Just saw RAMPAGE at Phantasmagoria in Swindon and two days later its still rattling around in my head. Will definitely buy the DVD to add to my collection of extreme cinema. Uwe Boll was at the festival and had some curious things to say about the film being a satire of banks and the their recent collapse. Uwe has had to face a lot of negative criticism about his film-making, but I think Rampage might will prove otherwise. Personally, I found him inspirational; a one man film industry who could teach aspiring film-makers and entire national film industries how to make it in the movie business. His next film is about Darfur and apparently confronts us with the true horror of the genocide that is still taking place. When I watched SHOOTING DOGS I thought it was a santized depiction of genocide made comfortable for first world, middle class sensibilities. Uwe Boll's DARFUR will apparently not pull its punches and will hopefully bring the issue back to our attention.
Reviews
17 Reviews
Incendiary
(2008)
Cod Mockney Melodrama
21 August 2008
This cod mockney melodrama from the director of Bridget Jones Diary fails at every level. It's clearly a film involving working class characters made by middle class people with both characters and plot lacking any authenticity and credibility whatsoever. In fact, the basic premise of Bridget Jones is transposed to this disastrous attempt at making a serious drama. Instead of writing a diary she writes letters to Osama Bin Laden. Instead of getting caught in a love triangle between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant she gets caught in a love triangle with two equally wet englishmen, uncomfortably played by Ewan MacGregor and Matthew Macfadayen, and all this, after her poor husband and son have been blown to bits in an unconvincing attack on Arsenal football stadium whilst she was shagging the local taloid newspaper reporter! The mawkish sentimentality that ensues is unbearable. In a preposterous celebration of London's blitz spirit, the faces of the victims are printed on the side of WWII air balloons which float above the city in every shot. And Michelle Williams, who miraculously found her sons toy rabbit in the ruins of the football stadium, clutches it to her chest in almost every scene. I find it hard to believe that this ill conceived script ever made it past treatment stage, particularly when so many established UK film companies like CH4 were involved in its development and finance. I find it equally hard to believe that the film was selected to screen at prestigious festivals like Sundance.This film is a worrying indictment of the failings of a the British film industry.
Summer Scars
(2007)
"Stand By Me" meets "Deliverance"
17 February 2008
Anyone who recalls misspent summers of youth will understand well how a single day can echo down the years. Like the similarly resonant stories of Rob Reiner's Stand by Me, or much of Shane Meadows's work, Summer Scars captures fragile youth at a turning point, with cracks opening up to the darker adult world.
Six friends bunk off school to spend the day in the woods. Armed with a few cans of beer and some very inadequate barbecue skills, they're free to do just what 14-year-olds do best: show off, swear, fight and spend the day just hanging out together. The first reel of Julian Richards's low budget drama is spent solely in the company of these six. Like most real kids they're certainly no angels, and might qualify as 'hoodies' in a cruder film.
Riding a stolen moped around the bumpy woodland paths, two of the gang collide with a lone adult, Peter (Howarth). They fear the worst, and leg it from the scene, but Peter is unharmed and soon emerges to join the group. Attention turns to this unknown quantity, and the focus of the group shifts. Peter seems to be 'down with the kids'. He's sympathetic, and is soon leading the gang into new scrapes.
But Peter can't be pinned down one minute he's offering life lessons to his young charges, the next he seems more sinister, playing divide and conquer, and easily exploiting tensions by turning friends against one another. As the afternoon wears on, events take worrying turns, and it appears Peter's agenda may be closing in on the gang.
This low-budget indie thriller makes all the right moves with an engagingly 'real' cast of youngsters. Never patronising and edgy throughout, it's a heartfelt picture of fragile adolescent faiths.
Six friends bunk off school to spend the day in the woods. Armed with a few cans of beer and some very inadequate barbecue skills, they're free to do just what 14-year-olds do best: show off, swear, fight and spend the day just hanging out together. The first reel of Julian Richards's low budget drama is spent solely in the company of these six. Like most real kids they're certainly no angels, and might qualify as 'hoodies' in a cruder film.
