foreign film

The Basement (2017)

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directed by laszlo illes
intergalactic productions/pannonia pictures

Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before – a group of friends is harassed and stalked by masked assailants in a confined location, and it might be supernatural in nature. All right, that’s a little bit unfair to this flick mostly situated under the streets of Budapest, because the group are the intruders, even if the entrance to THE BASEMENT was open, so … Atmospheric, on occasion aptly frightful, verging on ominous, this generically likable picture never really overcomes its setup, even if it does expand the parameters a bit. For instance, the members of the group never really agree with each other about what it is they may be facing. Their shared confusion is welcome, as is the fact that one of the characters keeps telling the others they’re being stupid. Also, though one gets the sense that the script may not be playing totally fair, it doesn’t egregiously break the rules, either, always leaving just enough room for doubt. That, however, doesn’t quite suffice, and it never becomes really gripping. It also shares its name with an American film made the same year that doesn’t sound much more inventive.

why did i watch this movie?

It’s Hungarian. I do not think I’d seen a Hungarian film since Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky’s Werckmeister Harmonies … a long time ago. (I think that’s the one that sums up 2.5 hours of misery with the observation “Nothing means anything.”)

should you watch this movie?

“There is no there there.”

highlight and low point

Most of this picture is in English, and though supposedly subtitled, did not translate the random Hungarian dialogue – an intriguing touch. The comically blatant “Vitamin Water” product placement worsts the contorted attempt to avoid revealing the film’s core banality too soon.

rating from outer space: C

 

 

The Mutations aka The Freakmaker aka Dr. of Evil (1974)

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directed by jack cardiff
getty picture corporation/cyclone productions

Roger Corman’s name somehow is not attached to this tale of a mad scientist creating hybrid creatures by meshing flora and fauna. “My theory of Total Genetics is all-embracing,” intones the dependably taciturn Donald Pleasence, playing the nutter professor with his hair and beard varying its balance of black and white from scene to scene. Presumably this movie has played countless times on the types of late-night programs that specialize in daffy, misbegotten, or just plain awful cinema. Not merely horror, this flick is equally science-fiction-flavored, all the better for those sorts of showcases. Contents: Plant/human hybrids, plant/animal hybrids, fake deformities, actual sideshow freaks, and a whole lotta stock footage of vegetation. The real star is either the ludicrous monster costume that looks like a deconstructionist Creature from the Black Lagoon (or Swamp Thing, I guess) or the hilarious props in the lab of Dr. Pleasence, a cross between the Little Shop of Horrors and the workplace of Bunsen Honeydew.

why did i watch this movie?

I don’t remember, but probably because it sounded completely ridiculous. And Donald Pleasence.

should you watch this movie?

It’s the kind of presentation you enjoy while wondering how in the world any of the people involved possibly could have been taking their jobs seriously. It’s … definitely amusing.

highlight and low point

Once “Tony” escapes the lab in his hybridized form, the proceedings shift into another realm entirely. It’s almost must-see stuff, almost enough to justify sitting through the rest of it … such as the blatant exploitation of Freaks, for instance. Basically, the plot of Dr. Freakmaker (hmm … ) is grafted onto a rehashing of certain themes of that infamous pic, including an approximation of the “One of us!” scene and an abridged version of the revenge piece.

rating from outer space: C+

that’s not subtle

Ghostkeeper (1981)

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directed by james makichuk
badland pictures

Early in this film, the viewer is treated to more than a few meandering shots of nothing in particular that go on for a little too long, in lieu of any action. (Such shots also recur toward the end.) Primarily concerned with mood, the first third of this flick focuses on a subset of what we’re told is a New Year’s holiday group outing in the wilds of Canada, an unsteady troika consisting of a couple plus a third wheel who seems to have more on her mind. Though the tryst we expect never occurs, despite the promising setup of a bathtub scene, two of the smarmy city slickers do rub the small-town folk the wrong way. Meanwhile, hints are made of mental instability in the partnered woman’s past – this is obviously foreshadowing – and as the first victim is claimed, things start getting weird. Though we never get much explanation about what, exactly, is the entity being “kept,” the resolution we expect is preceded by some unforeseen developments. Altogether, this no-budget obscurity is pretty effective and surprisingly enjoyable – even with all the interminable shots of people floundering around in deep snow.


why did i watch this movie?

