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thedoctoroctopus
Reviews
L'amant (1992)
Arguably The Best Looking Film Of The 90's
The first time I heard about The Lover I was in high school and it was one of those films that a few classmates of mine would always bring up as the "dirtiest" movie they had ever seen. When I caught the unrated version of the film when it premiered back on Cinemax in 1993. I had no idea what I was in store for. I had already seen films that intensely explored sexual relationships in graphic detail, but most relegated the central issue, sex, to the background. They were more concerned with showing the emotional consequences of unrestrained passion, and not showing the obsession as it's played out in the bedroom. What makes The Lover so unique is that it's a movie which is not afraid to show us exactly what its lovers do when they're together. It shows us in explicit detail, repeatedly. The movie has incredible acting, direction, production design, which I will get to in a second. But the main reason to see this film is Jane March. Throughout this movie Jane is showing us her beautiful figure and openly sharing with us her sexual uninhibitedness. Her scenes with Tony absolutely melt the screen with eroticism. She was 17 years old during film, and you can see that her tremendous teenager body was still in course of formation. Jane is almost constantly naked throughout the middle of this film, and see her young body from practically every angle there is. We get great looks at her body during sex, when she's being washed, when she's walking around, and even when she's just lying there. But even when she is not seen disrobing, March is unbelievably sexy. The scene in which she puts her lips on the window of a man who is visiting her at school are some of the most erotically charged scenes in cinema history.
The story focuses on "the young girl", whose life is already a tragedy at only the age of 15. Her family was once wealthy and respected, but they lost it all. They find themselves living in French occupied Vietnam. There is no love loss between the young girl and her mother--a truly cold woman with no sense of right or wrong. One of her brothers is addicted to drugs, and treats her with nothing but contempt. Her only shining light of hope is her younger brother. The lover is himself a tragic figure. Educated in France, he despises much of traditional Chinese culture, and is desperate to leave tradition behind and marry for love. He is severely depressed, and becomes infatuated by the sight of a young European girl he spots on a ferry. He decides right then to pursue the young girl as a way to escape his increasingly sad state of mind. After accepting a ride in his car, the two find themselves tightly holding hands. After dropping her off at the boarding school she attends, he becomes obsessed with seeing her again. The two eventually make an arrangement to meet in his bachelor pad, which according to Chinese tradition, is a "practice area" for marriage. The very intense relationship progresses as each plays with each other's bodies, lives and feelings. He says that he is in a prearranged marriage and cannot marry her, but he seems totally taken with her. She says that sex is totally fine with her, but could she be denying that it is love that she feels? With both families aware and opposed to their meeting, the young girl and the lover continue on exploring each other. It is only at the end that the true feelings are revealed.
What director Annaud does brilliantly is to portray the lovers' yearning without giving voice to it overtly. He depicts it through a series of disavowals, through the wounds they inflict on each other, and allows the viewer to fill in that which cannot be uttered. Annaud spent over a year in Vietnam scouting for the most beautiful locations and remain of French colonial empire. The music is rich, the costumes are beautiful, and photography captures the sultry atmosphere of Indochina. The director took a long time finding a young actress who could easily pass for a girl in her mid teens. He finally the incredibly youthful looking Jane March. Although she plays a 15 year old here, the makeup and lighting make her appear even younger.
No review of The Lover is complete without mentioning its pervasive sexuality. There is a bit of a controversy over the possibility of Jane March losing her virginity during her scenes with Tony Leung. There seems to be so much speculation - and different accounts, so its hard to know the truth I guess. You'll notice her facial expressions in the "deflowering" scene seem to be authentic, as they show her grimacing one second and smiling the next. Did they have actual sex? Opinions vary. I believe they did, and the actors just lied about it after wards. Take the third love scene as an example. The fact that Leung and March scoot across the floor like that while in the throes of passion makes it seem very likely that they were actually having sex. The fourth love scene, which has March sitting on top of Leung clearly shows a penetration shot. One cannot fake that.
In the end, The Lover is a compelling story of how people fulfill the need for emotional survival. It is a testament to how blind we are to our own deficiencies. The ending is one of the most haunting scenes in film history. It's impossible not to feel for the young girl as she thinks about what her relationship with her lover could have been. Check this one out.
Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971)
70's "Free Love" Thinking Taken To The Max
This combination black comedy/sexploitation/thriller from director Roger Vadim is undoubtedly the most provocative American movie to come out of the 70's. It starts off with Ponce, our male protagonist, watching as girls pass by. We are given a shot that clues us into the tone of the entire film. Vadim films two teenage girls walking from behind and then brazenly zooms in on their behinds. I was a bit shocked to see Vadim open his movie with such a blatant butt shot. That was until I recalled that this same director opened up his 1956 film, And God Created Woman, with a closeup shot of Brigitte Bardot's bare behind. It's undeniably sexy, but some will see it as sexualizing children as these two girls in their mini-skirts look awfully young. But I credit the director for nailing what it feels be like to be a male high school student surrounded by beautiful female peers through the use of brilliant POV.
