hurt by an unknown evil entity. Though the film is thick with eerie at- mosphere and impressive CGI effects, it’s apparent that Balagueró was still honing his directorial skills. There’s far too much boring ex- position and not enough tension or horror; that is, until a drag queen- lookin’ mechanical apparition fit for a Marilyn Manson video appears during the climax. The scariest thing about the whole movie is Balagueró’s decision
to cast veteran TV actor Calista Flockhart in the title role. Her uneven, mostly subdued performance is peppered with scenes in which she’s screeching relentlessly. I guess they don’t play re-runs of Ally McBeal in Spain. LCL
GRIMM LOVE
MARTIN WEISZ It’s doubtful that any real-life murder case,
aside from the antics of Eddie Gein, has ever spawned as many films as that of bizarro Ger- man cannibal Armin Meiwes. While Meiwes’ 2001 crime, a single murder complete with cannibalism, was considerably less spectac- ular than the zany antics of Jeffrey Dahmer,
Andrei Chikatilo or Albert Fish, the incident created an unparalleled media sensation because Meiwes’ victim, Bernd Jürgen Brandes, had been a willing participant, having fantasized for years about being killed and eaten. Grimm Love, initially released in Europe a few years ago, is a su-
perbly acted, character-driven version of the events. Though the actual murder is graphic, be forewarned that the ramp-up – mainly flash- backs detailing the various childhood and adolescent traumas that would eventually bring these two twisted individuals together – is very slow. Killer and victim don’t even make email contact until the 55- minute mark and the, er, festivities don’t get underway until roughly 70 minutes into the film’s 87-minute runtime. A narrative framing de- vice in which Keri Russell (TV’s Felicity) plays a graduate student writ- ing her thesis on the case is unnecessary, but her performance is impressive enough to legitimize what could have been a tiresome gimmick. A tough watch, but many cuts above its competition. JWB
THE HAUNTING
ELIO QUIROGA In 2006, Spanish director Elio Quiroga
DARK HOUSE
DARRIN SCOTT Believe it or not, this is the film that beat out this collection’s seven other entries
in an online Fangoria contest to appear as a nationwide theatrical release, which hit three, count ’em, three cities back in July. Dark House centres on a group of college drama students enlisted to work in an
abandoned foster home that has been turned into a “haunted” attraction – complete with torture chambers and interactive holographs. Little do they know that it’s ac-
tually haunted by the malevolent ghost of a woman who went nuts there fourteen years earlier and slaughtered every last kid in the place. Unfortunately, the cool premise quickly becomes a predictable, paint-by-numbers haunted house flick, rife with crappy CGI and lousy acting. The only thing that makes it even slightly watchable is Jeffrey Combs’ masterful performance as Wal-
ston Rey, the opportunistic showman who owns the attraction. Combs successfully channels Vincent Price in the original House on Haunted Hill (1959), as he competently steals every one of his scenes in this godawful mess of a film. LCL
FRAGILE
JAUME BALAGUERÓ There are two reasons why this movie (shot back in 2005) hasn’t seen the light
of day until now. The first is because it was directed by Jaume Balagueró, who was practically unknown to North American audiences until [REC] made him an overnight genre phenomenon. The second reason is because it sucks… mostly. Set in a crumbling British children’s hospital, Fragile stars Calista Flockhart as Amy, a nurse who discovers that the kiddies under her care are being haunted and
RM42
made the exceptionally creepy apocalypse film The Dark Hours, still, sadly, unreleased in North America. Instead, we get his follow- up, The H aunting (originally called No-Do), a cheap-looking, derivative haunted house flick undeserving of its appropriated title. The movie’s original spin on the subgenre
has the Catholic Church covering up a horrible crime and an evil entity – both revealed via secret, decades-old footage shot by government production company No-Do on special stock that’s able to capture the images of spirits. Unfortunately, this mystery element is smothered by haunted house clichés: a family moves into an old house, the hus- band doesn’t believe his mentally fragile wife is really seeing ghosts, she’s eventually helped by a renegade priest, strange things are heard on a baby monitor, a secret room is uncovered, religious conspiracy, obvious Sixth Sense-style shenanigans, yadda, yadda… This might be forgivable if the scares were effective and the film
didn’t look like a made-for-TV flick full of awful CGI spooks and ex- plosions. Instead of ruining potentially cool creep-outs, such as hang- ing dolls and mannequin parts that morph into a spider-thing, Quiroga (also the writer) should have looked to the original The Haunting for pixel-free inspiration. DA
HUNGER STEVEN HENTGES
When five chones wake up in a deep, dark pit un- derground with no idea how they got there, they must put their hot potato brains together
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