It tangentially has a “New Year’s Eve” theme.

should you watch this movie?

While I wouldn’t recommend that you race right out to the “video store,” if you stumble across it you’ll probably get a kick out of it.


highlight and low point

Actually, my favorite thing was lead actress Riva Spier’s disdainful attitude. I also enjoyed the scenes involving snowshoeing, as you don’t come across those very often. It was dismaying to find out that had he the budget, the director would have ruined this film completely with an ending that was “a whole lot bigger.”

rating from outer space: b+

Martyrs (2008)

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written and directed by pascal laugier
eskwad/wild bunch/tcb film/canal+/cinÉcinÉma

After this film finally ended, I started writing a polemic on what I condemned as its senseless brutality, its transgressive excesses flaunted purely for their own sake, its purposeless exhibition of sickening abuse, its obscenity.

Morning found me still pondering what I’d seen, contemplating the motive behind the disturbing displays, so I read a lot about it, including an enlightening interview with the director. Along the way, I realized a positive critical appraisal of “New French Extremity” films, several of which I’d enjoyed, had suckered me into seeing a picture I’d scrupulously avoided for a decade,

Martyrs is a vile movie, full of sadistic horrors and irredeemable suffering and graphically unsettling trauma and grievous bodily harm inflicted upon a guileless young woman. The first half is only intermittently assaultive – nothing too out of the ordinary – but as the second half began, I had a sinking feeling, which proved prescient. It definitely goes too far, and it’s hard to find justification for what occurs. What reason could there be for grotesquely prolonged images of torture of an innocent, you might wonder.

The Laugier interview helped. Some things are indelible, though.

why did i watch this movie?

Mea culpa. I tend to favor productions that feature people doing horrible things to others. This selection has me questioning myself.

should you watch this movie?

Look, this picture’s culminating moment is a woman being flayed alive … but by that point the savagery inflicted upon her has been so objectionable it may barely register. You have been warned.

highlight and low point

It’s provocative, I’ll give it that. As to my charge of “obscenity,” French film commissars originally concurred, rating it 18+, though it was lowered to 16+ after intervention from a filmmakers society, a journalists’ union and the Minister of Culture.

rating from outer space: B

Antisocial (2013)

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directed by cody calahan
breakthrough entertainment/black fawn films

So what you have here is a film wherein a handful of millenials have to barricade themselves in a residence as refuge from the ultraviolence burgeoning outside, and as it’s picking up steam, I’m losing interest rapidly. I mean, I’m wondering what’s with this The Purge–meets–28 Days Later–meets–Pulse–meets–every–zombie–flick–ever business, you dig. As the story finally develops, though, it redeems itself to some degree, becoming more insidious – and, actually, a lot more ironically funny – than it seemed it was going to be. Still not exactly the most original concept or execution, but credit must be given to the portrayal of social media manipulation and the ever-growing battle for constant connectivity. (The portrayal of the presumably heroic lead female role could have used a little work, though.) Ooh, hey, look! A sequel that sounds really dismal!

why did i watch this movie?

It was New Year’s Eve, and this movie is set on New Year’s Eve.

should you watch this movie?

Not a whole lot of horror pics have “New Year’s Eve” as a setting or a theme.

highlight and low point

The tensions and relationships between the five twentysomethings hoping to survive whatever the hell it is that’s going on are portrayed rather well, and the gradually encroaching understanding of what exactly is happening, and how, is skillfully handled. Once again, however, here in the world of the horror movie, we have a paucity of original ideas, even with the wicked insinuations of the latter stages of the “viral infection.” Oh, and the black guy dies first. Followed by the party girl.

rating from outer space: C+

Concepts and business entities portrayed in this motion picture are fictional. Any resemblance to actual concepts or business entities is purely coincidental.

