Tag: Cannibals

BONES AND ALL – Review

(L to R) Taylor Russell as Maren and Mark Rylance as Sully in BONES AND ALL, directed by Luca Guadagnino, a Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film. Photo Credit: Yannis Drakoulidis / Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures. © 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“My Cannibal Romance” or “The Fine Young Cannibals” might be alternate titles for this film except that it suggests comedy rather than the high-concept horror film that BONES AND ALL really is. Starring Timothee Chalamet and Canadian actress Taylor Russell as a very different kind of star-crossed lovers, BONES AND ALL does two surprising things: combining romance with horror in a very different way and creating a new kind of monster beyond the usual vampires, werewolves and zombies. The characters at the center of this tale are born as cannibals, compelled to eat human flesh the same way vampires are compelled to drink blood. However, despite the image that evokes, BONES AND ALL is surprisingly restrained in what it shows on screen. There are bloody scenes, but the like in a film where the gory is the point. That will probably disappoint the torture porn crowd or those looking for buckets-o-blood violence. There are no Jeffrey Dahmer-like bone-cracking or cooking scenes. Instead, these compulsive cannibals are treated more as people with an unfortunate affliction, something they have no say in. The focus is on people living lonely, isolated lives, people who have a compulsion they would rather not have, but something they unfortunately must do, periodically, in order to live. Their only choice is when, and who. That gives this unusual horror story a completely different tone.

Set in the upper South and Midwest of the mid-’80s,Maren (Taylor Russell) is a lonely high school senior living with her dad (Andre Holland), who is “the new girl: who doesn’t fit in at her new high school – again. The father and daughter have moved around a bit but Maren longs for friends, and here she is finally forming some tentative friendships. Yet we get a sense she is hiding something, although it might just be that she is living a trailer park, unlike her new friends.

Her dad sets strict rules for her, including no nights out, but one night she sneaks out anyway, to go hang out at her new friend’s sleep-over. All goes well as first, until it doesn’t. What happens sends daughter and dad on the run.

In her new rundown rental home, she wakes one day to find dad gone, but an envelop of money and a tape and recorder left behind. Dad’s tape answers some questions about why she is different, while leaving others unanswered. Maren decides to seek those answers by finding the family of the mother she never knew.

Already you see the parallels to any young person who is different in some way, where bi-racial (as she is) or from a different country or religion, or born with a “condition” although not likely to be like her particular affliction. On the road, she is surprised to meet others like her, such as Sully (Mark Rylance, in another striking performance), an oddball, colorfully dressed man with a Southern drawl, and later another young person with the same affliction, Lee (Timothee Chalamet).

It’s Timothee Chalamet, so of course, they will fall in love, although it takes awhile. Also in the fine cast are Michael Stuhlberg, Chloe Sevigny, Jessica Harper, Jake Horowitz and David Gordon Green. Director Luca Guadagnino’s impressively varied credits include CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, SUSPIRIA, A BIGGER SPLASH and I AM LOVE. Here, the director shows a firm hand and fills scenes with tension, sadness, yearning, and a sense of the tragic by turns, always making the most of his fine cast.

Like all horror films, realism and the plausible are not priorities. The acting is the film’s standout strength, but the concept deserves credit. as a fresh way to show people who exist on the fringes of society, as these people, as well as a new horror creation. By making these characters into people rather than monsters, the film turns the usual horror film structure on its head. Other than their compulsion and “dietary needs,” and how that forces them to live, they are completely ordinary people, who would rather not do want they must. They are filled with revulsion by encountering an ordinary human turned cannibal, as they do at one point. The young couple try to create something like a normal life for themselves, with starry-eyed dreams of avoiding their need to eat, as they inevitably must.

It makes for an unexpectedly heartbreaking story, and the film is in many way more a tragic romance of star-crossed lovers than a horror film. Timothee Chalamet and Taylor… as the star-crossed lovers, who are what they are without choice, give marvelous performances. The two develop a convincing chemistry, and their shared problem

But the most unforgettable performance is Mark Rylance’s. The already lauded British actor, who some may recall from BRIDGE OF SPIES, is having quite a year – with wide ranging performances. He plays a charming British eccentric, a sparkling comic role, like the delightful PHANTOM OF THE OPEN, and a shy unassuming tailor bullied by gangsters in the twisty mystery thriller THE OUTFIT. Here, Rylance plays Sully, whose smooth Southern accent and mix of menace and loneliness sets us on edge in very scene, and a performance that sears its way into our memory. Whenever he is on screen, we are uneasy, even though what he says is often pitiful. When he pops up unexpectedly, “stalker” is the word that comes to mind.

Any film that makes these kinds of bold choices deserves credit for creativity and courage, even while the film’s subject is inevitably squirm-inducing. There is blood and blood-covered faces, and we know that these folks are doing, but it is less about that, about gory effects, than the complicated characters at the center who were born with this awful curse. That makes for a fresh kind of horror film, one that invites thought about something more that how they did that effect.

