DVD Review - Hatchet 2 (2010)

Hatchet II, 2010.

Written and Directed by Adam Green.
Starring Danielle Harris, Kane Hodder and Tony Todd.


SYNOPSIS:

Having escaped the deranged killer Victor Crowley, Marybeth returns to the bayou with an army of gunmen to end the butcher's reign of terror once and for all.


I happen to be quite a big fan of Adam Green and his dedication to all things horror. Principally because he is clearly a connoisseur of the genre; not somebody who seeks to use it as a platform for “selling out” into the stringent policies of Hollywood but rather somebody who has no truck with delivering the minutiae of a chastised type of cinema consistently to the fans who are like him. He is a filmmaker for the fans. However, I did believe that the original Hatchet would be his tour de force – never to be replicated nor outdone. Gratefully, I stand corrected as the sequel to the instant cult classic may just be one of those rare occasions in which the second film surpasses the first.

Hatchet 2 sees the return of some of the enjoyable characters from the original – Marybeth and Reverend Zombie – with a band of new characters, heading back out into the bayou on a search and destroy mission for the infamous “repeater”, Victor Crowley. But the hunter is not to be hunted as he resumes regular business, picking off each of those who would dare to take him on.

The thing that one can establish from watching the first film is the style of this horror – it’s an unashamed gore fest boasting the most inventive and unabashed kills. A no holds barred blood and guts frenzy like never seen before. So the sequel had the simple task of amping this intensity up a few notches. Jokes aside, it was not going to be easy to achieve this without becoming caricatural. Luckily, this is one of the pleasures of the Hatchet series; the exuberant exhibitionism of distasteful violence. So the fans, true to the conventionality of the post-slasher, will demand improvements; the body count must be considerably bigger and the gags that much funnier. Yes, tearing out a man’s large intestine and using it to throttle him until his head pops off seems ridiculous, but that is the nature of the beast. This series is out in a visceral genre of its own, saturating the viewer with gargantuan arterial sprays and projectile innards that make you speculate about the butchery to follow. In many respects, you could liken it to a funhouse or a water park ride in which you know that something particularly intrusive is bound to happen yet you still look forward to the feeling of damp underwear for the day....whether voluntarily or involuntarily.

Add to the mix an almost entirely new cast of actors intent on infusing more variety and substance to roles which could potentially be bland. There is an evident higher level of professionalism that maybe allows the commercial audience to enjoy better. Character building was never going to be one of the film’s finer aspects seeing as many of the characters come from the same backward hick civilisation as one another. Once you have seen one bumfuck countryman, you have seen them all. What the cast does do is accentuate whatever they can, which then lends itself to the personality of their respective character making them larger than life, but not in a bizarre manner. We gain further insight into Reverend Zombie and find out that he is not merely some uncouth mysterious medium but rather a unscrupulous businessman – amusingly so. Our understanding of Marybeth is broadened also as we now see her as an empathetic soul rather than just a hardened madam hell-bent on retribution. Ultimately, it is down to the juxtaposition of improved narrative and dialogue as well as casting selections. The film reads like a horror’s most honourable party list; it is a treat to have Tony Todd, Danielle Harris and AJ Bowen in the same production and their understanding of the duality of horror and humour lends the film an extra dimension. Overall, we get the celluloid equivalent of a Friday with Rebecca Black – “fun fun fun!”

If it is a smart thriller that you want, then you’re beter off waiting for another James Patterson novel adaptation. Hatchet 2 is nothing but exploitative entertainment that takes advantage of the fact that it is predominantly uninhibited. If you can get your hand on the unrated version you will witness the unrelenting carnage in all its glory but, to be honest, even the rated version must have had the MPAA soiling their suits. To me, this horror made as plain and simple as possible; death metal embodied; the genre purified and exemplified. It is not for the faint hearted but is undoubtedly enjoyable.

Daniel Davidson-Amadi (follow me on Twitter)

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DVD Review - Camp Victory, Afghanistan (2010)

Camp Victory, Afghanistan, 2010.



Directed by Carol Dysinger.





SYNOPSIS:



The true story of the American Exit Strategy in Afghanistan, compiled from 300 hours of footage shot over the course of three years.





Little-known documentary director Carol Dysinger has achieved an admirable feat with her film Camp Victory, Afghanistan. Not so much the production itself but rather the time-consuming nature of gathering the footage which is said to be three hundred hours worth spread over a period of five years in a hazardous climate. Additionally, in my opinion, she couldn’t have picked a more subsidiary subject to portray if she made an in depth exposé on the toilet habits of Afghan generals. I must stress that analysing the genre of documentary is not typically my forte, so I shall do my best to speak impartially about this one approaching it from a mainly filmic angle.