El Pacto aka The Pact (2018)

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directed by david victori
ikiru films/4 cats pictures/el pacto la pelÍcula aie/sony pictures international

Your standard-issue bigger-studio-budget supernatural horror thriller, replete with incredible scenarios and people having to make hard choices, this Spanish production doesn’t take a whole lot of chances. This tendency to play it safe is perhaps best exemplified by the ending, where for a few brief moments it seems as though the film might lurch in an unexpected direction, but ultimately relents. Ordinarily, film lore and legend would suggest such a correction was the result of test-audience feedback, but in this case it feels like what had been planned all along. The tale of a worried mother who makes a murky PACT with a shady personage known as la araña albina (“the albino spider”), it’s passable entertainment, but it runs 106 minutes, eventually delivering very little for the time investment.

why did i watch this movie?

Seriously? Because it’s called “El Pacto,” un título que me pareció ridículo en español.

should you watch this movie?

It’s not as though it’s terrible or anything, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting if I hadn’t had to read along with the subtitling, you know? A well-trodden path, this one.

highlight and low point

A bit of an interesting diversion develops maybe halfway through this picture, though it’s confused by some earlier hints and thus doesn’t carry as much impact as it should. The unexpected reveal in the denouement also comes across a bit subdued, though it’s fairly clever. One large problem here, however, is that the character that’s a rather major part of the plotline – hombre araña, that is – effectively disappears long before the conclusion. Important continuity issues really shouldn’t plague a flick that doesn’t come across as all that ambitious yet lasts nearly two hours.

rating from outer space: c−

simbolismo!

Zhǒng guǐ aka Seeding of a Ghost aka 种鬼 (1983)

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directed by Yang chuan
shaw brothers

I think this flick must have been intended to be a horror-comedy, but as it’s a Hong Kong production I couldn’t honestly say. If Shaw Brothers didn’t intend for it to be humorous, then something was definitely lost in the translation, whether linguistic or cultural. Granted, one wouldn’t presume that a film with a rape as its central action was meant to be funny, but certainly some elements of even that particular scene don’t seem to be played completely straight. Plus, I mean, a mouldering reanimated corpse copulates with a wraith while levitating during part of the black magic ritual that adds the “revenge” component to this business, and the company that brought the DVD to the U.S. market bills it as the “mind-melting Asian answer to The Evil Dead.” The picture also features a kung fu fight scene, an exploding pregnancy, and some kind of evil spawn that looks something like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors, only as a crawling, tentacled Lovecraftian nightmare. So you tell me.


why did i watch this movie?

I was reading somewhere about how over-the-top Hong Kong cinema can be, and then elsewhere saw similar references to a variety of its horror films. This was one of them.

should you watch this movie?

The next time you’re in the mood for something outrageously ridiculous, Ghost will fit the bill nicely.

highlight and low point

Almost every character reacts with incredulity to something or another at some point or another in the course of this movie, which neatly aligns with the viewing experience. I suppose any number of questionable sequences or developments could be assessed unfavorably, but let’s be realistic here: this is exploitation-level trash, the foreign equivalent of a Troma venture.

rating from outer space: c+

 

Rumah Dara aka Macabre aka Darah (2009)

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directed by the mo brothers
gorylah pictures/merah productions/guerilla visual movement/nation pictures/mediacorp raintree pictures

Good Lord. If you want blood, you’ve got it with this insane Indonesian production. I barely even know where to begin talking about this gonzoid picture, other than to say I’ve got a new entry on my list of favorites. The setup isn’t anything special – a group of friends gives a stranger a ride home, and she invites them in so her mother can thank them – but the direction is. Unrelenting, intense and horrific and bleak and sadistic, it only begins to let in a little air after it reaches a sort of tipping point later in the proceedings and inevitably skews toward the blackly humorous – likely because little other option existed. Be forewarned, however, that before that happens it’s little but a trip through a special hell, with something to appall just about everyone. A masterpiece of the sick and twisted little corner of the film world it inhabits, this one’s gonna stick around the old memory banks for a while.

why did i watch this movie?