Riding a stolen moped around the bumpy woodland paths, two of the gang collide with a lone adult, Peter (Howarth). They fear the worst, and leg it from the scene, but Peter is unharmed and soon emerges to join the group. Attention turns to this unknown quantity, and the focus of the group shifts. Peter seems to be 'down with the kids'. He's sympathetic, and is soon leading the gang into new scrapes.
But Peter can't be pinned down one minute he's offering life lessons to his young charges, the next he seems more sinister, playing divide and conquer, and easily exploiting tensions by turning friends against one another. As the afternoon wears on, events take worrying turns, and it appears Peter's agenda may be closing in on the gang.
This low-budget indie thriller makes all the right moves with an engagingly 'real' cast of youngsters. Never patronising and edgy throughout, it's a heartfelt picture of fragile adolescent faiths.
Wolf Creek
(2005)
Step aside Leatherface, here comes Uncle Mikey...
26 May 2005
Necks don't come redder than they do in the Australian outback, and if you find yourself stranded and in need of assistance from one of the local yokels, for god sake, don't go cracking jokes about Crocodile Dundee, otherwise 'Uncle Mikey' might take offence.
Reportedly shot for $1.4 on Hi-Def, this new psycho killer pic from down under has been purchased by Miramax for a cool $8 million, and world domination awaits.
If you found the brutal violence of HAUTE TENSION hard to stomach, then stay clear of WOLF CREEK which makes the latter Gallic splatter fest look positively anaemic. It even gives Tobe Hooper's Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE a run for it's money. Just replace the sea of OPEN WATER with the dry arid desert of Nic Roeg's WALKABOUT, then switch the shark for a MR BLONDE/CROCODILE DUNDEE combo and you've got the best bloody horror movie in decades.
Reportedly shot for $1.4 on Hi-Def, this new psycho killer pic from down under has been purchased by Miramax for a cool $8 million, and world domination awaits.
If you found the brutal violence of HAUTE TENSION hard to stomach, then stay clear of WOLF CREEK which makes the latter Gallic splatter fest look positively anaemic. It even gives Tobe Hooper's Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE a run for it's money. Just replace the sea of OPEN WATER with the dry arid desert of Nic Roeg's WALKABOUT, then switch the shark for a MR BLONDE/CROCODILE DUNDEE combo and you've got the best bloody horror movie in decades.
Octane
(2003)
Crash meets Near Dark, I wish.
11 September 2003
The pitch sounded good - a cult of modern day vampires stalking victims on freeways and neon lit service stations. The cast suggested quality - Madeline Stowe as the estranged mother, Bijou Phillips as the kidnapped daughter and John Rhys-Myers as the cult leader. So what happened?
As ever the script was mishandled or badly developed. The protagonists, mother and daughter are decidedly unlikeable and the POV of the narrative makes the mistake of switching sides half way through. As with George Sluizer's The Vanishing, the story should have stayed with the protagonists search for her missing loved one, but instead it focuses on the tearaway daughter and her frolics with a laughable cult of blood drinking travellers. What narrative there is soon disintergrates into a pop video and attempts to salvage the film with a third act denoument in a factory treads into Ed Wood territory.
So much for the much trumpeted Random Harvest/Four Horsemen british horror slate. Heads should roll for this one.
As ever the script was mishandled or badly developed. The protagonists, mother and daughter are decidedly unlikeable and the POV of the narrative makes the mistake of switching sides half way through. As with George Sluizer's The Vanishing, the story should have stayed with the protagonists search for her missing loved one, but instead it focuses on the tearaway daughter and her frolics with a laughable cult of blood drinking travellers. What narrative there is soon disintergrates into a pop video and attempts to salvage the film with a third act denoument in a factory treads into Ed Wood territory.
So much for the much trumpeted Random Harvest/Four Horsemen british horror slate. Heads should roll for this one.