BONES AND ALL opens Wednesday, Nov. 23, in select theaters.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

THE COLONY – The Review

COLONY_Bill-Paxton_Kevin-Zegers

With the coming of a new ice age, mankind finds itself struggling to survive against mother nature. Humanity has grown to take modern medicine for granted, but now that society has been reduced to the most minimal remnants of what we once knew, the common cold and the flu has become our worst enemy, but what could be worse that microscopic killers?

In THE COLONY, writer and director Jeff Renfroe takes us into the weary lives of the few survivors living underground from the harsh icy wasteland that was once the surface of the Earth. Renfroe, who recently directed a stint of episodes for TV’s BEING HUMAN, seems to have an all access pass into the minds of characters forced to endure abnormally stressful circumstances of life.

The initial concept of THE COLONY is simple, to survive the cold without killing each other in the process. Not surprisingly, the film, as with life and human nature, nothing is ever that simple. The opening series of shots sums up the tone of the film quite well. We’re drawn in from high above in the sky, down towards Earth and into the darkness of an abandoned smoke stack to the sunless depths of the tunnels below. Nothing about this indicates a pleasant journey.

Kevin Zegers (GOSSIP GIRL) plays Sam, the young and still idealistic central character. Sam is one member of a relatively small band of survivors camped out in a make-shift “colony” housed within an old industrial facility, perhaps once a nuclear plant from the looks of the place at times. Laurence Fishburne (THE MATRIX) plays Briggs, the leader of this band of survivors. Briggs is a knowledgeable, logical man. Bill Paxton (BIG LOVE) plays Mason, a more rebellious, head strong member of the camp who feels impulsive and reckless, contrary to what Sam and Briggs represent.

COLONY_Laurence-FIshburne_Kevin-Zegers_3

After receiving a video transmission promising new hope originating from another colony, Sam and Briggs head out into the cold, white hell in an effort to reach the other colony. Their journey is a perilous one, encountering dangers that include some staples of social horror, and oddly leads nowhere productive. At times, it can be difficult to watch THE COLONY and not sense the influence of films such as THE THING or even films such as THE HILLS HAVE EYES to some degree, but none of this detracts from the film having its own personality.

Renfroe employs a fair amount of digital effects technology to help create the setting of this bleak, barren planet that has undergone drastic climactic changes, perhaps due in part to man’s insatiable need to tinker with the laws of nature. The effects are used sparingly, but effectively in creating this cinematic atmosphere otherwise nearly impossible to achieve. THE COLONY is one part science-fiction, warning us of the possible outcome of our sometimes arrogant human ways, and one part thriller, a study of ourselves as individuals and as a social species.

THE COLONY shifts as Sam and Briggs are away. In their absence, Mason makes a power play and the integrity of their camp is tested. Unfortunately, this power struggle is extremely short-lived. The more intriguing path of possibility would have been to develop these characters further into their conflicts with each other. Instead, THE COLONY devolves somewhat into a simple chase and kill horror ride as the less civilized human survivors invade the camp and thus, chaos and bloodshed ensue.

The performances in THE COLONY are par for the course. Paxton and Fishburne are as you would typically expect, effective but fairly standard in their roles. The tension that builds in THE COLONY is ultimately what drives the story and allows for a compelled audience to stay committed to the plot. The primary flaw of THE COLONY is that it never truly develops any characters. We know who to pull for, who we want to succeed, because the line between good and bad is well drawn, especially when you have a third, more sinister element of evil lurking in the blinding white void outside.

THE COLONY begins as an interesting tease of becoming an intellectual story of science gone wrong and nature rebelling, leading to the last of humanity struggling amongst themselves and each other with the promise of some foreboding evil that could destroy what little hope they have. While the film is still entertaining on a popcorn-munching adrenaline level, THE COLONY is somewhat disappointing in that it never truly, fully breaks the mold and becomes those things I initially hoped it would be.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

COLONY_THEATRICAL_POSTER

After Dark Horror Fest 2009: ‘Dying Breed’

Tom:

Lionsgate’s HORRORFEST: 8 FILMS TO DIE FOR festival is back for it’s third year this week at Ronnie’s Cinema. I’m old enough to remember when “direct-to-video† was not an option for low-budget horror films, when films like these would haunt drive-ins and run-down city theatres. Most of these 8 films at this year’s Horrorfest would otherwise never play a single date theatrically, so Lionsgate should be commended for assembling this mini festival. I just wish they did a better job of promoting these as this year’s attendance, like last year and the year before, was sparse. Judging by the three films I’ve seen so far, they’ve done a good job of choosing films of variety and, mostly, quality.

For me anyway, this year’s HORRORFEST started off well with the 2008 shocker DYING BREED, a scary Australian take on a familiar horror genre that anyone who enjoys films like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE or WRONG TURN will want to seek out. The premise and exotic location may remind viewers of the recent WOLF CREEK (it even has that film’s star Nathan Phillips), but DYING BREED is a much rougher ride.

Zoologist Nina (Mirrah Foulkes) and her three attractive, adventurous friends Matt, Jack, and Rebecca (Leigh Wannell, Nathan Phillips, and   Melanie Vallejo) venture into an Australian island jungle. Ostensibly the plan is to prove the existence of a rare Tasmanian tiger, but really Nina is trying to solve the mystery of her sister’s death there eight years earlier. After a disturbing visit at a grungy hostile Tavern/Motel, the group soon finds themselves in the wilds, hunted by cannibalistic descendants of local legend “The Pieman† aka Alexander Pierce (a real 19th century figure, there’s even a Pieman River in Northwest Tasmania).

