The Horror Review Hole: revenger

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Horns

Director: Alexandre Aja (2013)
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Max Minghella, Joe Anderson
Find it: IMDB

When I was roughly, oh-say-eight-or-so, I had one of the more troubling nightmares of my life. Like, top five, easily. Even more troubling than that one bad dream I had where it was my birthday and no-one wrote on my Facebook wall. Or that other one, where I got back with the mad ex girlfriend I'd split up with and spent months hiding from. No, in this one (which I still remember vividly, to this day), I woke up in the middle of the night and sleepily padded through to my parents' room, where I found them both sitting bolt upright in bed. "Go away," they told me (I'm paraphrasing - this was twenty or so years ago), "we don't love you. Never did." Oh.

Such nightmares are what informs Horns, the latest from occasionally great French horror director Alexandre Aja, adapted from a novel by Joe Hill. Suspected of his girlfriend's murder, Ig Perrish (Radcliffe) spirals into misery and despair. Everyone thinks he did it, from his girlfriend's furious dad to his fellow townfolk through, apparently, to his own family. However, when he awakes one morning to find he's sprouted a pair of honest-to-God horns out of his forehead, he finds that he might just have a chance at finding out whodunnit. It's like Gone Girl, except with Harry Potter instead of Daredevil and David Bowie instead of Trent Reznor.

One side-effect of said horns is that those around him suddenly feel the urge to offer up their darkest secrets, whether it's the local bully admitting his closeted homosexuality (of course) or his parents telling him that they wish he'd go away and that he's the less favoured son. Traumatic, but potentially useful in uncovering secret murderers in one's midst. Iggy needn't look very far, since the mystery element is the weakest part of the story, the perpetrator of the piece being entirely obvious from the outset. Where Horns works best is in seeing Ig interact with the various denizens of his small town, reacting to the horrible things they tell him. Although I witnessed a woman screaming abuse at her daughter ("what a wonderful advertisement for contraception you are, Lily!") simply by riding around on a bus for half an hour without the aid of horns, so I guess it just depends what the transport links in your city are like.

Horns is another very interesting piece from Aja. Not as good as his Hills Have Eyes remake but better than Switchblade Romance (which I loathed) or Mirrors and more substantial than Piranha (which I love). It has a wonderful soundtrack and great sense of style and, goofy as it is at times (and it gets pretty damn goofy) it reaches some really dark places, not least in the relationship between Ig and his family. Radcliffe delivers a strong performance as the talented young man, although many will dismiss it as the actor's attempt to dismiss his Potter upbringing in a film in which he smokes, drinks heavily, murders and repeatedly takes his clothes off in a manner the boy wizard would never dream of. Just like that time he fucked a horse on a stage. To dismiss Horns as such is to ignore a very good performance, even if his American accent is highly distracting. Also, it only makes one "feeling horny" joke, which is to be lauded.

Red, White & Blue

Director: Simon Rumley (2010)

Starring: Amanda Fuller, Marc Senter, Noah Taylor

Find it: IMDB

True story*: sixty percent of this movie's budget was spent on duct tape. Also a true story*: so much duct tape was used during the making of Red, White & Blue that America had itself a national shortage of The Serial Killer's Favourite. Red, White & Blue is so sticky-tape happy that almost every character ends up tied up with the stuff at some point. There's a great scene in which angry Nate (Taylor) turns up outside a victim's house, several rolls of tape hanging off've his belt. I haven't seen so much duct tape used in a film since that one time I spent all evening** watching certain specialist videos on myvideo.

Erica (Fuller) is what certain people might call a 'loose woman', diving into bed with almost every man she meets. After accepting a job at a DIY store, she meets and befriends Nate, a strange fellow with an incredible beard. They form an odd-couple friendship; surprisingly sweet, given the film's reputation. Meanwhile, amateur rocker Franki (Senter) is one of Erica's conquests. The three individuals' miserable, lonely lives violently converge when a certain revelation is ~~revelated~~ revealed.

