FrightFest - Part Two

Back to the matter at hand -- my annual weekend of horror (rather than my annual horrible weekend):

Joshua (2007):  I vaguely knew about this modern riff on the original "Bad Seed" story and expected rather more from the movie, with its high-level production values and known actors.  (Part of the trouble with so many recent entries to the horror genre is the lack of finance which all too often results in shoddy filming and the reliance on an enthusiastic, but often untalented, cast.)  However glossy film-making apart, this story of an evil and manipulating 9-year old wreaking havoc on his yuppie family after the birth of a sister brought little new to the oft-told story of a malevolent brat.  I didn't actively hate the film (as did my companion), but it was definitely a disappointment.

Storm Warning (2007):  I know, there are only a few basic horror plots and many recent efforts bring little new to the table.  This Australian entry had lots of the familiar elements; a young couple on a boating trip get caught in the shallows after a violent storm and take refuge in an apparently inhabited, but empty farmhouse.  The house's residents -- a deranged father and his two psychotic sons -- soon return and begin to terrorise the pair.  Is this beginning to sound familiar?  The gal is the stronger of the two (again) and I guess she must have seen "Teeth", because when she understands that rape is inevitable she fashions a metal ring with jagged prongs to insert you know where.  It was all beginning to seem like a bad case of deja vu.

Wrong Turn 2 (2007): I can barely remember the 2003 original movie when Eliza Dushku and her companions made a wrong turning and ended up being pursued by a family of mutant, cannibalistic retards.  This movie is not a sequel as such but a variation on the same premise.  Six contestants are taking part in a television survivalist contest in the dark West Virginia woods where the inbred killers still reside.  Cue each of them and their television crew being dispatched in increasingly nasty and bloody ways -- there was actually some novel invention on display with some of the gruesome deaths.  The pursued characters were fully rounded and it was a good game to guess which, if any of them, would  survive the splatter. I just might remember this gorefest movie in a few year's time.

Disturbia (2007):  This American film starring the improbably named Shia LeBeouf (again) did well at the U.S. box office, but it was really no great shakes, being a teenie variation of the classic "Rear Window".  Rather than a broken leg, it is house arrest with an ankle device that forces LeBeouf to seek his own entertainment by spying on his neighbours.  On the one hand he is infatuated with watching the new hottie who has moved in next door; on the other he begins to suspect that there is something sinister about David Morse's Mr. Turner across the way.  Getting no help from the police who are fed up with being called out on a fool's errand each time his ankle device goes off, he counts on his new girl-friend and ethnic sidekick to help him expose the wanted serial killer.  I guess the title refers to the black ripples under the apparent calm of suburbia, but this was far more frighteningly clear in the next film shown.

Jack Ketchum's the Girl Next Door (2007):  Talk about the banality of evil and what can underlie the surface of the suburban dream, this film was absolutely devastating.  A teen-aged girl and her crippled sister are sent to live with their aunt and her three sons after their parents are killed in a car crash.  David, the kid next door, likes to hang out with this family and quickly becomes infatuated with the older girl.  However the mother who plies the young boys with beer and who insists that everyone call her Auntie Ruth moves from treating the girls like skivvies to physically abusing them.  The elder is subjected to torture, mutilation and rape, while all the time Auntie Ruth lectures the kids about the evils of sluttty women and even David feels unable to intervene.  What makes this tale, which is apparently based on a true case, even more disturbing is that other neighbourhood kids -- including two young girls -- are invited in to witness the proceedings and they just stand and watch.  I kept hoping that the wicked aunt would get a splendid comeuppance and dispatch as befits such a horribly evil person, but the denouement was fittingly mundane as life so often is.

Still nine more films to come -- but not today...

 

Tags: FrightFest, horror, Joshua, Wrong Turn 2, Suburban evil