The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Thanks go to CB for recommending this one quite some time ago; I had seen it advertised when it came out, but wasn't too impressed and didn't read any reviews, dismissing it from the get-go. After insinuations that I might enjoy it a lot, I recently gave it a go due to having finished my thesis and all that and finally having time for some relaxed watching of horror under the influence. And lo and behold, I have a new favourite movie.

Let's start with the obvious basics: Directed by Drew Goddard and written by him and Joss Whedon (aka He-Who-Gave-Us-Cowboys-in-Outer-Space), The Cabin in the Woods is a well-paced, awesome, intriguing horror movie with a meta-spin to it that makes it all the more enjoyable. Spoilers galore, so if you haven't seen the movie yet, I heartily recommend you get yourself a copy and watch it right now. You can come back after you're done; if you want to particularly enjoy it, watch it at least twice. I've been enjoying it about a dozen times now, and it still brings me joy; whether this demonstrates the quality of the movie or attests to my obsessive-compulsive movie-watching-behaviour or both is another matter entirely.

The Cabin in the Woods serves us three narratives, which are intertwined with one another, yet can be seen as three single narrative discourses - stories, if you want. Like a tapestry, the movie as a whole consists of these three stories that weave a complex narrative that puts a spin on the typical horror movie story of the 'cabin in the woods' aka 'wood with college kids' variety.

The basic storyline that we get to recognise is exactly that one; a group of young adults goes on vacation in a remote cabin in the woods (you already see that the title has not been chosen for no particular reason!). There simply is no way to describe the setting of this basic, in a way central story, as anything else. So the young people settle in (at THE CABIN IN THE WOODS *dun-dunn-DUN*) and begin to party, and we get treated to the classical stereotypes of the Jock, the Whore, the Final Girl, the Brainy Guy and the Stoner. These stereotypes are gleefully and flawlessly executed, yet partly subverted within the story's world and context(s): The Jock actually is a sociology major, and his 'alpha-male bullshit' is completely mystifying to the Stoner, who continuously observes strange incoherencies within the operative world of the storyline being played out with these young people, and as for Final Girl... I refer to the movie. 

This storyline is being framed by the second narrative, which is about some sort of official (but non-military) facility, where some kind of yearly competition is being held between such facilities all over the world. It isn't entirely clear from the beginning on what kind of competition this is, but it apparently involves messing with people in completely controlled environments. From conversations between the scientists and workers at the facility, for example, we learn that the dye which the ...sexually (more) promiscuous female used to dye her hair blonde had chemicals in it which, being absorbed through the skin, would enter the bloodstream and cause 'lower cognition'. Brilliant. The use of stereotypes within the first narrative frame is actually explained in this second narrative frame - not in an obvious way most of the time, hence my recommendation to re-watch this movie.

Now, pretty much everyone will go 'HUH?' as soon as the second narrative frame appears as a framing device for the first narrative: What on earth are these science-y types doing? And WHY?

...enter third narrative. We only get treated to this in a few instances, but damn. Or possibly 'BUT DAMMN!', to better express my enthusiasm. The third narrative frame is the 'big one', so to speak - it offers explanations for the other two narrative frames. What makes it so special, so awesomely awesome? Easy: ANCIENT GODS. If you're a Lovecraft fan(atic) like myself, the appeal of this should be instantly obvious. In my opinion, any movie that includes humanity-annihilating ancient gods that need to be placated by gruesome sacrifices automatically wins. Even if terribly executed. In The Cabin in the Woods, it is wonderfully executed; the terrible revelation of the end of mankind is being delivered in a truly human scene of ...people being people. It's hilarious and (in-)sane and cool. I might be gushing a bit because, by the darkness and its haunted midnight graves, I absolutely adore this movie, but nonetheless, it's worth watching. Even if you don't share my particular brand of movie obsession.

One really important point is that it's funny - not in the 'Dumb and Dumber'-way, but in the awesome, cheesy horror flick way. It is enjoyable on a similar level as, say, the Evil Dead series. Do not think that it is a campy movie, though - it revels in its humour (which is pretty dark, according to some acquaintances), but it also revels in its horror.

Let's speak of the horror aspect, mh?

Try to remember the last time you thought 'holy shit, that's a scary thought' when watching a horror movie. I don't know about you, oh wonderful readers, but it's been a while for me. Inside (á l'Intérieur) comes to mind, Martyrs. The Living and The Dead. Movies with a decidedly psychological horror-element. Some Cronenberg movies make me uncomfortable (hence my appreciation of the body horror genre). Sometimes a well-crafted horror story can evoke such feelings, or RPG supplements (yes, I am a terrible, neurotic geek for reading roleplaying supplements and rulebooks in my free time [or would that be a nerd]? Last weekend, I re-read my old Kult material. It was awesome). Or newspaper clippings. Or songs. But the average horror movie? Heh. No. **

So, horror in The Cabin in the Woods.