Synopsising this proved tricky initially for reasons that shall become apparent in due course. But I believe that I got the gist. The film is about the exit strategy used to release US soldiers from Afghanistan. Not only this but we are whisked away on a journey that shows the enlistment process for young, impoverished and illiterate men into the Afghan army of the 207th corps and the musings of war-weary Afghan general W. A. Sayar. Sayar has for a long time called for more education for him and his men but these demands have been met by minor reply. That’s the summary that I could piece together then the narrative wavered. All of a sudden what looked like being an exciting and candid depiction of wartime procedure transpired into recollections of the Soviet occupation of the 80s. I found it difficult to stay interested in the story; as an onlooker unaware of what to expect, you would essentially bear witness to a bombardment of Sayar’s chronicles – a mishmash of former Afghan troubles with few visual aid. It was like sitting around a campfire listening to lengthy yarns. You all know my penchant for dynamism in a production so this style of anchoring a camera for long periods whilst rolling subtitles does not cut it for me. It is only when we are literally following the generals day-to-day grind and he comes an integral component within the plot that I began wanting to know more and more.



The terrifying reality of war is intermittently introduced throughout to disrupt the monotony of well-laid plans. It seemed as if Dysinger enjoyed using this technique but I felt as if it should have been used sparingly... extremely sparingly... try once for the Sayar death. Symbolised by the superimposition of information over a black screen and accentuated using Middle-Eastern music, they are the moments of poignant thought and they do make you think for a minute or two. Beyond that it’s all inconsequential as - and this is me donning my film hat – we have no character exposition so we do not relate to the rest and therefore do not empathise as much as Dysinger would have wanted.



I am not adverse to the diversity of foreign-styled cinema verite, but no matter how much I enjoy a film I do not want to be forced to watch every second of every scene. You have to for most of this film as it is subtitled even in places where, with a modicum of imagination, it needn’t be. For example, there is a scene in which Sayar is presiding over a meeting with US army members and his interpreter is present. All it would have taken is to selectively place the interpretations – which I assume were filmed too – over the relative sections of Sayar’s monologue. Instead the cuts between Sayar’s pauses are noticeable – the pauses designed to invite the interpretation. Ultimately its one giant reading session in which you are hoping that you can read the sentences quickly enough before they disappear.



Camp Victory, Afghanistan sounds like the makings of rocky all-American display of machismo. It’s not that – it’s nowhere near that exciting. In fact no fighting is seen and only a few target practice sessions are depicted. However, like any good documentary, this film was created to be provocative for a long time but it’s hardly that either. Sure these are soldiers being killed and struggling but I have my own struggle: I struggle to understand why I – a non-Afghan, non-American civilian - should give a damn. The deaths of good men are always a sad occurrence but it is also an occupational hazard of being a soldier. Dysinger’s film does not represent them in a less expendable manner other than Sayar whom was evidently a huge character and one predicts, from watching, that his death is a massive loss.



Daniel Davidson-Amadi (follow me on Twitter)



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DVD Review - Lock Up (2010)

Lock Up (Spanish: Cruzando el límite), 2010.



Directed by Xavi Giménez.

Starring Marcel Borràs, Carlos Cuevas, Adolfo Fernández and Cristina Dilla.





SYNOPSIS:



A troubled teen is admitted to a high-security rehabilitation centre in an attempt to curb his dangerously wayward behaviour.





What a week it has been for the common folk of England. A week of unprecedented social and political point-taking that has seen the streets implode into an almost post-apocalyptic parody of itself. One in which the disenfranchised youth run rule over their former “oppressors” - the adults. So how fatefully apt that I find myself handed the task of commenting on the Spanish title, Lock Up - a film which seems to echo the troubles of our nation currently. With a DVD containing subtitle impotence and a grasp of the language that spans little further than fast food snacks, I somehow managed to cultivate an understanding of events onscreen.



Lock Up contains a dual narrative: The first of Fran (Marcel Borras), an unruly teenager who is at constant loggerheads with his incapable father, Luis (Adolfo Fernandez, Talk to Her). When the burden of looking after him because too much to bear, Luis enrols the young Fran into the C.I.M.C.A youth re-education centre where he undergoes a relentless regime aimed at desensitising the delinquent out of the kids. The second is of the father Luis who struggles with guilt and regret throughout – firstly, with being rejected and left by his wife and now his son.



Judging this 'book by its cover' is to be done at viewer’s discretion as the title Lock Up would suggest a film full of mistrust and swashbuckling prison exploits. There are a few instances of this but the film is about so much more than physicality. Look beyond the junior Guantanamo Bay setting and it is clear for all to see the mantra that is being repeated by first time director Xavi Gimenez: in order to bridge the divide between the youths and adults we ALL must seek help and change. It is not so subtly done when you have intercuts between almost identical scenes. At one point, the kids are permitted to “have fun” by dancing the waltz whilst the parents are involved in their own uniformed dance routine. However, scenes like that help to adequately insure that the message is well and truly grasped.



