Dr Pepper

Slashers would probably do well as a theater play, though the audience would probably have been hard to find. But we'll get back to this in the end of this review.

First let me say that it was interesting to watch a movie filmed with only one camera, and from what I was told they didn't do any retakes at all. One take per shot, to create that feeling of live tv. The trouble with single take scenes is of course that any mistakes from the actors (or any other mistake) becomes even worse, and the acting here is on a low level from the start.

The story is weak and very predictable, and the characters are pretty lame, making the actors look even worse. The twist at the end (that seems to be a rule for horror movies) is very unnecessary in my eyes, I won't give it away but I'll just say that the story would have been better without it.

But what really made me feel less for the movie was that you really had to use your imagination to see more than what was shown. That's what I mean when I say it would have been better off as a play. In a play you are used to imagining that the scenery is just there to give you a general idea of how the scene looks, but in a movie I want the scenery to be complete. For instance, why did the characters say they where trapped in a room when the walls where only pieces of cloth hanging down from the ceiling, or maybe a paper-thin wall? Why did the characters stand a couple of inches in front of the bad guys without doing anything like trying to hit them or something, and why did they just watch when one of the characters where killed right in front of them? Sure, you could imagine that the walls where really made of concrete (or whatever), and you could imagine that if one of them would have tried something they would have been killed, but this was not what was shown in the movie, you had to imagine it for yourself.

I can't really see what kind of movie audience that would really like Slashers. The horror fans will be disappointed by the lack of story, the splatter fans will be disappointed by the cheesy gore and effects (or lack of them), and the fans of japanese style ultra-violence are way better of with a film like Battle Royale or something. But if you're just out to see a different, easy-to-watch and violently funny movie, Slashers could be worth the 2 hours. But not more.

My vote is 5/10, i.e. barely worth the time.

The movie is based on a short story by H P Lovecraft, and much of the Cthulhu-feeling is there. The story is set at the north coast of Spain, where Paul and Barbara is involved in a boating accident and heads for the small sea town of Imboca to bring help. But there is something strange about the town... At first it seems completely deserted, and when they finally find some people they are act strange. I won't give away the story more than that.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about Dagon is that it is a gray movie. There are films that really use a certain color or lighting as the base for all the scenes of the movie. Guillermo del Toro's El Espinazo del Diablo is a very bright movie (especially for a horror movie), The Crow: City of Angels uses a strange green tone in most scenes, and Dagon is a gray movie. The rain is pouring down in just about every exterior scene. Most scenes are set in dusk or at least a very cloudy sky, it's never as dark as most horror movies, and after the initial boat accident scene you don't see clear daylight a single time. The buildings are very discrete, the characters are pale in skin and not very centric, they just blend into every scene without stealing it, everything just has this gray tone. That's the best part about the movie, nothing is exaggerated in any way, they keep the violence and gore at a level well below most movies of the genre.

Other bright points (pun intended) of the movie where the actors, who played their parts in an excellent way (I love to see unknown actors instead of 'the usual ones', especially if the are good of course), and the dialogue that was just right, it had some punch lines that made you laugh but was not full of stupid jokes or comments as movies of the genre often are. Not so good was that the movie had trouble keeping a momentum. A large portion of the middle part was spent chasing the main character around the city, with more or less the same scene played over and over again. If you would've been a little tired you would probably fall asleep during that part... The story was a little thin, it didn't really happen anything more than this constant chasing plus a beginning and an end. The directing was up and down, as I said the general feeling of the movie was cool, some scenes where very nicely shot while others where too simple, especially in the lack of variation of shots when someone is scared (zoom scared person, zoom scary object, over and over again).

Overall the film is OK, if you're into H P Lovecraft and Re-Animator it's probably worth the ticket. But the movie balances between being a real horror movie and a splatter movie and doesn't really find it's place, so I think enthusiasts of both genres may be disappointed. My vote is 6/10.

There is a new reality show on TV, called The Contenders. Five randomly chosen contestants, or rather contenders, are pitted against each other and the reigning champion, and the winner is the one that is alive in the end. Series 7: The Contenders is series 7 in one movie. Who's going to win?

The movie is of course a satire of all of the (increasingly extreme) reality shows on TV. It asks the question of how far a tv show can go. I just loved the scene where a contender walks through a metal detector with a gun and just says "It's OK, I'm a contender". The great thing about it is that it's so serious. It's like the Running Man but without the futuristic comedy parts. "Real people in real danger", and there we are laughing at it.

A strong 3 (out of 4)