The first narrative frame (the youthful friends on vacation in the eponymous cabin) doesn't hold any horror; in fact, it has quite a humorous mood, which is always a bonus when watching non-psychological horror flicks. I like my violence to be interspersed with humour. That's what made movies like Braindead (Dead Alive for the people among you hailing from the US of A) or Army of Darkness so fucking awesome back when I was a half-human*. That's also what made Shaun of the Dead so awesome. Actually, the first narrative about the beautiful young people can easily be compared to SotD in some regards (don't hate me!). Both movies are full of inside jokes and references to other things from the world of horror - with Shaun of the Dead, it's movies, whereas The Cabin in the Woods generously references books, movies, stories, myths... there are so many shout-outs to the world of horror in general that it's nigh impossible to list even a fraction of them.

Playing SPTR ('SPot The Reference(!)') with this movie as part of a drinking game can prove to be disastrous to people who watch far too many horror movies. I can personally vouch for this. Playing SPTR with The Cabin in the Woods can and will result in the Alien Mother of All Hangovers. Maybe it's me getting old, but ...damn. Don't do it. The last part of the movie - in which the three narrative frames are combined into one; well done, people who came up with this and who I am too lazy to look up right now! Za vas! - is stuffed full with various references. Particularly obvious even to non-horror freaks will be the Hellraiser-esque demon (?), referenced in the credits as Fornicus, Lord of Bondage and Pain, played by one Gregory Zach. Fans of horror will find this movie to be a pleasure just for the possibilities of decoding the shout-outs - and indeed, The Cabin in the Woods gains something from (over-)exposure to other horror movies.

Horror, though. The second narrative frame (with the scientists and their complete control over the surroundings of the characters from narrative frame #1) is steeped in what, for me, makes this a horror movie, not just a funny referencing game in movie form. The ever increasing levels of control and observation installed in our present-day societies leaves a bitter taste when coupled with the (ironic) question of how much these things control our lives, exemplified bluntly (but effectively!) with the whole premise of the movie. Your phone provider is able to track your every move, even if you never use the whole GPS thing; obsessive former lovers can track you with a little bit of tech knowledge, and governments are collecting data tracks of their citizens, just to make sure no one steps out of line. Welcome to dystopia. The Cabin in the Woods takes these all too common fears and translates them into a specific cultural jargon, mocking it. Mocking us, in a way. How would you feel if you were trapped in situations that were controlled from the outside by someone else, manipulating you like a puppet while you think that you are acting out of free will...?

Anyways. Awesome movie. Whoa.

11/10 central themes of sacrifice and slaughter that connect and bind all of mankind under one monstrously divine threat

* ... A child or teenager. 

** ... Maybe there is some kind of desensitivisation in play here? I am not entirely sure. I don't really watch horror movies because they, dunno, horrify me, or make me feel as if fingers of ice started playing a macabre song of suspense and fear with the nerves radiating from my spine like ghostly puppet masters. I watch horror movies because ...I don't really know, actually. I'll think about it. But it's not for the horror, because there rarely is any kind of horror... When a movie comes along that manages to capture my interest and my fantasy, that manages to let me sink into the premise and feel as if I were part of that world with feelings of suspense, I am pretty much sold on it forever.

Necronomicon (1993)

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT

Holy fucking shit. Of course this trainwreck is a Brian Yuzna production.

So...  Necronomicon (1993*). I wanted to do this for a while.

This, ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and ghouls, vamplings, zombesquities etc., is what scientists watch whilst typing away fanatically at long-winded papers about the development of hypostases of ancient Sumerian deities which could be linked conceptually with Yog-Sothoth**. 

I don't know about you, but my own brand of horror education has made me aware of the fact that people dealing with things like this are usually prone to visits from terrifying abominations lurking beyond the frail borders of mortal perception, elder things that have lurked beyond the dim echo of the line dividing life and death, immanent in the horrifying splendour and awe-inspiring terrors of the universe, waiting and spawning at the gateways. So there you go, my eventual fate is probably to die screaming in an asylum after attempting to summon the monstrous horrors of the void and emptiness between the stars.***

Necronomicon (1993) consists of three shorts - 'The Drowned', 'Cold Air' and 'Whispers' - embedded into a frame-story (0, also known as 'The Library' and directed by our collective favourite, Brian Yuzna), which, amazingly, gives us Jeffrey Combs as the man himself, Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Within said frame-story, he (...or should that be He?) is visiting a library to research the hidden secrets of blasphemous monstrosities from beyond, so naturally, things become interesting as he stumbles across that most evil of all books: The Necronomicon! Lovecraft starts to read - and the stories we are shown are right from the pages of that terrifying tome penned by the mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred.