When I was reading up on Kuntilanak, I noticed this title, as Julie Estelle stars in both.

should you watch this movie?

I enthusiastically encourage everyone to watch this movie immediately. You will, however, need a strong stomach and an unhealthy appetite for, yes, the macabre.

highlight and low point

Shareefa Daanish and Arifin Putra are ridiculously evil as Dara and Adam, respectively, but picking my favorite aspects of this flick would entail a really long list. So I guess I’ll just say PROJECT: IMMORTAL SNAKE and leave it at that, unless you’d like me to laud the superlative chainsaw usage. The biggest drawback I can think of offhand is that I found myself wondering when I last saw such an excessively blood-soaked celluloid marvel. Dead Alive, maybe.

rating from outer space: a

Scream – And Die! aka The House That Vanished aka Scream and Die aka Please! Don’t Go in the Bedroom aka Psycho Sex Fiend (1973)

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directed by joseph larraz aka josÉ ramÓn larraz
a blackwater film production

So many titles and so many threatening adverts for such a tepid plod whose only semblance of tension arises from the wait for occasional actress and future lad-mag model Andrea Allan to disrobe. Who’s the killer, you might wonder for an idle minute, correctly identifying the obvious attempts at misdirection, and also realizing that you don’t much care so long as you’re assured the picture will be ending. When it does reach that ending, full dark night abruptly shifts to very bright daytime. Clearly, the filmmakers wanted to get it over with, too. Perhaps this is why they don’t bother tying up any loose ends … such as letting us in on why our heroine got involved in this affair in the first place, or how some of the action could have occurred unless the culprit read the script, or by what means one of the characters ends up dead during the finale when she couldn’t reasonably have been anywhere near the location in question. This movie also contains an incestuous sex scene, because why not throw that in there, too.

why did i watch this movie?

I must have been lured in by the promise inherent in the lurid early ’70s British cinema I’ve been “enjoying” of late, but to be frank, I have no idea.

should you watch this movie?

It’s not nearly lurid enough to justify that.

highlight and low point

The second murder scene is pretty intense, I suppose, but by that point it isn’t even interesting enough to sustain one’s attention. Some of the leftover mod touches of a foundering Swinging London are amusing. A tangential subplot involving pigeons goes absolutely nowhere. Yes, pigeons.

 

rating from outer space: D

Seizure aka Queen of Evil (1974)

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directed by oliver stone
cine films inc./euro-american pictures/intercontinental leisure industries ltd./queen of evil ltd. partnership

This audacious piece of humbuggery is the directorial debut of one Oliver Stone, who you may remember from such critically acclaimed films as Salvador and Platoon, or from creating proto-memes in the ’80s with Wall Street, or for his radical-chic flashback Born on the Fourth of July, or from such widely derided slop as The Doors, or from putting you to sleep with Heaven & Earth, or for his meta provocateur turn in Natural Born Killers, or for the overcooked pastiche of U Turn, and so on and so on and SO on, and no, I haven’t bothered with one of his interpretations or obsessions in a long time. Well, get this – right from the jump Ollie wanted you to know all about the creative process. This is actual dialogue:

Author: You really believe in God.
Distinguished friend: I believe in myself, Edmund. Therefore, I have faith … in Him.

Anyway, the Queen of Evil – Kali, it’s theorized – shows up at the writer’s house while he’s having a party, with her henchmen Jackal and Spider, the latter of which is played by Hervé Villechaize, and none of whom may exist. OR DO THEY. Chaos, intrigue, etc., ensues. The picture concludes with a threefold twist ending. Maybe fourfold, who can tell.

why did i watch this movie?

I had no idea such phantasmagoria was Mr. Stone’s entry into the world of directing.

should you watch this movie?

It’s ludicrous enough.

highlight and low point

The Queen of Evil is portrayed with a deliciously arch sangfroid and Stone’s latencies amuse, but you can’t top Villechaize being credited with the still photography for this production in addition to his onscreen role. Also hard to top: how very silly this all is.

rating from outer space: C+