Hardware
(1990)
Staggeringly Inept
30 July 2003
After Silent Running, Westworld, Dark Star, Demon Seed, Saturn 3
and Terminator, Richard Stanley's Hardware is merely a derivative
exercise about a robot run riot which is barely made watchable by
the superficial visual flare of an 80's pop video director. As usual,
the problem lays in the script; the protagonists are cold, flat
unsympathetic and unidentifiable, so you don't really care what
happens to them. The cast are uncharismatic and wooden which
is probably down to the directors pre-occupation with comic book
storyboards and the souless technological side of the film making
process (lighting effects, camera moves etc) as opposed to the
key ingredient of knowing how to write for and direct good
performances. Equally suspect is the visual likeness of the
director and his 'Coffin Joe' style attire to the protagonist soldier
and his post apocalyptoic wardrobe. 'If you tell your cast what to do'
advised John Ford 'you will end up with several cardboard cut outs
of yourself'.
and Terminator, Richard Stanley's Hardware is merely a derivative
exercise about a robot run riot which is barely made watchable by
the superficial visual flare of an 80's pop video director. As usual,
the problem lays in the script; the protagonists are cold, flat
unsympathetic and unidentifiable, so you don't really care what
happens to them. The cast are uncharismatic and wooden which
is probably down to the directors pre-occupation with comic book
storyboards and the souless technological side of the film making
process (lighting effects, camera moves etc) as opposed to the
key ingredient of knowing how to write for and direct good
performances. Equally suspect is the visual likeness of the
director and his 'Coffin Joe' style attire to the protagonist soldier
and his post apocalyptoic wardrobe. 'If you tell your cast what to do'
advised John Ford 'you will end up with several cardboard cut outs
of yourself'.
The Last Horror Movie
(2003)
A snuff movie with a wicked sense of humour
17 June 2003
The fine line between fiction and reality is explored, blurred and bloodied by director Julian (Darklands) Richards in The Last Horror Movie, a tale of the unexpected geared around unusual plotting and smart sleight-of-hand fright. Wedding photographer Max Parry (Kevin Howarth giving a truly terrifying performance) is a serial killer who uses a horror video rental to lure his victims to their wincingly nasty demises. And what begins as a teen slasher transforms into a disturbing journey through the demented mind of a London-based assassin who has acquired the taste for human flesh. For Parry is determined to direct an intelligent film about murder while actually committing the murders himself and his master plan is to make his 'snuff' entertainment the last horror movie his prey will ever see. Shot on digital video for a hyper-real atmosphere, and assuredly directed by Richards to keep the final twist obscured from view until it rightfully emerges as a sharp shock to the system, The Last Horror Movie is one of the best British movies of this year.
Darklands
(1996)
Obscure Welsh Gem
13 February 2003
I stumbled across this obscure Welsh gem in a cinema in Reykjavík, Iceland, the year it was released. Basically it's similar in many ways to the infamous The Wicker Man (1973), though I much preferred Darklands, not least because of the black metal aesthetic and the excellent industrial music of Test Dept., whose album Gododdin has had a profound and lasting impact on me.
Silent Cry
(2002)
A finely wrought thriller
3 February 2003
A day after she held her newborn in her arms, still in the hospital, the doctor informs Rachel that the baby has died. Broken and incredulous, Rachel returns to the hospital, finds a comrade among the hospital staff, and together they go out into the darker corners of London on a journey in which they discover not a few disturbing secrets. Alongside the twisting plot and the talented ensemble of actors, the camera plays a lead role in the way in which it colors the hospital corridors, the rainy streets of London and the gutters populated by prostitutes and homeless people. The result is a finely wrought thriller, directed with impressive emotional restraint.
Dog Soldiers
(2002)
UK Film Industry Take Note...