'The Drowned' (I) - The last of the lines of the Delapores (well, de la Poers actually if we're really going by canon here) returns to his ancestral manor... and we all know that ancestral manors are usually a beacon for evil forces that cast their demented shadow over such places, attracting all kinds of abominations from the lonely places beyond.
The first minutes are more or less setting up the story of the de la Poers - but just as the esteemed Lovecraft-fan is getting comfortable and begins to identify the story used as 'The Rats in the Walls' (one of HPL's masterpieces - if you feel like, enjoy), gleefully waiting for the ancestral cannibalistic terror to be involved, atavistically driving our protagonist to madness, the story kind of... switches around in the middle of establishing itself and adds weird story elements not really congruent with what we know the mentioned story at all.
The ancestral manor - sitting upon a cliff that is honeycombed with ancient caves, which any faithful reader of the master of weird fiction knows to house a terrible, terrible secret - is situated near the sea. This apparently made it a favourite with suicides of the de la Poer family... and whoosh, suddenly the story completely switches, and we're suddenly right in something that... is not a Lovecraft story I recognise. A ship runs aground in a terrible storm (one feels slightly reminded of The Call of Cthulhu, but that's wrong alarm... or maybe this potpourri is intentional? Who knows...), and a character's wife and child die in the process; said character, now lacking said wife and child, burns the Hol(e)y Bible out of a theatrical display of anger aimed at the Most High and kind of renounces god (that YHVH-guy). What follows is the most logical conclusion - he gets a nightly visit from a fish-/crab-/thingie-creature threateningly telling him that he is not alone, and as such, he suddenly finds the (you guessed it) Necronomicon (dun - DUN - DUNNNNNNNNN!!!!) underneath a pile of sea-ish stuff with which probably would have disgusted Lovecraft to no end****. As the book (or should that be 'tome'?) is friendly, it opens to a ritual called "Towards the Remedie of Untimely Loss". This includes chanting the famous lines we all know and love - that is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die as well as the line about 'in his house in R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu lies dreaming' (or something like that, I'm reciting from memory here).
As this is a Lovecraftian story nonetheless, no matter on what story or story elements it is based on or not based on, the ritual succeeds and the guy's two loved ones, wife and son, are indeed resurrected - AS TENTACLED MONSTROSITIES! *mad laughter*
...suicide ensues.

... ...AAAAAAAND we're out of that story segment (let's call it I.1) and back in the frame-short of Mr. Delapore/de la Poer in his ancestral manor. In the library, no less, frantically researching hidden knowledge that man was never meant to know. As he falls asleep in exhaustion, the story suddenly makes a violent turn and rapes your Lovecraft-mind: Bony things appear from underneath Delapore's bed amidst a green glow (of the black magick / black science-persuasion of colour), whispering something.
Naturally, the last scion of the line of those degenerated de la Poers finds the - you guessed it! - Necronomicon (I begin to see a pattern here) and immediately starts ritualising around, calling upon Elder Forces from beyond.
For some reason, hot undead chick ensues (yepp, another relationship-y resurrection), and we nearly get some action - this being a Lovecraft flick by Brian Yuzna, we know that not all is well, though. The moment the female begins to develop quite the tentacles-from-various-orifices-theme, we know that we're back in "we're doing Lovecraft not for the cosmic terror and creeping fear, we do it for the octopoid abominations and possibilities to use great slimy masses of stuff to make our point about otheworldly terrors"-land. Which is so charming that you can't not like it... (unfortunately, no screen shot. Craptop doth not want to take screenshots - 't'would be too much, running two applications at the same time!)

...And we're back in the movie's frame-story (0) about Jeffrey Combs as Howard Phillips, reading the Necronomicon...

...and the story that unfolds right before our eyes is 'The Cold' (II), obviously based on the original story 'Cool Air'. This one's been produced by Shûsuke Kaneko, whose other works I have not been privy to.

Interestingly enough, the first time I saw this outside of my <3 suhrkamp editions of actually rather good German translations of Lovecraft's stories or in lovingly made .txt-files on the net, it was in a zombie-anthology ('The Dead that Walk'). I had never seen it under that premise of an idea.
This version of the story involves a young woman being extraordinarily sensitive to heat, living in a suspiciously cool flat. A reporter visits her and asks her about the doctor used to live there - and his alleged connection to 11 dead people. After clumsily threatening the woman, she starts with her story...