We then shift to an outside shot of a high school. We're given a few scenes of the students going about their daily activities. All the female students are impossibly beautiful here, dressed in mini-skirts, high heels, and low cut shirts. We are then introduced to Tiger, played by Rock Hudson, in one of his most offbeat roles. He plays a coach/counselor at a Southern Californian High School. Even though he is a married man, he has no qualms having sex with various female students. Meanwhile, a killer is leaving corpses of female students along various parts of the school. An investigation begins and Tiger is the prime suspect. In the meantime, one of his students, Ponce is having a tough time finding a girlfriend. Tiger is willing to give the young man some help. He enlists the help of Miss Smith, played by Angie Dickinson, to help Ponce along, and we are talking about a VERY adult education.
Pretty Maids was a mega flop on first release, and it permanently damaged Vadim's career. But today it has the earmarks of a classic, mostly due to three brilliant performances. First off, Rock Hudson in perhaps his last great picture. Just like he was in every other picture before Pretty Maids, he's the man girls want and the man boys want to be, but here it's darker and more cynical version of himself than he ever let people see on the screen. John David Carson is fascinating as Ponce. He goes from awkward school boy to confident man in a series of believable, sequences. It's a difficult role to play, but he makes it look easy. Angie Dickinson has never been better. Angie is sexy throughout the movie playing a naive young teacher, seemingly unaware of how sexy she is.
The premise of this Pretty Maids is "free love" for all, which includes teachers having sex with their students! It's shocking to look back and see how strange America was during this time of "free love," as the concept of this movie would be completely taboo now. American is far more puritanical today, especially when it comes to the issue of teens and sex. I think the reason it still hasn't found a home on DVD is because the film takes a libertine view of adolescent sexuality, far more than any other American film has. America has a hard time with this and this film could turn a lot more heads now than perhaps it did in the more permissive 70's. The basic plot premise is shocking, but what REALLY grabs your attention are the literally hundreds of leering shots of female butts, breasts, crotches, legs, or a combo of the 4, all belonging to the various female high school appearing in this film. Just about every female actress playing the part of a student is sexualized in this movie. Outside of a Tinto Brass movie, I can't recall any other film that lovingly showcased the female posterior by filming it in closeup again and again. As outrageous as the numerous shots of rear ends are, they can't hold a candle to all the up skirt peeks director Vadim shows us. We are given scene after scene of girls in impossibly sort mini-skirts bending over, crossing their legs, standing on elevated surfaces, or just walking up the steps. Vadim finds it mandatory to show us a flash of their panties every time. Pretty Maids must have set some sort of record for pantie shots than any movie in history. Did girls in the early 70's really dress like THIS? I can't help but wonder where were there parents during the making of the film? As a man who would like to have a child someday, and hopefully a little girl, it's odd seeing Vadim's camera practically rams itself up the mini-skirt of a young girl going through puberty. If you're a father of a teenage girl and you're reading this review, you might feel guilty for enjoying the content of this movie. But you really shouldn't be. However, I can't emphasize this enough: The girls who appear in this film are NOT the type portrayed in movies that deal with H.S. You know, 20 something actresses cast as H.S. students. The actresses playing the young girls in this movie are actually that, young girls. Some will find the nonstop leering shots of girls who appear to be in the 15-19 age range to cross the line of good taste. I found them VERY necessary considering they were meant to show how Ponce (not to mention director Vadim) views high school aged girls.
I suppose a film that deals this frankly with adolescent sexuality this could be made today, but only as an unreleased independent film, ala Ken Park. In the 70s, however, this script was able to attract a whole plethora of respected actors and actresses. You'll ask yourself the whole time how a movie like this could be made in the first place! See it now.
