15 Second Review: I Didn’t Come Here to Die (2012)

I Didn’t Come Here to Die is very cheap, and I mean that both in the senses of ‘inexpensive’ and ‘trashy’. The latter is not intended as a criticism: ‘trashy’ is exactly what I Didn’t Come Here to Die needs to be. The plot is standard “teens in the woods” fare for the most part. The ingenious twist is that there is no masked killer. Carnage ensues regardless. The result is quite dull at times, but when the film is fun, it is a whole hell of a lot of fun. Unlike many of his peers, writer-director-editor Bradley Scott Sullivan understands the relationship between comedy and horror. Most of the violent incidents are sudden and likely to inspire a sharp intake of breath from the most jaded of viewers. It is not that the film is “extreme”. The gore effects work well inasmuch as they are unrealistic, that just means they are funny. The violence works well because the comic timing is so acute.  I Didn’t Come Here to Die is hardly Three Colours: Red, but then it never tries to be. The film is brutally honest about what it is, and that is ultimately what makes it worth checking out.

Torture Porn: Read the introduction for free

 

You can now read the introduction (as well as the contents page and index) of my forthcoming book Torture Porn: Popular Horror After Saw by clicking on the 'Download sample chapter' link here:

http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=524551

 

You can pre-order the book either directly from Palgrave-Macmillan at the above link, or from retailers such as Amazon:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Torture-Porn-Popular-Horror-after/dp/0230319416/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370352411&sr=8-1&keywords=torture+porn

 

The book is due to be published on August 2nd.

15 Second Review: Lords of Salem (2013)

Lords of Salem is divisive filmmaking. On the one hand, the movie is a visual feast. Zombie has a great eye for composition. That trait has been evident since his first film. Much like Zombie’s incoherent debut House of 1000 Corpses, Lords of Salem has little in the way of plot. Unlike the former, which was a tribute to (derivative of) Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Zombie’s most recent effort offers a smart (if sparse) take on panics over subliminal satanic messages in metal music. That Lords of Salem has little in the way of plot development aids the film, rendering its freaky imagery all the more unsettling. In contrast to Halloween II – a slasher movie intercut with inappropriate unicorn imagery – Lords of Salem’s hallucinatory images work well with the witchcraft theme. The dream-like imagery and floating narrative movement chimes with the plot’s central fugue-inducing record. Do not be fooled by the thudding captions that signal time passing: Lords of Salem is more akin to The Serpent and the Rainbow than The Shining. Indeed, the overall effect of striking set-pieces and drifting narrative is reminiscent of Lucio Fulci’s scrapbook-like The Beyond, which is why I really enjoyed it (and probably why many will hate it). Lords of Salem arguably suffers from being a little too glossy, outlandish, or even self-conscious, and is certainly not a masterpiece. However, for my money  it is easily Zombie’s best film to date.

New issue of Feminist Media Studies now available

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfms20/current

Features articles by Rosie White, Charlotte Brunsdon, a special section on Fifty Shades of Grey. The issue also features my article “Gender Monstrosity: Deadgirl and the Sexual Politics of Zombie-Rape”.

New Uneven Structure EP - 8

Uneven Structure have rerecorded their EP 8 - the result is released today, and can be sampled in full above. Much less muddy than the original recording.

15 Second Review: Dead Mine (2013)

Steven Shiel’s follow-up to Mum and Dad is likely to consolidate his critics’ worst fears. Mum and Dad was hardly original, but it at least made for grim viewing. Unfortunately, with Dead Mine Shiel has made a terrible gaff: he removes Mum and Dad’s characteristic dismalness and retains the lack of innovation. The result is Dead Mine: an unhealthy mishmash of recent bunker entrapment films (Outpost, The Divide, Bane, Basement), blended with a dash of The Descent, The Hills Have Eyes 2 and Shadow, topped off with imagery from Oasis of the Zombies, and old-hat “Unit 731” themes (see Men Behind the Sun, Philosophy of a Knife). Slow and dull, Dead Mine boasts no significant narrative trajectory to speak of, and eventually simply ceases. As the end credits roll some generic post nu metal music trundles along in much the same way the film itself did. Ultimately, Dead Mine commits the worst crime a horror film can: it is boring, uninspiring and utterly forgettable.

Cultural Oddities: Buddy Rich vs Animal Drum Battle Royale

If Buddy's shirt ripped open and his skin turned green, I wouldn't be surprised. Buddy SMASH