The Past:
Young woman (with no particular sensitivity to heat - HINT HINT HINT) moves into the house, the other people living there being the woman who owns it and a mysterious tenant (which we could foresee to be the mysterious doctor) who is not to be disturbed. In her apartment, however, young woman notices ammonia accumulating on the ceiling, dropping onto her musical notes.
Cue in abusive stepfather, crude sexual innuendos and attempted rape - in the end being heroically forestalled by mysterious tenant with a scalpel. Yes, meet David Warner as Dr. Madden. He's awesome in that role. Seriously awesome - but maybe that's because I'm kind of a fan of the guy, so there is a distinct possibility of bias.
The good doctor explains the frigid temperature to young woman by his skin disease, which requires an unusually cold room temperature, and after noncomittally having accepted that matter-of-factly, they part ways. Blood dripping down from the ceiling at night is the logical next step in this story's development.
We also find out that the doctor is probably more than 100 years old, and that he bleeds transparent ick instead of blood.
The story proceeds predictably from there if one is aware of the story by HPL, with only minor variations. Okay, we get a pretty kitschy romantic scene (which is surprisingly awesome considering the participants) complete with a bit of romantic love-making (...yaayy(?)!)... complete with a love-plot of the respected "Oh noes! I cannot stay away from this elderly mad undead scientist!"-variety + a kind of love-triangle. Followed by graphic melting of the good undead elderly mad scientist. We love you, Brian Yuzna. We do. So very very much.

Back to young woman and reporter. Reporter is drunk and suspects young-woman-talking-to-him and young-woman-from-the-story-about-the-goodly-doctor to be the same person. Oh noes. We totally didn't see that coming. Blah blah spinal fluid blah blah.

After that:
Back to Jeffrey Combs... eh, I mean Howard Phillips in 'The Library' (0), reading the Necronomicon. Another story - the third in this collection, again arising mystically from the pages of that evil book! (*grins*) ---

--- cut away to short number III, 'Whispers'. This one's also directed by Brian Yuzna, so you can freely assume to be in for some fleshy ride. And you would be right! 

It's the most ridiculous thing EVAR.

I love it dearly.

You will, too, if you can appreciate Yuzna-stamped fleshy things man was never meant to see and a campy plot:
Two policemen (one guy, one gal) have a car accident. Waking up, the female finds herself alone, her partner taken. As she's a cop and he's her partner and this is a predictable movie, she goes off to find him. Doing this, she demonstrates a great ability to pick out the worst situations to be in as she follows the trail of his blood...
The male disappears, whereas she ends up in some sort of subterranean hall and is found by a harmless and polite-appearing elderly man. Still underneath the earth, his bizarre wife appears, and it turns out they know about The Butcher - the (ghastly, terrifying, terrible, horrifying, astoundingly evil, bad, monstrous etc. etc. pp. ad nauseam) criminal that the policefemale and her partner have been hunting together! What a coincidence!
So they (the elderly couple) take her to their home, having a bit of small-talk and such things (...one would expect tea and biscuits!), and inform her that The Butcher is an alien that has been here since before the time of the dinosaurs - or is he the servant of an alien? Who knows...
In order to achieve police-y stuff,  female cop is being taken downwards...  farther down into the depth of the earth - to a tunnel, decorated with odd wallcarvings and stuff like that (presumably, this is supposed to be a 'Lovecraftian' design), where the elderly male shows her a deep hole in the ground, fully hidden by a malevolent mist and surrounded by more eldritch (kind of Aztec-looking) carvings. How did he come by this knowledge, we all wonder? So finally it turns out at this point that the elderly couple is a team of obscene cultists of the Great Old Ones. Female cop is thrown into a surreal, slime-filled, squicky underworld, where she finds her partner undergoing a horrible transformation.

It is the most ridiculous thing I have ever fucking seen. I mean... OMG. Flappy flapping things. Seriously, this beats a lot of crappy animatronics, and ZOMG -- this is perfect. Hilarious.

In the end, the cultists turn out to be pro-life AND marrow-sucking aliens. This is indeed worth a satisfied nod - predictable, yes, but awesome. It's far too random and awesome and cool to give away the 'plot', for lack of a better worth, - well, give away more than I already did, but hey, I did slap a spoiler warning on top of this - but... man.
Flappy things.
They make me giggle every time I see them.

*happyful*

...rest assured that madness ensues.

Cut to frame-story (0) of Jeffrey Combs in the library with the Necronomicon. Something tentacled attacks him, and an awesome bald priest - who is seriously cool, I like the character a lot -, has, after warning Lovecraft cryptically of evil things, most of his face pulled off by our soft-spoken Providence scholar. Then a terrible evil from the other end of a colourful tunnel connecting the Necronomicon to worlds beyond eats his skull out of his skin.

Forces have been unleashed that should never have been stirred from their uneasy, merciful sleep...



