Rogue River (2011) Frightfest Review

Torture and kidnap movies are a slowly waining sub-genre in the the current horror trends as we see a swing toward more supernatural flicks. There are still a fair few of them to be released from the indie circuit and ROGUE RIVER is one of these. A young woman sets off to scatter her fathers ashes and meets an unsavoury couple at the titular river. A simple premise and set up though there are a few nasty surprises along the way.

I do not think it is a spoiler to tell you that Bill Mosely is the bad guy in this piece nor do I think it was the film makers intention to hide that from you. Rather the journey from nice guy to psychopath is a newer path for Mosely, he's not an outright psycho from the get go for once, and ROGUE RIVER is not one of those movies out to re-write the rules of horror but one of those that shows you can still deliver a solid entertaining movie within the confines of expectation and you can play about with those confines a little to. Where I was expecting a bit of a dud I got a nice suprise from ROGUE RIVER at Frightfest where it was good to see most negative expectations overturned to a fairly positive response. It was nice to see a couple of psychos inhabit a clean and normal abode rather than a busted old farm house covere in skulls and skin lanterns.

ROGUE RIVER has a thoroughly nasty streak that I think deserves to be celebrated by more horror folks than have been giving this little indie love. I'm happy enough with half a hard on for this solid and a little depraved tale.

Quarantine 2 Terminal (2011)

In the sequel to the remake writer and director John Pogue has abandoned the found footage style that has served the previous three films well. QUARANTINE 2 is shot in straight forward narrative fashion and progresses the American storyline that favours a super-virus over a supernatural cause for its crazed assailants. We are out of an apartment building and onto a aeroplane and an airport terminal with a mixed bunch of characters as panic and death sets in.

Straight forward and straight-to-DVD (again no UK Blu Ray) Q2:T doesn't forward the genre or the series/franchise but is a fairly passable entry in the crazed looney not zombies films of recent years. It is not a patch on REC 2 and I severely doubt we'll get to part 3 with the Quarantine off-shoot while the original Spanish movies rampage on to REC: GENESIS and REC: APOCALYPSE and hopefully the honour of being the greatest horror franchise ever.

I'll give Q2:T half a hard on. I'll also stop calling it Q2:T. And I proposed to the lead on Twitter. She said yes.

Rise Of The Planet Apes (2011)

So I'm cheating, sue me. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is not horror. Nor were the preceding six movies but I like to stretch my genre parameters here at the Hard On. What you think i watch horror all the time.? I am a huge Planet Of The Apes fan but the trailer for this years obligatory franchise "reboot" left me a little cold. All I saw were action beats cribbed from I Robot.

Whether 20th Century Fox have deliberately played it well or not I cannot say but that trailer fails to show almost anything from the first hour and ten minutes it takes to build up to the third act summer blockbuster action fest finale.

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is a brilliant piece of summer entertainment where director Rupert Wight and his writers, effects magicians and the incredible talented Andy Sirkas dare you to imagine that Christopher Nolan is not the only one who can deliver the big summer movie with smarts. The CGI on show is a tool not a toy expanding performances and lending the film adding layers of depth, emotion, character, it's a REAL movie made for a summer audience who could have imagined it?

Cleverly and unobtrusively laying down ground work for a sequel with a space mission sub plot so brief that if you blink you will miss it Fox, armed with next years Alien reboot/prequel/hybrid, are set to once more be king of the world whether it be a world of xenomorphs or a planet of apes.

Full on hard on and ejaculation for Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. Go in Fox green light that sequel now!

Super 8 (2011)

Super 8 is a slice of Americana that non-Americans can enjoy through the filter of having seen movies set around a similar period. It is an attempt to do ET, THE GOONIES or THE EXPLORERS in a retro fashion but it cannot be these things. It is a period piece that references a continent to which I do not belong. It evokes memories of technology that did not grip Europe with the same fevour as it did the West. It is also 3 films, the Stand By Me wannabe, the alien invasion movie and the one that tries to jam these two pieces together.

For a film that relies on its young actors chemistry the story does not spend enough time with their characters nor does it let them develop. The periphery characters are reduced to being the kid that vomits and the kid that blows stuff up. There are no early scenes giving us an insight into this. Think THE GOONIES and how Data, Mouth, Chunk and Mikey are introduced with their relevant "skills" and attributes for the plot. The conclusive feel good scene for Super 8 falls down as our lead has had no interaction with the creature for it to have any meaning and resolutions seem tagged on and hurried. These are all simple structure points that any novice screenwriter will be able to recite to you verbatim. The feeling is the script that Abrahms wante to make was suffocated by the one the studio wanted him to make.

