( Neil Marshall / 2005 )
THE DESCENT follows an all-female group of thrill-seekers who, whilst uncovering a hitherto uncharted underground cave system, uncover an also hitherto unrecorded species of cave dwelling carnivores who appreciate our unlucky heroines in the same way students appreciate Pot Noodles. Of course, "our heroines" is slightly misleading as although Marshall does spend some time setting the women up to be likable (or at least not annoying), the moment the blind humanoid mutants turn up it becomes clear that Marshall considers his characters completely secondary to a good scare and a fountain of blood.
The film gives over much of its running time to monsterless underground caving sequences and it is a tribute to Marshall's skill as a horror director that these sequences are tense, even though the situations they find themselves in are textbook (they get lost, they get stuck, their equipment gets left behind, ad nauseum). At one point a character gets stuck squirming through a small tunnel and the camera subtly revolves on its axis, both as a metaphorical turning of the screw on the character's situation and as a means of communicating the space (or lack of) she's found herself in. It's one of many nice touches that display in a stylishly cinematic way the encroaching claustrophobia as the women's chances of surviving diminish by the minute. The thought that goes into the set up and the exploration of the space, along with the genuine disinterest in which characters live or die, means that when Marshall turns on the blood works the many, many jump scares manage to not interrupt the pervading tension. Even though overall THE DESCENT feels familiar and perhaps even a little dull because of it, Marshall's Devil is in the detail and so his cave of horrors deserves to be called one of the best sculpted mainstream horrors of recent years.
Saturday 21 January 2012
Friday 13 January 2012
RIKI-OH (N K Lam)
( Lin Wong / The Story of Ricky / Ngai Kai Lam / 1991 )
New prisoners being inducted to a privately-owned prison are introduced to a system which thrives on cruelty, the only way to survive is to be crueller than the next prisoner and pay frequent homage to the most fearsome prisoners and the even fiercer prison governor. This is something that new inmate, sometime super hero and all round nice guy Riki-Oh cannot abide, and he spends the entirety of this pulp thriller fighting injustice with whatever implements come to hand.
Adapted from a manga RIKI-OH is told in a live action anime style where its raison d'etre is gore, and lots of it. Riki-Oh, along with the principal villains, is imbued with a superhuman strength and resilience so, amongst other things, RIKI-OH's special effects team were required to help with a sequence where Riki disembowels another prisoner with his bare hands, who then turn the tables on Riki by pulling out his own guts and using them to strangle Riki. Although the quality and realism in gore effects has advanced considerably in the twenty-odd years since RIKI-OH was released, along with these advancements has come the tendency for a more unpleasant and nihilistic tone in horror. RIKI is as cheerful in its ultra-violence as an ITCHY & SCRATCHY cartoon and with its very pleasant hero (who only fights in self-defence, tries to save the bad guys from death, and is nice to disabled people) RIKI is not a sadistic ordeal but a good-spirited, if admittedly very very gross, joke. A masterpiece of gore (as long as you don't expect much else from it).
New prisoners being inducted to a privately-owned prison are introduced to a system which thrives on cruelty, the only way to survive is to be crueller than the next prisoner and pay frequent homage to the most fearsome prisoners and the even fiercer prison governor. This is something that new inmate, sometime super hero and all round nice guy Riki-Oh cannot abide, and he spends the entirety of this pulp thriller fighting injustice with whatever implements come to hand.
Adapted from a manga RIKI-OH is told in a live action anime style where its raison d'etre is gore, and lots of it. Riki-Oh, along with the principal villains, is imbued with a superhuman strength and resilience so, amongst other things, RIKI-OH's special effects team were required to help with a sequence where Riki disembowels another prisoner with his bare hands, who then turn the tables on Riki by pulling out his own guts and using them to strangle Riki. Although the quality and realism in gore effects has advanced considerably in the twenty-odd years since RIKI-OH was released, along with these advancements has come the tendency for a more unpleasant and nihilistic tone in horror. RIKI is as cheerful in its ultra-violence as an ITCHY & SCRATCHY cartoon and with its very pleasant hero (who only fights in self-defence, tries to save the bad guys from death, and is nice to disabled people) RIKI is not a sadistic ordeal but a good-spirited, if admittedly very very gross, joke. A masterpiece of gore (as long as you don't expect much else from it).
THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (A H Jones)
( Amy Holden Jones / 1982 )
Influential feminist writer and activist Rita Mae Brown, best known for equating heterosexuality with oppression and co-authoring a series of mystery novels with her cat, wrote a screenplay called SLEEPLESS NIGHTS, about high school girls being stalked mid-sleepover by a drill-wielding maniac, satirising the stalk n slash craze in the late 70s/early 80s. Brown's precise vision for the film is not that clear as first-time director Amy Jones, best known for writing the screenplay for 'lovable' pooch movie BEETHOVEN, along with the influence of a behind the scenes team that at some point included Roger Corman, decided to retitle Brown's screenplay SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE and film it mostly straight. Thus SLUMBER PARTY's reputation as a feminist horror movie is ill deserved.
Not treating the parodic elements with any kind of conviction SLUMBER PARTY just appears kinda dumb, the only difference being that horror films which are genuinely dumb often provide funnier and more accurate (albeit inadvertant) satire than SLUMBER PARTY's confused lack of focus or drive. It's not until the climax - which features the killer wielding his drill between his legs telling his female victim "You know you want it", before the girls turn the tables on him by castrating his drill with a knife and finally killing him - that Brown's politics properly pop their head through the indifferent treatment of her material. Remove the female crew credits and SLUMBER PARTY is just another inept HALLOWEEN/BLACK CHRISTMAS cash-in.
Influential feminist writer and activist Rita Mae Brown, best known for equating heterosexuality with oppression and co-authoring a series of mystery novels with her cat, wrote a screenplay called SLEEPLESS NIGHTS, about high school girls being stalked mid-sleepover by a drill-wielding maniac, satirising the stalk n slash craze in the late 70s/early 80s. Brown's precise vision for the film is not that clear as first-time director Amy Jones, best known for writing the screenplay for 'lovable' pooch movie BEETHOVEN, along with the influence of a behind the scenes team that at some point included Roger Corman, decided to retitle Brown's screenplay SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE and film it mostly straight. Thus SLUMBER PARTY's reputation as a feminist horror movie is ill deserved.
Not treating the parodic elements with any kind of conviction SLUMBER PARTY just appears kinda dumb, the only difference being that horror films which are genuinely dumb often provide funnier and more accurate (albeit inadvertant) satire than SLUMBER PARTY's confused lack of focus or drive. It's not until the climax - which features the killer wielding his drill between his legs telling his female victim "You know you want it", before the girls turn the tables on him by castrating his drill with a knife and finally killing him - that Brown's politics properly pop their head through the indifferent treatment of her material. Remove the female crew credits and SLUMBER PARTY is just another inept HALLOWEEN/BLACK CHRISTMAS cash-in.
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