A remarkably funny way of butchering Lovecraft. I am often lenient with the truly trashy terrible transmutations being marketed as 'based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft', especially if they have this ...special charm. Yes, I'm an addict. However, this flick is thoroughly enjoyable and will guarantee giggles galore. The FX alone are enjoyable - handiwork one recognises and appreciates. There should be more movies like that.


6.75 / 10 flappy flapping things wildly flapping around in a completely non-menacing way (yes, it's that good).

* There seems to be some kind of disagreement on the year; my copy says 1994, and I've originally seen this aired on TV ages ago as a 1994 movie. IMDB says 1993. I am obviously going with IMDB here.

** Spelling disputed.

*** Knowledge of obscure dead languages - check. Researches ancient religions - check. Trained in archaeology / anthopology - check. Reads old books - check. Pale and thin - check. Indulges in the occasional mad giggling - check. Watches horror movies - check. Reads HPL - check. 

...Holy fuck, I am a manifestation of a cliché!

**** Lovecraft didn't like seafood or general fishy stuff. Like... really didn't like it. Never wondered why most of his grand, icky stuff comes from the watery abyssal depths?

Isolation (2005)

Lionsgate, what else...

....oh, ahem. Sorry. Didn't know anyone was already listening/reading/watching, as I'm prone to random forgetfulness these days (yay for Gabapentin...). Wikipedia doesn't really mention it, but the side effects of this drug are impressive indeed. It's like having a déja vù all the time.

Anyways, enough of your host's (that would be me) rambling, and on to what ails us this time: Isolation

.As I already mentioned to TF*, this millennium is in some ways a new start in Horror. I mean... we have Sheep Horror (the brilliant Black Sheep from New Zealand, which I should review here anyways and prbably will), and now there's Cow Horror.

Yes.

Cow Horror.

This is what Isolation is about, basically.

For all you city folk out there, the concept of Cow Horror may be funny and all that jazz - but trust me, you didn't grow up around cows. You are missing something important - the mental link to this absurdity horror cinema throws at us. I have it. Win.

Let me preface this review with a fact: If you ever wanted to see how it looks like when a vet sticks an arm up a cow's ass, this movie is the movie for you. It will also remind you of past traumata (as in my case).

The setting is Ireland, the present. Some scientists** played around with the DNA of a cow - and now, the cow is calving, but the little critter is stuck in the, erm, inside of said cow. It's a bit sad that I didn't get a name for the animal, as I'm sure that even Irish farmers name their cows. I bet she's called "Betty" or something.




What actually scares me is the semi-enticed look on her face whilst feeling up Betty.


Scenes full of human drama enfold as we witness the tragedy that sets the premise of the movie up: The cow has difficulty giving birth, although two men are trying to get the little thing out. You see, Betty - let's call her Betty, shan't we? - is "very tight". I kid you not. Seriously.



Half stuck, Betty's calf already is something of a mystery to us - the thing inside her actually bit the veterinerian Orla who's caring for her (Essie Davis) whilst being in the womb, and the presence of a mad scientist (more on that later) doesn't help. We wonder - what is it? It's just a cow, right?




...or not.

Dan the farmer, who apparently owns the cow (Betty), as portrayed by actor John Lynch of various other movies' fame, gets bitten by the little one as he and Jamie (Sean Harris) try to help with the birth of the young. Something is indeed wrong with this genetically manipulated little calf.

Jamie and Mary: Apparently live in a trailer and are on Dan's land. My first guess was that they're in this movie to provide more gruesomeness. Mary even has resp. had a believable backstory, to my utter surprise. Then again, In was oblivious to the obvious.




Many of you city-folk (well, those of you who are A) actually readung this, B) familiar with the concept of "rural areas", C) live in an actual city, D) only see the countryside in movies or on vacation) will wonder about some points in the movie, or rather, one point: Why is everyone familiar with cows and how to handle them in this movie?

Simple.

Us countryfolk are... well. We are usually familiar with the animals living around us. This is where the past traumata I mentioned at the beginning of this review come in.

Did you know lots of little girls want to become veterinarians? I already told teh_mally*** and TF* about it, and now you're in for the ride as well.

[TRAUMA]

...
...
... back to the movie at hand.




Just like Black Sheep managed to make sheep into scary creatures, Isolation manages to effectively keep you on the edge of your seat once it gets going. It's creepy. And I'm not saying this out of some ...twisted fear of the countryside or somesuch thing. No, ghouls and ghosts, ladies and gentlemen and those of other persuasions***** - it's the movie. Yes, the story might be ridiculous and sound as if some totally stoned up Irish guy came up with it whilst hitting the bong one too many times, but it is a beautiful, well-crafted creature feature that is made out of the simple and stupid pretext of "mutant cow monsters".