I did not hate Super 8 and now I can understand its European release delay as it's all about being a little kid in America in 1979/80. Which is still likely of minor interest to today's American 13/14 year olds also shown by the low box-office performance of JJ Abrams monster movie. I would point viewers toward Joe Johnstons brilliant October Sky if you want to see a copy of Speilbergburbia that feels like it has some weight behind it.

Half a hard on for Super 8.

Primal

I've heard many opinions that Australia's PRIMAL is brutal and brilliant but I'm here to reveal that it is in fact utter balls. It doles out horror cliches and baffling character motives like it's amateur hour seemingly only the cinematographer had a clue what he was doing because the writing, direction, editing and effects are just crap. And even at that he/she is only getting credit for not making this look like it was a shot on video number which most of the rest of the production seems to suggest. There's one sequence, a few minutes in a runtime of under 90, that has some horror quality that when the lead squealing female is trapped in the truck and the muscular lead, now eviled up, stalks aound it. It's nothing spectacular but does highlight that PRIMAL could have been a tense, dark THE DESCENT style horror flick instead of the crazy and outright sloppy derivative drivel on offer. I hoped for THE RUINS not a ruin.

This film had left me with such a hard off that I think it's disappeared into an innie!

Drive Angry 3D

Drive Angry is about a bad ass chick, who is hotter than the sun, a bad ass grandfather who has escaped the clutches of Hell, literally, in order to avenge the death of his daughter and rescue his grandchild while being persued by the harass Accoutant who is none less than the Devils right hand man. This film is, well badass is just not good enough to describe it.

Sadly Drive Angry has gone the way of Grindhouse and made no money. It seems the online community who rapidly devout themselves to following the development of this sort of movie are just not strong enough to sustain the box office of this sort of movie. It is a sad fact that we truly are at the mercy of those who would rather spend money on watching dull, impotent and repetitive movies made by multiple choice and commitee rather than something with balls and talent and, yeah, more than a little whacked.

It's plain fun and Nic "I Seem To Be REALLY Fuckin' Crazy Like In REAL Life" Cage belongs in this sort o arena even though William Ficthner steals the damn(ed) show and you can barely peel your eyes off the just outright stunning Amber Heard.

Full on hard on and ejaculation.

I Saw The Devil

The Korean trend for dark and violent drama continues with Kim (THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD) Ji Woo bringing the OLD BOY Choi Min Sik himself into a serial killer film with a very different skew.

After the murder of the Police chief daughter her fiancé Kim Soo Yuen, a member of the Chief's protection staff, begins a hunt for her killer narrowing the suspects down to four men who have been involved in or suspected of similar crimes. When he does find his man he engages in an unusual game of cat and mouse or more like catch and release. Without the aid of some nifty GPS and bugging devices he is able to track the sick killer and stop him every time he tries to rape or kill again. Each time leaves the killer injured but let's him go persistently following and interfering with him until can take no more and has to find a way to fight back.

South Korean cinema is a hotbed of talent at the moment and for those seeking dark and intelligent horror and drama this is the place to go. I SAW THE THE DEVIL is violent and brutal which cause it some censorship problems in it's homeland but director Kim Ji Woo uses violence to equally express the ultimate frustration of seeking vengeance against those who have wronged as well as using it as a tool to keep the audience on edge and squirming in their seats. Also present is that dark stream of humour that has been observed in recent South Korean films such as THE HOST or MOTHER. It is not used to spoof or undermine the plot and the darkness at the heart of the movie but it does give I SAW THE DEVIL a disturbing grounding in reality

Glorious cinematography, pitch perfect performances and a smart script mean that I SAW THE DEVIL is a real contender for film of the year and we're only at February.

A full on errection and ejaculation for I SAW THE DEVIL.

The Tortured

After the abduction and murder of their young son a young couple, played by Metcalfe and Christensen, hatch a plan for revenge. They will abduct their sons killer and utilising the fathers skills as a doctor keep the killer alive for as long as possible while inflicting bodily harm and medically aided torture on their prisoner.

When you stamp "from the producers of SAW" on a film you, as the distributor, are hoping to attract an audience who has helped a movie series shot on a low budget into the hundreds of millions in box office receipts. You are also inviting an audience who are trained and looking for your torture porn movies twist. And when that twist telegraphs itself very early on you are dead in the water. Maybe that is why the Twisted Pictures produced THE TORTURED has been sitting about on a shelf since 2007 and I suspect underwent some re-shoots by SAW maestro Darren Lynn Bousman who is thanked in the credits.

Conceit wise THE TORTURED does have a new take on torture porn, the good guys are torturing the bad guy, but the writer, director(s) and producer just couldn't find a way to execute it effectively. Shame as I'd like to see Twisted Pictures get a life outside of the SAW franchise but hopefully they have more horror treats to come.

Floppy and flaccid.