Red, White & Blue takes a long time to kick off, but once it does so, it happens with explosive, unforgettable results. The film is reminiscent of the British Dead Man's Shoes. Noah Taylor sports a beard that even puts Paddy Considine's to shame. It also shares with Dead Man's Shoes (my third or so favourite movie of all time, by the by) a set of semi-sympathetic 'villains' and a magnetic performance from its leading man. I've only ever seen Noah Taylor playing nice guys with weird faces. Here, he's properly intimidating. It's probably the beard. You don't fuck with a man who wears a beard like that. I had a University lecturer who wore a Red White & Blue beard. Needless to say, all of my assignments were handed in on time.

"You do not use Wikipedia as an academic reference..."

Also a nice surprise was Marc Senter. I've only ever seen him before in the Jack Ketchum adaptation The Lost. He plays an equally odd looking character here, but the tics and Jim Carrey-isms are toned down a lot. Amanda Fuller is sympathetic and vulnerable as Erica. There are no heroes or villains in Red, White & Blue; no-one to properly root for. It's a difficult, intelligent piece that's heartbreaking and hard to watch at times. Billed as a "slacker revenge movie", it proves that not all slackers are as cuddly as Simon Pegg or Nick Frost.

"G'day there; I'm your door-to-door knives & duct tape salesman."

It's the sort of movie where lonely, miserable people go around being lonely and miserable all the time. As a result, it'll probably make you feel lonely and miserable too. Unless you own shares in a duct tape company. It's basically one long advertisement for duct tape.

* not a true story.

**weekend***

***week

Red

Director: Trygve Allister Diesen, Lucky McKee (2008)

Starring: Brian Cox, Tom Sizemore, Noel Fisher

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Stars Brian Cox as an ass-kicking old man. But this is not the Red you're thinking of. This is a far more subdued affair, with Cox quietly mourning the death of his beloved doggy Red and not making moves on any Dame Helen Mirrens.

Cox plays Avery Ludlow, a reclusive widower who lives a quiet life of fishing and relaxing with dog Red. During one fateful fishing trip, Ludlow and Red happen across a trio of delinquent youths who attempt to rob the old man. Out of spite, the most vicious of the kids (Fisher) shoots Red dead in the head. Seeking justice, Ludlow finds the boys' respective parents and appeals for them to do the right thing. The brats deny everything and the parents simply dismiss poor Ludlow. Still though, the old chap doesn't go as Harry Brown as one might expect. This is no average old-bloke-on-the-rampage movie.

Which is refreshing. I'd signed up to see Brian Cox blast ten shades of bollocks out of some hoodies, but what I got was something more fulfilling and even a little sweet. Ludlow, unlike Michael Caine or Charles Bronson isn't out for revenge; there's a difference between justice and vengeance, see, and Red realises this. So whilst there is violence, you'll find it avoidable at every turn. Ludlow is persistent and forceful, but not out for blood. At least, not initially.

If ever there was a brat to deserve the Could You Kill A Child treatment (answer: yes), it's Noel Fisher's Danny. Danny is a classic Jack Ketchum villain. With no redeeming features and easy to hate, he makes it very easy for us to root for Ludlow. And he's backed up by an even more despicable, sleazy Tom Sizemore. Robert Englund pops up in a surprising cameo as a sheepish father. Red is brilliantly acted, even by the kids and dogs. Red is the exception to that one rule about kids and animals.

It's one of the few Jack Ketchum novels I've not read (it's on my to-do list) but surprises with its subtlety and restraint. Even the emotion - I expected to be weeping like I did at Jurassic Bark - holds back a little. Which is good. I don't think I could handle this all over again:

At first I thought that Cox's Avery didn't seem to be particularly broken up by the death of Red, but you'll understand why over time. There's far more going on than the death of a dog. Shocking revelations are made. There's a fist-pumpin' moment with a baseball bat. Robert Englund wears a vest.

Red is the best adaptation of a Jack Ketchum novel so far. Dog lovers though, beware.