On a stupid sidenote, it's amazing how much shit these animals produce. I almost forgot... but Isolation brings it back mercilessly.

Personally speaking I think that the movie works better for people with a certain, uhm, experience with the countryside. Especially the remote countryside. But aside from adding that little ..."personal touch" to horror, the movie delivers anyways. I won't give away too much because I actually recommend watching this movie and don't want to give too many spoilers than I already have, but damn - Isolation is infectuous (teehehee) with its cow-induced madness.



I mean... it has to say something that a gorehound like me thinks that a movie about cows is creepy and has jump-scares as well as unexpected deaths aplenty if you think of the limited cast (only 8 persons, if my count is correct). Well, not aplenty as in "lots of them" thinking of numbers, but as in "lots of them considering how many people actually appear in this movie".





I won't say more besides that it has a really icky twist and that the end really blows home.




8.5/10 biting teeth that are coming for you...



P.S.: Also, don't buy the German edition of the DVD if you want to watch your movie in English without subtitles. The German subs are hardcoded, which sucks balls royally and pissed me off to no end. I can understand English just fine, thank you very much, Sunfilm Entertainment. Fuckers.

P.P.S.: Thanks to Kroh for notifying me of this: http://www.shagrat.net/Portfolio/cows.swf

100% SFW!

* The Friend, in case you forgot. You know, the one who rarely reads the reviews and is the one who happens to be the person I watch the presumably "better" movies I get with. He also said I shouldn't buy the special edition limited 2-discs widescreen - something of Talos the Mummy with Christopher Lee. I still mourn this nonexistant loss.

** Exactly. Black science. I knew you'd all remember, my faithful, loyal min.... readers. You rock!

*** Dude. COW LEVEL!****

**** Gabapentin: Serious business.

***** I'm PC. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I can access the net via my hardware and software, but that I care for those that society doesn't like. Or something like that. Besides, Rincewind****** just puked in the kitchen.

****** The Primordial Malice From Beyond Time And Space

Shock Waves (1977)

Once They Were Almost Human! Beneath the living... Beyond the dead... From the depths of Hell's Ocean! The Deep End of Horror!

The SS made scientists create a race of superhuman soldiers near Koblenz* (!), with the mysterious involvement of the dead bodies of slain soldiers, used for medical experiments**. This happened at the end of WWII, and indeed, there was a group of soldiers who fought without weapons, killing with their bare hands. They never have been found... not a single one of them.

Cut to a mysterious boat rifting afloat the sea. A female figure is lying in it, and a female narrator voice tells us that she remembered hardly anything. She is in bad shape, and the seamen who rescued her want to know what happened to her... but she cannot tell them.

Flashback... to what happened. And our story begins.




Sun changes colour to yellow, dark, as something is making its way underwater. In those areas, solar phenomena always accompany occult/supernatural phenomena, wherever "those areas" are (B-Movie-Country?). The boat attempts to get out of there (in case someone hasn't noticed yet: This place of the movie takes place on a boat. On a BOAT. Now, that we've cleared that up, let's continue). The people on the boat don't know what is happening, and they're getting uncomfortable.




Their water-bound vehicle is going somewhere... and they don't know where. Especially the appearance of the sun bothers them. The captain tries to disperse the tension, but it doesn't really work. The passengers are torn amongst themselves and there are tensions flaring up with the Captain, mostly due to the blunt way of a certain guy speaking his mind.

Night alls, and sleep comes.... or not?

Our heroine (at least I identiy her as such - Brooke Adams, playing her role as Rose) gets up during the night to visit the silent, handsome, moustache wearing... guy*******. The boat is drifting into an unknown direction, the compass isn't working and they finally collide with...

... a Ghost Ship! Or did they?!
O_o

*shifty eyes*

...and I'm not even at the 20 minute-mark! Take that, boring modern films of lower standards than Shock Waves! And I want to add here that Shock Waves is not exactly what I'd call a "masterpiece". Or a "good movie". Or a "solid movie". But - things are happening... which is always good in a movie.




Let me begin with a short parenthesis about why I like this movie; I've first watched it about 4 (four) years ago, around 2005... could also have been 2004, I am not too sure on that one... and was half asleep and under the influence of beneficial herbal blends whose use I would never condone under any circumstances at the time of seeing it - naturally, my brain added "Zombies" + "Nazis" + "Underwater" + "Peter Cushing" to = "Awesome". And to some degree, this is true. I mean, come on: Underwater Nazi Zombies. It could only be better if it was "A Virgin Amongst Underwater Nazi Zombies"... or something like that. It has zombies, to which my generation has a very close relationship. It has Nazis, to which especially my generation in especially my country and Germany have a very special relationship with***, and... well, it has boats.

