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Reviews
Abattoir (2016)
Stylistically Excellent But Deeply Flawed
Atmospheric,beautiful, disturbing and creepy...I really wanted to love this film, because it has great elements. All of the people who say the dialogue was bad have clearly never read a Sam Spade novel or watched a lot of classic film noir. Abattoir could have been a cult classic, because of the way it marries a couple of different genres of detective fiction and horror, and pays homage to films typically beloved by people around the ages of the lead characters. The sound effects and music are truly unsettling, and who doesn't love the log lady?
HOWEVER...why? Why do they do the things for the man? This is a hideous flaw in the structure of the film, and makes the end a complete mess. Why is the mother more concerned about the happiness of this monster, than about herself or her children? Why did the entire town give their lives to him? What did he promise them? The payoff wasn't apparent. I know they wanted to avoid being trapped, but what was the initial reward, or the promise that he made them? There wasn't even the suggestion that he was especially alluring as a younger man, when he first came to the town. It really messed up the film for me, that the audience is insulted this way, that we are left without an explanation WHY...we know why he did it, but why did they?
Antichrist (2009)
Beautiful, Visceral, Engaging...But
I am not sure if many people who are terribly shocked by this film just don't watch much horror. Yes, horror movies have disturbing subject matter and graphic scenes. OK? Get a grip. If you don't like horror movies, don't watch this, even if you love other Von Trier films. One obvious problem solved for the people whinging about how grotesque it is. I have seen worse.Try watching Martyrs, or any French New Wave horror, really sheesh. And the sex? Actually quite tasteful. I have seen much more sexually exploitative scenes in hundreds of horror films. IT IS A HORROR FILM. Maybe that should have been made clearer for some folks?
That being said, it's beautiful in its cinematography and music, and perhaps for some people it makes the violence that much more jarring, who knows.
All good horror films focus on nature, human and otherwise, so it's hardly original in that regard, so I only rate it above average. It's not the best film I have ever seen. In some regards its pseudo intellectual and tries too hard. I really could have done without the final scene, Von Trier actually could have had a better film if he didn't push arty quite so pretentiously, and I say that as a former literature major who watches arty films.
Von Trier did not say anything new. Most good horror films play with sex, violence, human nature, nature in general, and question religion or the spirit world. Von Trier just spells it out for you in lengthy psychoanalytic dialogue instead of assuming you're already a smart and serious horror fan and student of life.
I enjoyed his exploration up to a point, but I question if his Nietzchean not-so-veiled misogyny (women as chaotic natural evil) was literal, or if he's fully aware of how emotionally unavailable, robotic, cold, distant and condescending the He character was. It was like caricatures, the hysterical woman and emotionally closed off overly logical man.
The support for my accusations of misogyny are that Von Trier admits to making films that would irk his dead mother, and his treatment of female cast members such as Bjork and Nicole Kidman, as well as his clear parallels with Nietzsche ...another misogynist people deludedly make feminist apologetics for, despite his clear opinion that women should never be educated and that they are closer to nature or animals than men. Since Nietzsches Der Antichrist is on Von Triers bedside table, and the film clearly mirrors this idea of women being more "wild" I just become annoyed with the people trying to force an analysis that conveniently explains away the misogyny of the film because it makes them uncomfortable.
And upon furth reflection, I strongly feel that He and She are fallen man and woman in a Satanic ruined garden of Eden...arrogant controlling man and hysterical selfish woman. However, She still bears the burden of sin, like a Biblical Eve or Nietzchean woman ("man is merely evil...woman is mean"). And what of the scores of faceless women at the end? Why are they FACELESS female forms?
The fact that I despise a Nietzchean world view certainly doesn't help my rating of this film. It's very good, but not the mind blowing gift some people are saying it is.
I think everyone needs to calm down, honestly. I don't feel anything about this film deserves such polarized responses, except for perhaps the squeamish reactions to the torture scenes...however similar displays of violence are found in other contemporary horror.
Halloween (2007)
Rob Zombie Accomplished Something Great in the Mire of Today's Mediocre Horror Flicks
I do not generally like remakes but I think this is the best horror remake I've ever seen, and it's precisely because it gives the movie a fresh spin instead of merely attempting to recreate the original. I appreciated the mix of gory horror with character development and a solid background story. Approached as something new, this film is a shining diamond among the mainstream Hollywood horror of the past decade. Most of my favorite horror films were made before 1990, so I was quite impressed with what I see as a mature effort from Rob Zombie.
I would also like to point out that the Rob Zombie version of the film begins in the 1970's at the very earliest if you look at the clothes and the cars and listen to the music, and the second half of the film has a 1990's feel, so the supposed "goof" listed on this page is glaringly incorrect. Yes, Michael kills his sister's boyfriend with an aluminum baseball bat AFTER 1970, not in 1963. So no goof there. Just thought I'd point that out to all of the people here who are trying their best to shut this movie into their box of preconceived notions about the original John Carpenter film and what is obviously a fresh, new take on the series.