BURKE AND HARE – USA John Landis
It’s been almost twenty years since John Landis made his last feature-length horror film. His take on the story of ne’er-do-well grave robbers Burke (Simon Pegg) and Hare (a deliciously scummy Andy Serkis) is primarily a romantic comedy, but given that the opening ten minutes include hanging, dismemberment, arterial spray and a maggoty corpse, not to mention cameos from Ray Har- ryhausen, Christopher Lee and Jenny Agutter, rest as- sured there’s plenty of gore to accompany the giggles. AM
DETENTION – USA Joseph Kahn
Ah, post-postmodernism – there’s a term we could all do without. But how else to describe a film in which cul- tural references are cribbed from already derivative works such as Scream, Clueless and Scott Pilgrim vs the World? Detention depicts time-travelling high-schoolers battling masked serial killers while trying not to get beat up by bullies armed with fly blood and acid bile. And that all happens before the midway point! Ultimately, the movie plagiarizes its way to an infectious originality. Lace up your Day-Glo high-tops and go see it. AM
THE CASE OF JOHN GLASS – Canada Pat Tremblay
HELLACIOUS ACRES:
Following an alien attack that has compromised Earth’s atmosphere, a hapless soldier in a Halo-like survival suit awakens from a cryogenic slumber to discover he’s been assigned a series of deceptively difficult missions by the suit’s talking onboard computer. With no recollection of his past, he embarks on a gloomy odyssey across a des- olate landscape to suffer the trials of his hilariously bleak predicament. Trippy no-budget FX and a super-slow doom metal score only further the dark charms of this purposefully molasses-paced Canadian sci-fi film. TT
RM 30
THE INNKEEPERS – USA Ti West
Abandoning the frenzied monster mayhem of The Roost and the lo-fi ’70s mimicry of The House of the Devil, Ti West opts for a slow-burning Hammer horror-style ghost story set in a creepy New England inn. Amateur ghost hunters and professional slackers Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are likeable as the inn’s front desk jockeys but their banter can’t carry a film in which the most terrifying moment is the realization that the grand- motherly character is former Top Gun hottie Kelly McGillis. AM
IRONCLAD – UK/USA Jonathan English
Paul Giamatti inhabits angry-little-man King John, who reneges on the promises he was forced to make in the Magna Carta. As a result, members of the Knights Templar find themselves defending Rochester Castle against the king and his barbarians. While Iron- clad won’t appeal to all horror hounds, it has enough dismembering, hanging, beheading, stabbing, skull cracking and body splitting to compete with a Fulci film. Employing old-school FX by Paul Hyett (Dooms- day, The Descent), Ironclad slashes its way to the top. Bring out yer dead! MG
JEAN ROLLIN, LE RÊVEUR ÉGARÉ – France Damien Dupont and Yvan Pierre-Kaiser
This conventional documentary on one of the most un- conventional genre directors, traces Jean Rollin’s 50- year career in the French “fantastique” through to the works of surrealists Luis Buñuel (Un chien andalou) and Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face). Rollin (1938 – 2010) is a filmmaker still misunderstood by both genre fans and art house critics, and the documentary chronicles an auteur who worked within the exploita- tion market but produced horror films with a brilliant, poetic anti-realist aesthetic, which was his very dis- tinct signature. MDB
KNIFEPOINT – USA Jed Strahm
It’s Christmas in California – the ideal time for a gang with no regard for human life to kill all of the tenants in a condo building before settling in for the night to torture the last remaining family. Pedestrian direction, shaky act- ing and unconscionably malicious characters cause this mean-spirited home-invasion movie, which tries so hard to be “edgy” by depicting such morally reprehensible acts as the rape of a handicapped woman, to fail at being scary or believable. Only for fans of blatant nastiness. TT
THE LAST NORWEGIAN TROLL – Norway Pjotr Sapegin
This cheeky bit of claymation magic played before Troll- hunter (RM#113) and proved to be one of the high points of FanTasia’s opening weekend. Max von Sydow narrates the lonely tale of a billy goat-guzzling troll that can’t find a place in contemporary society so he sets out to search for his lost ancestors. A delightful flick riddled with dreamy, fairy-tale fun! SFA
LITTLE DEATHS – UK Simon Rumley, Sean Hogan, Andrew Parkinson
This three-headed anthology film explores la petite mort in graphic, transgressive fashion. A psychotic suburban couple captures and rapes a young homeless girl, only to meet a ghoulish demise; a drug-addicted prostitute finds the ultimate high via a Nazi sex experiment; and in the best and final episode, reminiscent of Joe R. Lans- dale’s short story “Fire Dog,” a woman sexually degrades her boyfriend but eventually finds truth in the adage that every dog has its day. AM
A LONELY PLACE TO DIE – UK Julian Gilbey
Survivalist films are terrifying because many of them could actually happen, and it’s just this possibility that makes A Lonely Place to Die the adrenaline rush it is. Mountain climbing is frightening enough, but throw in
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