REALITY BITES... AND STABS, AND BLUDGEONS R
EALITY-BASED HORROR FILMS – mockumentaries and others that incor- porate cinema verité techniques in order to appear factual – have long been a sta- ple of the genre. See acknowledged
classics Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and Man Bites Dog (1992), surprise blockbusters such as The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activ- ity (2009), as well as a slew of notorious under- ground films that have appeared in this space, notably the Guinea Pig entries, The Last Horror Movie (2003) and the August Underground trilogy. Two forthcoming films are worthy additions to this canon. Long Pigs (2007) is a clever Canadian riff on
Man Bites Dog, written and directed by Toronto filmmakers Chris Power and Nathan Hynes. They portray themselves as documentarians chroni- cling the daily life of non-descript serial killer An- thony McAlistar (Anthony Alviano). Unlike most serial killers, Anthony does not kill for thrills or pleasure, but for meat, as he is an unrepentant cannibal. The film opens with Anthony
cruising for an appropriate vic- tim amongst prostitutes work- ing a seedy street corner, while the filmmakers are riding in the back of his car. After rejecting a couple of potential victims for being “too stringy,” Anthony fixes on a rather plump hooker and entices her back to his home. They retire to the base- ment, ostensibly for sex, but as the filmmakers are asking the girl a couple of innocuous in- terview questions, Anthony strikes, caving her skull in with a hammer. He apologizes afterward for the sud- den attack, telling the documentarians he does- n’t want his victims to know what is about to happen to them as adrenaline ruins the meat. Then, he strings her corpse up and methodically (and graphically) butchers it for the benefit of the camera, explaining the process as he goes. As in Man Bites Dog, the filmmakers are at
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Long Pigs
first shocked by, but gradually become complicit with, the gruesome crimes. Anthony is charming and well-spoken, prone to waxing philosophically on the virtues of eating human flesh. They follow him around as he prowls a residential neigh- bourhood for a victim, works as a valet at a high- end restaurant and visits his mother in a nursing home, before eventually acting as accomplices when he mur- ders a corrupt city politician. This relationship quickly de- teriorates when the film- makers begin to question Anthony’s inconsistent sto- ries, and he realizes he has revealed far too much of himself to them. The air of authenticity is bolstered by interspersed interview seg- ments with a detective (Shane Harbinson) and a psychologist (Kelly McIn-
tosh), while a radio talk show host (Roger King) provides background colour on Anthony’s crime spree and his victims. Big Bite Entertainment is set to release Long
Pigs on June 8; hit up
longpigsthefilm.com for the wicked trailer and further info. Marcel Walz’ La petite mort : Die Nasty (2009) is what Hostel (2005) could have been. The
plots of both bear more than a little resem- blance, although an opening voice-over de- clares that this one is based on a true story. College students Simon (Andreas Pape), his blind girlfriend Nina (Inés Zahmoul) and her friend Dodo (Anna Habeck) are off on a holiday to Mallorca, where Simon plans to propose to Nina. They decide to do a little sightseeing dur- ing a lengthy layover in Frankfurt and are robbed in a back alley. Simon convinces the girls that they should drown their sorrows in a sketchy fetish bar, but when Dodo runs afoul of one of the daughters of the owner, Maman Fa- bienne (Manoush), the trio is taken captive and made the unwilling stars of an internet torture show. Unlike Eli Roth’s wimp-out, Walz’s film deliv-
ers on the grue, courtesy of German under- ground gore god Olaf Ittenbach, best known as director of storied splatter flicks The Burning Moon (1992) and Premutos: Lord of the Living Dead (1997). Highlights include a balls ’n’ all castration, a gnarly scalping (with a gratuitously exposed brain!) and a hand shoved into a man- ual meat grinder. It’s not just torture porn, though, as it’s a surprisingly stylish film that ef- fectively utitlizes some fantastic locations.. La petite mort is currently available without
English options on PAL DVD, from NSM Records. Watch for news of a North American release here:
myspace.com/lapetitemortmovie.
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