pizowell

Surely no one sets out to make a bad movie. But in the case of the Black Christmas remake, it's hard to imagine writer/director Glen Morgan honestly thinking that this was the best he could do. The original Black Christmas is a classic, a forerunner to the modern slasher movie - stylish and eery and unsettling. But most importantly, simple and straight forward. A slasher and a murder mystery, deftly directed by Bob Clark. The remake (WHY!?) is, to be blunt, absolutely dreadful. From the first frame to the pitiful end, Black Christmas (2006) puts its viewer through the ringer, from the absurd and outlandish to the just plain dull and stupid. Giving the killer an elaborate (and ridiculous) backstory is beside the point, meaningless, mere filler. We get lame attempts at humor and gross out moments that are bad camp. The inclusion of Billy's sister, Agnes, is so out-of-left-field that it feels like Morgan was simply trying to throw in a few extra kills and pad out the movie's already spare running time. The movie isn't even 90 minutes, but you feel every second, particularly with the completely unnecessary hospital finale dragging things out to an asinine, but blessed close. Fans of the original Black Christmas should feel insulted. Horror fans should feel taken advantage of. The human race as a whole should shudder knowing this slag of trash came from one of its own. We can only hope this movie will end the careers of all involved.

The classic road trip gone horribly awry motif is used once more, only this time with results that...somewhat...live up to the king of road trips gone horribly awry horror flicks: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. What a lovely and bloody and gutsy and raw morsel from the blokes down-under. Wolf Creek eschews the awful horror formulas - an opening murder, a maddeningly PG-13 rating - rife in the slew of tepid genre offerings these days and for the first forty minutes of its running time allows us to get to know the three leads and I liked that. I actually felt...sorrow for these poor blokes. Then writer/producer/director Greg McLean throws them to the...wolves, in the guise of a helpful stranger, whom we soon discover is a maniac who's roved the vast outback for many years, running across those stranded, offering to lend them a hand and then, once at his little shop of horrors, tortures, rapes, belittles and eventually murders them. This is honestly one of the better genre films I've seen in quite some time and it will undoubtedly draw many a coupling with Eli Roth's Hostel, although Wolf Creek is the better, far more disturbing film. Because it feels...real. Kudos, mate! A thoroughly ghastly, slippery, and very well done horror movie - reportedly based on true events, but, hey, why not throw another shrimp on the barbie? You already had me at hello. A must for serious horror fans.

Eli Roth is obviously a huge fan of the genre. This was made clearly evident with his first feature - the fun, ghoulish, but ultimately flawed Cabin Fever. Hostel is likewise a fun, ghoulish, but lacking movie that is better than Cabin Fever, but missing something. If this movie proves anything is that in time Roth has the potential to make a film on the same level as the ones that obviously influenced him - Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Evil Dead, Japanese horror films like Audition - but he's not quite there yet.

The first half of Hostel is Girls Gone Wild as a trio of friends beggar through Europe. The movie begins by finding the trio in Amsterdam. Need I say more? Soon, however, the movie thrusts its viewer into a nihilistic world where wealthy people pay good money to indulge their need for torture. And our three drug-addled, sex-crazed heroes are the main course.

Hostel has a lot going for it. It's fast paced. The characters are likable. The women are beautiful and barely wearing a stitch. And that's just the first half hour. The rest of the film takes place in a kind of hell of earth where limbs are amputated, fingers are chainsawed to the floor and the human body is reduced to the properties of a pin cushion. People are flayed and dissected with glee. Eyes dangle from their sockets. Ankle tendons are severed. Although the DVD boasts that its unrated, the gore level was not as stomach-churningly prodigious as I had anticipated. But still. Pretty much all bodily fluids are on display herein. The movie, despite all its bloodshed, seems to not take itself seriously. And neither did I. I'm not sure if the desired effect was to make the viewer squirm and dry heave or at times to laugh out loud at some of the more over-the-top effects. I did mostly the latter. For any horror fan, this is a must see, considering how stale the genre is it at the moment. More importantly, Hostel shows a horror filmmaker (and above all, a horror fan) improving his craft while delivering the visceral goods to those of us who eat that sticky stuff up.

Of the special features on the DVD, the only ones of note are the three behind the scenes features and the four separate commentaries featuring Roth and others, including one with exec. producers Quentin Tarantino and Scott Spiegel.