A cinematographer by trade, Gimenez expertly infuses into this low-budget production angles, hues and an appreciation of space and movement that keeps each scene as dynamic as possible. It is a talent I greatly admire as it is so easy for a film doused in dialogue to descend into tedium. However, that is not to say that Lock Up remains faultless in the aesthetics department. I am referring specifically to the weird artsy kaleidoscopic slow motion shots adopted by Gimenez which serve no positive purpose in my eyes. In fact, during an opening scene we are made to endure a gut-wrenching display of, what I can only delicately describe as tongue dogging, in extreme close-up. I never knew whether to keep watching or avert my eyes to the less vulgar sight of a piece of week-old pizza found festering under my desk.



Though that example of Goya-winning dedication to one’s work left little to be desired, overall, the cast of actors did a great job. Led by two enjoyable protagonists, the supporting cast made sure a small role needn’t mean an insignificant one. Borras achieved a range of emotions that made his character so believably uncouth and unstable, Fernandez summed up a lifetime of hurt in a single concluding monologue and Eduard Farelo and Fernando Guillen Cuervo who played the unprincipled C.I.M.C.A taskmasters will have you cleaning you parents’ table after every supper. In conclusion, an enjoyable watch that could potentially herald insightful assistance leading to common ground between youth and adults... if enough people give it a look.



Daniel Davidson-Amadi (follow me on Twitter)



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DVD Review - Wreckage (2010)

Wreckage, 2010.

Directed by John Mallory Asher.
Starring Aaron Paul, Justin Allen, Scoot McNairy, Kelly Kruger and Mike Erwin.


SYNOPSIS:

A group of teenagers find themselves stranded in a scrapyard after their car breaks down, where an escaped convict begins to hunt them one by one.


When I received the screener with the title emblazoned on its packaging reading WRECKAGE, I prayed to the Gods of Film that the word would not lead to some zemblanitous irony on the film’s part. Unfortunately, in many respects, it did and I found myself struggling to come to terms with exactly what I was watching; what the film’s aims and purposes were. The film had actually finished completion in 2010 and only recently secured distribution with Chelsea Films. All I can say to that is... little wonder.

The film is about four twenty-somethings - ex-soldier Jared (Mike Erwin, Chaos Theory), his fiancé Kate (Cameron Richardson, Harper’s Island), Jared’s friend Rick (Aaron Paul, The Last House on the Left) and his pregnant ball-and-chain Jessica (Kelly Kruger, The Young and the Restless) – getting into a spot of car trouble when Jared snaps a fan belt during a drag race. As fate would have it, that car just so happens to be the gang’s only mode of transportation. Ultimately it becomes a case of wait stranded on the side of a deserted road until help comes, walk all the way back home or attend an abandoned scrap yard with the hopes of finding a replacement. Throughout the night the situation descends from inconvenient to fatal as one by one the gang and good-intentioned yet inept authority figures find themselves picked off one by one.

It is a very simple plot for a very simple film. From the beginning you expect B movie thrills, no more than that. In many ways it includes B movie elements: The stranded couples are brutally attacked by the unidentifiable assailant and only aided by the local bumfuck police and retard. But other than that the film tends to stray from the conventions of the classics into something out on its own. That’s not a good thing! B movie slashers generally have a cult following of traditionalists who crave the nostalgia of the genre’s forefathers. So Wreckage was culpable of a few cardinal sins in my humble opinion. For example, it makes up for what it lacks in fiscal capability by dousing the scenes in blood leaving you wondering...”how’d he get killed?!” Slasher Rulebook, page one: make sure that the audience know the method of murder. Do not just have them spurting blood on cue; that is so uninspired. Even for a low-budget production. Slasher Rulebook, page two: SLASHER KILLERS DO NOT SHOOT GUNS! It’s called a slasher for a reason. So the killer becomes embroiled in a shootout with civilians who are, disturbingly, armed with assault rifles, then the film becomes something else – something directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone.

Clearly director John Mallory Asher (the geeky blonde kid in the Weird Science TV series) does not have an encyclopaedic grasp of the slasher movie genre but it does not take somebody who does to have noticed the plethora of reimaginings of the exact same narrative conventions in every slasher movie since the 1980s. Just stick to them, get a bit creative with the kills and you were onto a winner with the diehards. Wreckage could have easily been improved upon but it seems as if Asher’s heart is not in it and the film only serves to deliver a platter of predictability. That is, until the ending, which I enjoyed. No, this is not an attempt at some kind of clichéd joke. What I mean is the final act offers an interesting twist to proceedings and some feasible exposition leading to a creditable motive for the killer’s wrongdoings. That and the fact that the film is only mere 86 minutes long, but it is still 86 minutes of my life that I will never get back.

Daniel Davidson-Amadi (follow me on Twitter)

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