17 December 2002
This is a rare thing in the British film industry - an action horror
comedy made by a working class writer/director for a working
class audience. Dog Soldiers is by no means a good film; we've seen the story a
hundred times before (Night, Dawn, Day of The Dead, Evil Dead,
Assault On Precinct 13, Rio Bravo, The Thing, Reservoir Dogs,
Zulu and The Alamo). The Werewolves look like puppets or men in
rubber masks. The script and dialogue creaks with cliche's right
out of a Lon Chaney Jnr film. The suspense and horror elements
are only moderately well handled. But what makes this film rock is
its relentless action pace and its utter lack of pretention. This is a
lads film, straight out of Loaded or FHM, and would do very well
scheduled on ITV after Match of the Day.
Anybody who has a problem with that should look at the films box
office - it did good business - just what the British film industry
needs.
comedy made by a working class writer/director for a working
class audience. Dog Soldiers is by no means a good film; we've seen the story a
hundred times before (Night, Dawn, Day of The Dead, Evil Dead,
Assault On Precinct 13, Rio Bravo, The Thing, Reservoir Dogs,
Zulu and The Alamo). The Werewolves look like puppets or men in
rubber masks. The script and dialogue creaks with cliche's right
out of a Lon Chaney Jnr film. The suspense and horror elements
are only moderately well handled. But what makes this film rock is
its relentless action pace and its utter lack of pretention. This is a
lads film, straight out of Loaded or FHM, and would do very well
scheduled on ITV after Match of the Day.
Anybody who has a problem with that should look at the films box
office - it did good business - just what the British film industry
needs.
Long Time Dead
(2002)
Well intended mediocrity
11 December 2002
Hip cast, atmospheric cinematography, pleasing production
design, but what lets this promising debut down is it's lack of
originality.
Marcus Adams has a visually confident , kinetic approach, but
there is nothing new or exciting about his take on the genre.
Inventive shots (the likes of Argento, Coen Bros and Raimi) and
creative suspense sequences (the likes of Hitchcock and
Spielberg) are sadly lacking. Instead the dots are joined together,
leading us through a repatative body count reminiscent of
Hammer's 'Blood From The Mummys Tomb'.
Most scenes begin with a character walking though a room calling
out another character's name, their progress towards a
predictable demise accompanied by stock string suspense
music.
At a time when the genre is being deconstructed ('Scream') or
treated as extreme realism ('Blair Witch') it is ill advised to follow
such an old fashioned, threadbare formula - as it is to present us
with a rubber masked Djinn in a banaal attempt to scare us.
(Didn't they see the studio cut of Val Lewtons 'Night Of The
Demon'? - First rule of horror - never show the monster.
The films biggest problem is that it fails to focus its point of view
on one likeable character. As the body count progresses you don't
care who dies because you are not given an emotional perspective to identify with. In the latter stages there is an attempt
to focus, but the character of choice is the least sympathetic and
his backstory only serves to round up the plot and give some kind
of context to the killings.
One scene worthy of note however involves the spiritualist trapped
in a canal barge as the killer moves above her - reminiscent of Val
Lewton's seminal swimming pool scene in 'Cat People' and
Robert Wise's 'The Haunting'.
Lets hope Mr Adams learns his lessons in time for 'Octane'
currently shooting in the US.
design, but what lets this promising debut down is it's lack of
originality.
Marcus Adams has a visually confident , kinetic approach, but
there is nothing new or exciting about his take on the genre.
Inventive shots (the likes of Argento, Coen Bros and Raimi) and
creative suspense sequences (the likes of Hitchcock and
Spielberg) are sadly lacking. Instead the dots are joined together,
leading us through a repatative body count reminiscent of
Hammer's 'Blood From The Mummys Tomb'.
Most scenes begin with a character walking though a room calling
out another character's name, their progress towards a
predictable demise accompanied by stock string suspense
music.
At a time when the genre is being deconstructed ('Scream') or
treated as extreme realism ('Blair Witch') it is ill advised to follow
such an old fashioned, threadbare formula - as it is to present us
with a rubber masked Djinn in a banaal attempt to scare us.
(Didn't they see the studio cut of Val Lewtons 'Night Of The
Demon'? - First rule of horror - never show the monster.