And it is hilariously funny. I have to start laughing every time I hear the narrator's voice at the beginning, followed by the dramatic Swastika******...




...Did I mention it has John Carradine?
End of short parenthesis.

Next morning, the Captain is missing. There's an islang close by, and the survivors of the crash and the succeeding night travel towards it in the small rescue boats of the Bonaventura (the name of the crap of a boat they are/were on). Whilst doing this, they find the Captain (John Carradine!) ...floating dead in the water.




Whilst exploring the island, which has a jungle-like atmosphere, they stumble across an apparently deserted old villa. Of course, they break in to have a better look at it (have these people never seen a horror movie?). They meet its only inhabitant - Peter Cushing. Later, we find out that he knows what is going on... and that there's "danger in the water".

In the meantime... let us switch from the complicated plot to what interests us really:

Underwater Nazi Zombies!

They first really show up at around the 35 minute mark, but then we get continuously more of them rising slowly out of the sea. Within that whole SS-undead-supersoldier-background story, I actually found their slow movements to add to the atmosphere. They walk in broad daylight, and yet you feel threatened by their mindless single...minded...ness... uhm. Yeah.




Peter Cushing is a commander of the SS - or rather, was the commander of a SS unit. As he finds out that people got killed, he tries to explain what is happening - that they, the Germans, created the perfect soldier - pathological murderers and sadists as well, called the "Todeskorps". They proved to be too vicious and were captured as their behaviour became erratic, were kept sleeping and imprisoned. As the war effort grew more desperate, he - Peter Cushing, he has no name - was ordered to bring the dreaded unit back - but he sank the ship with its cargo and since has lived on this island. And now, the Underwater Nazi Zombies have risen again...

Random Fish Picture.

The people try to escape the island, and what happens is predictable - they are followed by the zombies. Underwater. Of course. I mean, they had time enough since WWII to get used to it, it's convenient, camouflage enough... plus, if this was a normal zombie movie, it would be boring. I have to admit that it borders on boringness with its spare use of zombie action until the hour mark. Sometimes, a slow buildup is good, but at times, Shock Waves is overdoing it a bit.

But then, the protagonists are being robbed of all hope: Their boat...



...does this.

So, we get more Underwater Zombie action. This time, on land AND in the water, it's quite refreshing. Our heroine gets hunted somewhat fierce (well, for this movie, compared to, say, the Dawn of the Dead remake, it's cheese). People split up (of course... *sighs*), but the rightly terrified heroine finds a way to incapacitate and kill the Underwater Zombies: Removing their goggles when it's sunny out there. But as it's not sunny anymore as night breaks, they lock themselves in a small room with a lamp and hope to survive the night... whilst outside, the Todeskorps runs amok. With an unexpected psychological twist that I appreciated, they lose their only source of light and can't lock themselves in anymore. During the day, the hide-and-seek game between the two survivors (guy and heroine) and their hunters continues, outside on the island...


The camera shots are at time really good, and although with little effects, they managed to get the Underwater Nazi Zombies across as weird and alien. They're just not what you expect from an underwater zombie - I mean, look at the zombie at the begin of Zombie Honeymoon, that's how you normally picture an underwater zombie. But these...? These are creepy. Well, not really, but in a zombie-way for someone who has already seen a lot o movies with zombies in them. You'll like the scenes of the Underwater Nazi Zombies rising out of the water.




All in all, the movie isn't bad, if at times unnecessarily drawn out. If you want to see Underwater Nazi Zombies for the first time in your life, watch this flick. If you know of any other Underwater Nazi Zombie films, please let me know. It's an endearing subgenre.



7/10 times sunglasses really help you when you're that photosensitive


*Koblenz: Situated in the picturesque landscape of the Rhine and Moselle and surrounded by four low mountain ranges is the 2000-year-old town of Koblenz. Its abundance of cultural monuments and historic buildings, its cosy lanes and narrow alleyways, the relaxed and happy atmosphere of its squares and river promenades make Koblenz a friendly town where its guests feel right at home. (Source, 5/06/09 1812)

**Black Science

***Depending on your political views and what you went through in school. I'm naturally left-wing oriented, with anarchistic leanings, so that does not bode well for me being of the enthusiastic relationship with Nazism-sort, but 5 (five) (!!!) years in school with NOTHING BUT LEARNING ABOUT WWII IN HISTORY CLASS DOWN TO EVERY LITTLE DETAIL AND HAVING THE GUILT PUSHED INTO YOU will make you, or at least me, a Nazi-hating leftie. Who thinks Nazi Zombies are awesome. Just as Jesus Zombie****. Or vampire zombies*****.