There’s nothing terribly original or complex about DYING BREED. The sense of dread and foreboding in the build-up is familiar and heavy-handed, including lots of subjective “someone’s watching† overhead shots. The tiger subplot is disappointingly   abandoned early ( I kept bracing myself for a tiger attack that never happened). The pre-slaughter banter is shallow and the four young leads are the usual sketchy mix. Jack, the trouble-making hothead, and his sexy and passive girlfriend Rebecca are obviously doomed early on. These are criticisms that could apply to most horror films though, as DYING BREED is mostly an exercise in mood and scares, and that’s where the film succeeds. The horrific set-pieces involving hunting knives, crossbows, bear traps, and false teeth are intense and often genuinely terrifying. There are some surprises. Heroes Nina and Matt attempt to   turn the tables on their pursuers in the expected way, but don’t exactly succeed.   The ultimate fate of Nina’s sister (shown in flashback) is quite disturbing and the film has a realistic downbeat climax that stays with the viewer.   The gore quotient is high enough to appeal to Fangoria readers without lingering or going over the top. When the primary Pieman kller is finally revealed, he is truly a frightening villain (and I wonder why this movie wasn’t given the more obviously commercial title PIEMAN). First-time   feature director Jody Dwyer, while not reinventing the wheel here,   has an obvious knack for this type of material.   Dwyer has made, with DYING BREED, a slick, scary, unpretentious horror film can stand on it’s own merits and the organizers of Horrorfest were wise to include it in this year’s line-up.

Travis:

I would really love to see more genre films from Australia get theatrical screen time here in the States, but it seems it falls into the same black hole of American theatrical distribution of the many other foreign film markets that repeatedly produce quality movie. What amazes me however, is that Australian films are, for the most part, in English and not subtitled, leading me to wonder why we don’t see more of them here. ‘Dying Breed’ is yet another example of a decent genre film from Australia that’s going to likely get lost in the midst of endless direct-to-DVD horror films, relegated to online forum banter between the most devoted of horror movie geeks. [I further emphasize this with the 2006 black comedy/horror movie ‘Black Sheep’ released here on DVD by Dimension Extremes. Actually, it’s a New Zealand film, but still…]

‘Dying Breed’ is written and directed by Jody Dwyer and stars writer-actor Leigh Whannell (Saw I, II, III). The film begins with an opening sequence that sucks you into the historical back-story and influence for the movie’s modern tale of terror. Upon exiting the opening sequence, we are thrust into modern day as a young couple fly into Australia for a trip to Tasmania. Matt (Whannell) and Nina (Mirrah Foulkes) meet up with Matt’s macho-testosterone friend Jack and his girlfriend Rebecca. The purpose of the trip is for Nina to search for and hopefully document the Tasmanian Tiger, which she believes is not extinct. Nina’s true mission is to complete this research that her sister began before she mysteriously died eight years prior to this trip. It’s a round-about way for Nina to bring some kind of closure to her grief.

Jack and Rebecca are very stereotypical characters and it’s no surprise that they become little more than “axe” fodder for your traditional horror movie plot development. While the first half of ‘Dying Breed’ can move a bit slow at times, it still manages to maintain it’s appeal and slowly leads you into the heart of the story’s darkness. About halfway through the film, the story’s twist begins to reveal itself resulting in a diminished “shock” impact. Despite this, we are still rewarded with some disturbing details and some grotesquely gruesome scenes to test the strength of our stomachs.

The story pulls from two legendary Australian footnotes of history, combining them to create an under-stated hybrid that doesn’t needlessly over-blend the two separate ingredients. No, there’s now half-man/half-beast, no shape-shifting or supernatural beings. Instead, the film takes the idea of the Tasmanian Tiger’s disputed status of extinction and uses it as a plot device and to some extent, is used to create the classic Hitchcock McGuffin effect to draw the audience into a direction other than where you’ll ultimately end up. This is combined with an Australian origin story that lives on with urban legend notoriety, which has Alexander Pearce (aka The Pieman) being the only prisoner to have ever escaped the British island penal colony of the 1800’s, now known as Tasmania.

‘Dying Breed’ touches on multiple sub-genres within the genre of slasher/horror films, features a handful of Australian/Irish accents that add a cool element to watching this film and has realistic and effective special effects to make the gore convincing enough to create discomfort. Above all else, I felt the “true” ending of the movie is beyond icing on the cake and reaches the status of the cherry on top. The little girl named Julia (Bianca Cutrona) is the subject of a twist that revels itself simply and briefly but effectively in the final moment of the movie, creating that wonderful lingering aftertaste of freakishness that makes good horror movies good. I attended the 5:30pm screening on Friday, January 9. The next screening will be at Wehrenberg’s Ronnies 20 Cinema at 5:30pm on Monday, January 12.

[Overall: 3.75 stars out of 5]