the goods – but from what I’ve seen, they generally fail to do so. As to whether Dark Tide is the exception – well, when a film with a big name Academy Award® winner goes direct to DVD, that should give you a bit of a hint.

The opening plays out like an aquatic Cliffhanger. Out on the waves in happier days, Halle bounces around in her bikini without a care in the world, waxing lyrical about sharks to her photographer husband Olivier Martinez’s video camera, whilst flirting unconvincingly with every man on the boat. Bad sign, obviously, and soon one of her nearest and dearest is fish food. X amount of time passes and, naturally, she just can’t bring herself to dive with sharks again – but that’s where the money is, and with her marriage in ruins and her business headed the same way she really needs hard currency. So when her estranged hubby sets her up with a loathsome British rich bloke (Ralph Brown, AKA the perpetually stoned dealer from Withnail & I) who’s prepared to pay through the nose to swim with sharks without a cage, she basically has no choice but to agree. Naturally the small boat is a hotbed of tension immediately; Halle clashes with hubby, rich bloke clashes with teenage son, everyone clashes with rich bloke. Obviously it’s all going to boil up to the point where someone has to get eaten. Sadly, it takes way, way too long to reach that point.

Should we respect the fact that Dark Tide takes a premise with B-movie written all over it, and treats it entirely seriously? I get the impression that’s what they expect the audience to do. That’s what we want in these times, apparently: popcorn flicks that are “dark” and “edgy” and “realistic.” God forbid they might actually be fun, or anything. Dark Tide is determined to beat the audience around the head with its own seriousness, and emphasise how tortured its protagonists are. It gets old really, really fast. If the idea is that all this backstory will add dramatic weight when the shit hits the fan, it might have helped if things went properly south a bit sooner than about twenty minutes before the end. As it is, the jaws of our fishy friends can’t strike fast enough. But alas, even when the sharks do get chomping, the damage isn’t sufficient to satiate our bloodlust against these annoying bastards. Nor is it really enough to warrant the 15 certificate the BBFC have slapped it with – it’s considerably less gruesome than the (unbelievably) 12-rated Jaws. And considerably less good, as if that needed to be said.

And sadly, no: not even multiple glimpses of Halle Berry’s scantily clad torso are enough to keep Dark Tide from being a total waste of time. That said, it may actually come as a surpise how sporadic Berry’s bikini shots are (though Stockwell makes the most of them, squeezing in as many gratuitous voyeuristic shots as he can get away without seeming too sleazy). Sadly, Berry is in this instance less interested in showing off her talents than showing off her talent, in an actorly fashion. But here’s the thing – and please, I can’t be the only one to have noticed this… Halle Berry really isn’t very talented. At all. In fact, she’s really quite a bad actress. I actually haven’t seen Monster’s Ball so I don’t know whether her Academy Award® win was justified, but in pretty much everything else I’ve ever seen her in her performances have been utterly forced and unnatural. And guess what; Dark Tide doesn’t break that trend. How she’s remained at the top so long I really don’t know, although the fact that she does still look so scrumdiddlyumptious might have a little something to do with it.

Tedious in the extreme, Dark Tide might look to make a big splash but it delivers little more than a damp splodge. You’d be best off not biting for this one.

Dark Tide is out on Region 2 DVD and Blu-Ray on 22nd October from Revolver.