****Zombie Jesus.

*****www.lastblood.net, thanks to Amalgam for that link originally. Zombies and vampires. Check it out.

******Which already appears on Samarra-ware type pottery in Mesopotamia around 5000 BCE, so sue me, it's an ancient symbol.

*******I apologise for the lack of detailed actor names, but I can't for the life of me figure out who is who at the moment, so please forgive me.

Aftermath (1994)

A heart beating. A woman screaming. Blood.

Such ends the life of a young woman. A young woman we shall get to know well.

There's no dialogue - not just hardly any dialogue, as in Trouble Every Day, but literally no dialogue whatsoever. No single word is uttered throughout the whole movie. Blessed silence, leaving us to Sound and Sight... and Imagination.




Suffice it to say, this is not a movie for the faint of heart. If you like sick underground flicks like that, prepare for a mercilessly beautiful movie - achingly beautiful in its simplicity and exposé. If you don't like "sick" movies... I suggest you find something else to watch together with your bunch of friends on your birthday party.




Aftermath is a brilliant movie that deserves to be seen by a wider audience. Granted, today's audience is made up of kids who would screetch around... but still. I totally approve of this movie. One of my favourites.







11/10 pieces of cloth used for brain tissue.

Midnight Meat Train (2008)

The most terrifying ride you'll ever take.

*yawns*

It's the third time that I'm trying to watch this movie. Not that that's got to say anything about its quality - it just says that I have not been able to keep up enough suspense from the beginning to the end to actually *watch* this movie, instead of having a pleasang look at it from the corner of the eye.




The Midnight Meat Train is one of those movies that I never had high hopes resp. expectations for. I read the original story by Clive Barker (one of the better ones in his Books of Blood), and I have to admit that I liked it. No story I like can turn out good on screen... and Midnight Meat Train proves that once again.

I had high hopes for it, and if it had come to the big screen in Vienna, I'd have seen it - so apparently we either didn't get it or I missed it. Both valid possibilities.




Anyways... Midnight Meat Train. In the story, a photographer discovers gruesome evidence of one of the underground trains of New York going... somewhere. Somewhere else. And that somewhere else includes a butcher selecting clean meat for Them... and Them. It's a delicious story that opens up some questions about Clive Barker's universe and an intriguing read.

The movie... yeah.




The main protagonist plus his handful of friends are sympathetic enough, but at the same time exchangable.

At 0:19:25 we get Ted Raimi! Automatic +1 for the movie. I heart Ted Raimi. He has less than a minute to live. 49 seconds, to be exact. I love his character. Just as I love any of his short-lived cameos.




So... movie. Plot. Photographer who needs to make better pictures in order to secure money happens upon a mysterious guy in a suit, who apparently works at night until the morning comes. Fascinated for some obscure reason, the photographer starts following the man. He arrives in a meat packing plant on his heels of his mysterious quarry.




He also manages to take some pictures of Nyarlathotep the Younger*.

Who is waiting... waiting for something (the Butcher, not Nyarlathotep the Younger... or maybe he is? Or isn't? You decide...).

Or someone?

But a security guard stops him from entering the same train as the man he'd been following.

...

Our butcher has a problem (a quite unsavoury one at that) which makes him slower - worse - at his job: Procuring meat.

Human meat.




Our photographer starts to freak out a little bit when it seems that the people involved in the subway are also involved in unsolved abduction cases along the subway line... and of course, this doesn't go without consequences. Our vegetarian suddenly discovers the joys of meat (steak, to be precise), but things go downhill with his girlfriend. She thinks he's obsessing too much about the whole stuff with the missing persons and the butcher. After an argument, he agrees... only to follow the butcher the very same night

He sees his work. And the butcher sees him.

After what may or may be not a dream sequence, our photographer finds himself ...marked.




He tells his wife, but she doesn't believe him. He seems crazy to her, and she's scared - of him and of what might happen. That night, they try to break into the butcher's room at a hotel. There, they find various torture instruments.

I've always dreamt of one of these...

Anyways, jealousy on my part aside, the movie certainly is interesting. I guess that if the viewer is not familiar with Clive Barker's story, Midnight Meat Train can be an actually engaging film with an interesting storyline which is not quite as predictable as others within the genre. As with the original story, there are hints of something Greater beneath the streets and bowels of New York, the epitome of the City as a living hive.

I'd hit it. Quite literally. Possibly with the hook. *toothy grin*



I like to think of them as ghouls. Yeah, blame me for my impertinence.

I liked that they kept some of the details of the story. As in, really, really liked it. Overall, a surprisingly good adaption of the short story, and an entertaining movie in itself.







...9/10 sterilised meathooks


* See my Hellraiser review.