The films biggest problem is that it fails to focus its point of view
on one likeable character. As the body count progresses you don't
care who dies because you are not given an emotional perspective to identify with. In the latter stages there is an attempt
to focus, but the character of choice is the least sympathetic and
his backstory only serves to round up the plot and give some kind
of context to the killings.
One scene worthy of note however involves the spiritualist trapped
in a canal barge as the killer moves above her - reminiscent of Val
Lewton's seminal swimming pool scene in 'Cat People' and
Robert Wise's 'The Haunting'.
Lets hope Mr Adams learns his lessons in time for 'Octane'
currently shooting in the US.
The Hole
(2001)
good but disappointing
8 April 2002
Those coaxed into the cinema by the excellent trailer (which sold
pic as a uk slasher/horror) were disappointed to find that The Hole
is a more cerebral, psycho drama with a Rashamon structure.
Well crafted, intelligent film-making it is but entertaining it is not.
Going over the same sequence of events again and again from
different points of view might be a film students idea of a wet
dream but to Joe Bloggs its repatative and boring.
Nick Hamm is a good director and the cast are all excellent but it
would have been better if it delivered what the trailer promised and
got on with the slice and dice.
pic as a uk slasher/horror) were disappointed to find that The Hole
is a more cerebral, psycho drama with a Rashamon structure.
Well crafted, intelligent film-making it is but entertaining it is not.
Going over the same sequence of events again and again from
different points of view might be a film students idea of a wet
dream but to Joe Bloggs its repatative and boring.
Nick Hamm is a good director and the cast are all excellent but it
would have been better if it delivered what the trailer promised and
got on with the slice and dice.
The Siege
(1998)
Where are the oscars?
16 February 2002
Intelligent, informative political thriller which should have won oscars or at least nominations for Denzel Washington, Annette Benning, Tony Shaloub, Ed Zwick, Lawrence Wright and whoever did the music! Simply the best movie I've see in a long, long time!
Queen Sacrifice
(1988)
A touch of Bill Forsyth
19 September 2001
There's just a touch of Bill Forsyth's gentle Scottish comedies here - only this film is set in a Welsh mining town where Davey (Duane Phillips) leads his school in chess. He is coached by his history teacher (Richard Davies) who sees in him a chance to realise his old ambition of bringing a chess trophy home to Trehafod from the British Chess Championship in Bournemouth.
So This Is Romance?
(1997)
wet as a pancake.
18 September 1999
A US distributor told me that the problem with this film is that >it was too english. She was right, too. It occasionally made me >laugh but Reece Dinsdale's failure to find a girlfriend and >constant winging annoyed the hell out of me. Funny that the same >cannot be said for Johnny Favareau in 'Swingers' which is a much >better film about the same topic.
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The Blair Witch Project
(1999)
Scary, but not as scary as 'Darklands'!
8 August 1999
Like Cube, Blair Witch is a superb example of how to get the best result out of very limited resources. And in the horror genre, in the post Scream, satirical 90's, this is a tough challenge to pull off. Nevertheless, I have recently seen a British horror film about devil worship and witchcraft which makes Blair Witch look like a picnic in the forest. It's called 'Darklands' and is a must see for any full tilt fright
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
(1974)
The King of horror films!
8 August 1999
Off the back of Scream's box office tally, this year saw the re-release of two classic horror movies; Exorcist and Texas. Basically this means that these two films are the cream of the previous cycle in that they can live on in the cynical, satirical 90's and still scare! I've seen Texas about thirty times and each time I'm amazed by these things; 1) The sound design which incorporates strange unearthly screachings and grindings along with a benign country and western soundtrack. 2) The attention to detail with the objects in the killers house. The chicken in the cage says it all as it cackles, almost laughing at the girl before she gets hooked. 3) The sheer brutality and realism of the murder scenes. Cinematically speaking, Texas is the work of a genius who should praised on a par with Fellini, it's a pity that Tobe Hooper has not been allowed to express himself with such intelligent original films
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