Grau has a gift for suspense and is unafraid to splatter around bodily fluids, he’s mainly inter- ested in marrying social commentary to horror. From the unforgettable beginning that cynically critiques the whitewashing of consumer culture, Grau goes out of his way to explore the social implications of a dirty little family of cannibals. That bile-spewing old man turns out to be an
impoverished patriarch who made a meagre liv- ing repairing watches. When that wasn’t enough to keep his family fed, he started bringing back corpses to be con- sumed in a mystical manner that his fam- ily refers to as “The Ritual.” With daddy gone, the family is left with a grief- stricken mother, a sultry teen daughter and two bumbling sons, who are ill-pre- pared to take over
their father’s murderous responsibilities. As viewers, we’re never expected to fully under- stand or identify with what they’re going through. Instead, we watch with unease as the familial bond and a desperation for normalcy forces them to play out their prescribed societal roles in a zombie-like fashion. We Are What We Are is not a horror movie for
the attention-span deficient. Grau takes his time, following his characters through seemingly mundane tasks, while using creeping cameras, subtle sound cues and eerie production design to build atmosphere. And when the shit does hit the fan and the cannibalistic clan finally struts its stuff, the results are deeply dis- turbing. Some may claim the film is too slow and not violent enough, and while it’s true that We Are What We Are would never succeed as a bona fide Video Nasty, Grau’s debut balances horror and art house conventions in a manner rarely achieved. Provided that he sticks to his
genre roots, Grau is a filmmaker to watch, especially for horror fans who appre- ciate substance along with their cannibalistic massacres.
PHIL BROWN TRUNCATED TERROR
TEKETEKE Starring Yûko Ohshima, Mami Yamasaki and Mai Nishida
Written by Takeki Akimoto Directed by Kôji Shiraishi
JapanFlix.com
Poor Kôji Shiraishi. In 2009, the Japanese di- rector released two flicks on opposite ends of
We Are What We Are: Hunting and gathering the cannibal way.
the horror spectrum. While the Guinea Pig-like Grotesque (RM#96) promptly got itself banned in the UK, his more traditional J-horror, Teketeke, languished in obscurity until it was recently picked up for digital distribution through Japan-
Flix.com. What hamstrings both movies, though, is a stunning lack of originality. Teketeke begins promisingly enough, with a
young woman who has been split in two at the waist. Inside a house nearby, two kids are dis- cussing the very creature that’s just done her in: Teketeke. The same fate soon befalls high school student Ayaka (Mai Nishida), best friend of main character Kana (Yûko Ohshima of Japan- ese all-female pop group AKB48), shortly after the pair argue over pretty boy Keita (Ikkei). Otherwise clueless,
Keita conveniently brings up the legend of a ghostly woman who’s missing the lower part of her body (think Half Boy from Freaks) called Teketeke, her name derived from
the sound her claws make as she tears after her prey. Those she doesn’t instantly kill, she hunts down three days later. Not only does Kana incur the creature’s wrath, so does her older cousin Rie (Mami Yamasaki). Eventually, the two team up to solve the mystery of Teketeke before time runs out. We see more of Teketeke as the movie chugs
along, though often it’s the same shot over and over, in which she resembles a Zygon from Doc- tor Who doing a push-up. Still, the combination of hearing Teketeke’s nails scrabbling across the pavement and shots from the beast’s perspec- tive occasionally ratchets up the tension. Sure,
the characters are disposable and Teketeke’s origin is ridiculous, but the movie itself may be strangely endearing to some for the idiosyncratic second half, which demonstrates a sense of hu- mour utterly lacking in the first part. Teketeke the creature has a torso but no legs; Teketeke the movie gets off to a lifeless start but has a fun tail end.
A.S. BERMAN
NO WAY TO TREAT AN OLD ONE
THE LAST LOVECRAFT:
RELIC OF CTHULHU Starring Kyle Davis, Devin McGinn and Matt Bauer Directed by Henry Saine Written by Devin McGinn Dark Sky
What would H.P. Lovecraft have thought about
becoming such a pop culture commodity? There are Cthulhu T-shirts galore, comic book adapta- tions, Great Old One toys, theme bands (e.g. The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets) and, of course, all the movies. Would it have brought a smile to the morose mug of the Dark Prince of Provi- dence? Well, if someone forced him to sit through The
Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu, he’d probably shit a tentacle. Not that a Lovecraftian buddy comedy isn’t a
fine idea in theory, it’s just that this one is de- rivative, poorly scripted and badly edited. Jeff (Kyle Davis) and Charlie (writer/producer Devin McGinn) are your standard movie nerd pals. Jeff is the Neurotic One who’s shy around girls and Charlie is the Overbearing One with the funny lines. They both love geek stuff and work in shitty office cubicles, but one of them happens to be the last surviving descendant of H.P. Love- craft. Now that a Lovecraftian cult has found an ancient relic and resurrected one of Cthulhu’s generals, Starspawn, a secret society enlists Jeff
39RM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72