Hey folks, Harry here with StarDollFace and her look at Severance, Apocalypto and Blood Trails. I pretty much agree with her takes on Severance and Blood Trails - but there's some curious perspective differences in her Apocalypt review. At no point in the film did I see anything even vaguely Wushu-esque - and her statement about it being real time is confounding as... it is day and night at least 3 cycles over the course of the film, which would at least mean we'd be in the theater 72 hours. Of course, maybe that's how it felt for her. Minor nitpicks - but perceptions I didn't want folks getting the wrong idea about...
Hey guys, First I want to thank you for being a part of such a wonderful film festival. And second I want to strangle you for have so many films that scared the crap out of me. SEVERANCE I had heard about this film for some time with everyone saying "oh its like Shawn of the Dead blather blather", well its not. That's like saying Kate Winslet is like the lady from The Weakest Link because they both talk with an accent. Severance is a black horror comedy that constantly goes over the top on both fronts, while SOTD is obviously a little more subtle. The set up is pretty straight forward: Palisades Defense (think Halliburton) is throwing a team building weekend for a select group of employees in a newly acquired hunting lodge somewhere in Eastern Europe. Turns out, the lodge is a former torture camp and the last surviving residents have a literal axe to grind with Palisades. There are scenes in this movie that will go down as classics. One favorite involves a bear trap and the slippery business involved in freeing somebody from one. But more so there is a character so wonderfully stoned that he feel's like a character from Trainspotting. It is this cool cat and a sexy female lead who provide the only hope of escape for our group. The film is basically an up yours to corporations in general and a specific attempt to punish the people who profit off of making toys that kill. After the past eight years It was a glorious bit of fantasy to see. I strongly encourage people to see this when Magnolia puts it out in theaters, although it will probably do better at home on TVs in front of kids on shrooms. APOCALYPTO I am still unsure about this movie. What Mel Gibson does very well with the film is to quickly create a living breathing community that feels thousands of years old. He also destroys that community just as quickly and just as well. Raping and pillaging has never felt so in your tattooed and pierced face. That's a mayan joke, not a dig at Austin theater goers. The reason I'm unsure about the film is that usually with this type of story, there is an epic feel to it--think "Gladiator", where events unfold over a certain stoic amount of time and our hero must rise up to fight the powerful forces to bring down the yadda, yadda, yadda. There is time for him to lead others against this overpowering civilization and time for the misguided civilization to see its downfall coming. This film is basically a real-time account of one man's village being destroyed, his journey to an ancient city where he's about to be sacrificed, his escape to the jungle and...that's it. To his credit Mr. Gibson rocks this story visually and action-wise (apparently ancient Mayans used Wushu against each other) but at this point (and maybe I'll revisit this) it feels like half a film. I'm curious to see what others have to say. BLOOD TRAILS I had heard of this film for a while and seen some polarized responses to it. I fall on the "Loved It" side of the argument for one simple reason; Rebecca Palmer who plays the lead Anne. This is a very intimate horror film--almost oppressively so. The story, as you may already be aware, is about how one night of infidelity leads to a murder spree in the scenic mountain range of some unsaid American state. Anne cheats on her boyfriend Michael with a bicycle cop. A few days later she and her boyfriend head to the mountains to try to repair their relationship. The bicycle cop follows them and kills her boyfriend in a glorious bit of RAD!ness. What sets the film apart from many survival horror films that have tread this...uh, trail before is that we know who our bad guy is from the very beginning of the movie and he's not there to kill our girl. Hell he has plenty of opportunities and instead he just smiles at her with sad eyes. He's there to show her a better way to live. Of course he kills every single person who gets in his way, but who wouldn't for love? So what you have is a quiet movie where our female lead, now cold, alone and lost keeps trying to escape this guy which proves impossible. The way these scenes are shot (the director uses extreme close-ups shot from far away) keeps you right on the shoulder of our main character. You begin to feel like you are hiding with her and the performance is just emotionally taxing. This ratchets up the tension to the point that when they finally do face off the tension is almost unbearable--which leads to one of the most straight forward and sexually suggestive (and satisfying) climax's I've ever seen in a film. After leaving the Drafthouse my friends and I had a beer and discussed all of the films that we had seen (yes we drank past two as the films ran late. We're bad people). Personally BLOOD TRAILS was my favorite film so far. I argue that the film is very romantic. While most slasher films never explore the relationship between the killer and the victims (for the most part its just bodies for the killer to hack through) this film focuses entirely on that relationship and from the shot selection to the score seems intent on amplifying the connection Anne and the killer have. It is a gloriously shot eerie sounding examination of romantic obsession. Because of this its my favorite film of the festival so far. Thank you again for the opportunity to see so much sickness! If you use this please call me Stardollface.
