According to the theories laid out in this entertaining, mind-boggling documen- tary, rabbit holes don’t get much deeper than the one hollowed out by Stanley Kubrick with The Shining. Everyone knows it’s a metaphor for the Holo- caust, right? Unless it’s really about the subjugation of American Indians? Or maybe it’s Kubrick’s veiled confession that he helped fake the moon landing! Room 237 catalogs five bizarre and stunningly elaborate attempts to de- code the film. Whether or not you buy any of it, one thing’s certain: you’ll never experience The Shining in quite the same way again. AS
CINEMACABRE -DROME CINEMACABRE
LORDS OF SALEM ROB ZOMBIE USA
O-DROME
There’s a great movie hiding somewhere in Rob Zombie’s fifth live-action feature. Unfortunately, most of it seems to have been left on the cutting-room floor. This tale of a Salem disc jockey (Sheri Moon Zombie) haunted by 300-year-old witches features some gorgeous, fantas- tically creepy imagery and gonzo per- formances by Meg Foster, Dee Wallace and Patricia Quinn (sadly, Barbara Crampton’s role was reduced to literally seconds), but it’s crippled by a clunky script that never really goes anywhere. At least it has something that rarely shows its face in a Rob Zombie film: a sense of fun. AS
CINEMACABRE NO ONE LIVES
RYUHEI KITAMURA USA
The man behind Versus returns with an- other slice of ultra-violent delights. No One Lives opens with a band of rural criminals preying on a city couple, but the film quickly shifts once the hillbillies discover something very unexpected in their victim’s’ vehicle. Throw a nameless serial killer with near superhuman pow- ers into the mix and the hunters become the hunted, and the gore becomes glee- fully explosive. Yep, Kitamura is back in comic book horror territory, deliberately trying to create a new genre icon with his nameless superkiller. The director’s usual fumbling with plot and characterization prevent it from being an instant classic, but his undeniable skill with ludicrous vi-
AUDIO-DROME RM28
Strange Faces, Strange Places: (from top) Facing the fires of evil in John Dies at the End, killer kids in Come Out and Play, and dark delights in Suicide Shop.
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olence ensures the flick will be a crowd-pleaser among gorehounds. PB
PAINLESS
JUAN CARLOS MEDINA Spain
The grim spectre of war haunts nearly every frame of this moody, gothic fable about a group of children who are mysteriously incapable of feeling physical pain. Torn from their families
FEATURES
and whisked away to a remote sana- torium just before the Spanish Civil War, the kids are treated as lab rats until the Nazis come along and dis- cover an even darker use for their af- fliction. Too many narrative threads are left dangling, but Medina’s eerie, beautifully filmed and sometimes gruesome debut feature brilliantly up- ends the conventions of both classic monster movies and modern torture flicks. AS
FEATURES NINTH CIRCLE DREADLINES SIGHTSEERS
BEN WHEATLEY U.K.
AUDIO-DROME FEATURES NINTH CIRCLE DREADLINES
A self-absorbed, thirtysomething couple hops into a caravan and hits the road in search of some English countryside. A typical boring, British holiday – until they discover that dispatching random chones with unflinchingly brutal meth- ods can vastly improve the experience. Think Natural Born Killers meets Brit comedy Nuts in May and that’ll give you an idea of what Ben Wheatley’s latest concoction has to offer. He traumatized us last year with his Ken Loach/Ham- mer Horror mash-up Kill List, but with the gruesome hilarity of Sightseers, the filmmaker cements his reputation as one of the most exhilarating genre film- makers to come from Dear Old Blighty. SFA
CINEMACABRE SUICIDE SHOP
PATRICE LECONTE France/Belgium/Canada
NINTH CIRCLE
In tough economic times, one business is booming: the Tuvache family’s “sui- cide shop,” your go-to spot for all man- ner of poisons, razor blades, nooses and the like. In this 3-D animated mu- sical from director Patrice LeConte, based on a French novel from 2006, all sorts of depressed people turn down a back alley and pass through the doors of this colourful, if morbid, boutique, where Monsieur Tuvache serves them with absolute delight. A wife and two mopey teens round out the Addams Family-like environs, until a new baby arrives with – quell horreur! – a big, fat smile. Now the Tuvaches must try to zap his will to live before their world collapses. More Gorey than gory, Sui- cide Shop is fun black humour for adults who don’t think suicides and sin- galongs are mutually exclusive. LL