Luther the Geek (1989)
Fast Paced Horror That's Stylish And Sexy
Released to video in 1990, Luther The Geek is an ultra stylish and fairly offbeat horror film with a Euro style feeling that deserves to be more well known. Why is it that such a chilling and effective horror from the early 90's is so obscure when so many other, less memorable fright flicks from this era are constant fixtures on cable and in rental stores? It really makes no sense at all. Sure, people have seen this film over the years, albeit only a small amount, yet I can't ever recall seeing this film aired on cable in the 17 years following its 1990 release. Many times, these sort of films gather a following, but only a few people have seen them. Also, many times these films are quite overrated, and once more people discover them, they discover that they weren't worth all the fuss. However, this couldn't be further from the case here with Luther the Geek. With its stylish cinematography, imaginative script, classic nude scenes, above average acting, tight direction, eerie atmosphere, and vibrant score, Luther is anything but cookie cutter. It's a shame I can't say that about most of the horror films released in the early 90's. The film opens up in Illinois 1938. A young Luther is wandering around in a carnival when he soon sees a sight that will change his life forever. He comes across a man, a geek, who is locked in a cage like a wild animal. A rowdy group of men begin to taunt the geek, hoping to see some action. As the men grow more abusive, Luther is shoved from behind. H is mouth in injured. The geek proceeds to bite into the neck of a chicken. He drops the chicken inside his cage and moves as close to the group of men as he can get. As he does this, he vomits blood from his mouth to the shock of the crowd. Luther suddenly realizes that his two front teeth have become dislodged from his mouth. He proceeds to make a very strange facial expression, similar to the one that the geek had on his face moments earlier. Luther goes to the cage, places his hand on the corpse of the bloody chicken, and proceeds to taste it. Present day, Luther is a convicted murderer at a parole board hearing is scheduled, one that sets him free. After causing a commotion at a grocery store, he mortally wounds a poor woman. Luther hasn't been out of prison even a single day and he already has killed an innocent lady!! Luther ducks into the back of an automobile parked outside the supermarket. A woman, in her early forties, proceeds to load her bags of groceries inside the trunk of the same car. Upon reaching home, she hears a noise outside. The woman can only watch on in horror as Luther makes his way towards her. She manages to scream before being knocked out by Luther. When she wakes up, she is terrified to learn that she is laying face down on a bed, tied to it. Each arm and leg is bound to the bed tightly with fabric. To make matters worse, he daughter has returned from school with her boyfriend. Not only is the woman in grave danger, but two others face potential death. The pacing here is perfect. We are not even 15 minutes into the movie and we already have so more many memorable scenes. What will happen next? Will the three of them be killed? The next 70 minutes of this movie are among the most tension filled scenes ever captured in a horror film. Edward Terry is unbelievably good as Luther, a totally ruthless killer with a childlike fascination with death. Although Edward remains silent for a majority of the film, he is quite effective and more than a bit scary. His facial expressions and body movements fit the film perfectly. He prows around with a certain presence that is quite unsettling. Luther is the epitome of madness and Edward portrays him as if he was put on earth to do the work of the devil. Supporting cast all turn in fine performances. The film is noteworthy for the debut of drop dead gorgeous Stacy Haiduk. It's so sad her film appearances are so few. Stacy fabulous body is hard to forget once you see it displayed in this film. As soon as she arrives in the house, she strips down to her underwear and the camera lovingly lingers close up on all of her best parts. In the following scene, Stacy's body is fully displayed as she and Thomas Mills soap up in a shower. In the DVD version of this film, there are additional shots of this classic scene. You see multiple takes of the same scene, including shots of Thomas rubbing soap on every conceivable part of her well muscled body. Carl Albright, the director does a commendable job. The wonderful rural location work to the films advantage. Albright seems assured behind the camera, creating tension and atmosphere, yet keeps the action moving along at a brisk pace. Does this film have problems? Sure. First, Luther watches the geek when he was a kid, but that scene took place in the 30's, so he would be 60 in 1990! When Stacy's character returns home, she doesn't think it's odd that the window in the door to the house is smashed in. She chalks it up to her mom forgetting her keys! Also, no parole board would release a man as criminally insane as Luther, as he is not fit for civilized society. Those flaws aside, you'll regret not seeking out this film if you ever find it available. I look for Luther the Geek to become more popular in the years to come, as time passes more viewers will find and appreciate it.s
Thinking XXX (2004)
You'll Never Look At Porn The Same Way
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders wonderful new documentary, Thinking XXX, was made in conjunction with his new book and art exhibition, where he took two portraits of thirty porn stars, one naked and one clothed, both in the same pose. The portraits were published in a large coffee table size book with essays by pop critics to accompany the pictures. The documentary follows the portrait shoot, and allows the large cast of stars to talk about their experiences and thoughts on the industry. The stars talk from experience, while pop culture critics give their own views of the industry. If you have a negative view of the industry, you might have a change of heart after meeting the top stars of the industry. Moral traditionalists would have you believe the porn industry is a brutal, mob driven industry that attracts only the most anti-social individuals. Well, it certainly has a dark side, as one just has to look at the sad fates of Savannah, Bambi Woods, Shauna Grant, and Lisa Deleeuw. However, the stars featured in Thinking XXX prove it is an industry where an ambitious young person can find success, run a business and not wind up damaged. These people are well spoken, sincere, amiable, normal types who just happen to make a living having sex in front of a camera. Yet they have goals and ambitions just like anyone else. Thinking XXX is amazing in that it challenges our notions of glamor. It pierces the veil of an underground industry to show a silver lining in which these not quite celebrities come across as having more charisma than the biggest Hollywood stars. Thinking XXX has a diverse range of performers. The one common thread linking than seems to be that all his subjects are household names in the porn industry. The two stars who come off as the most interesting are Nina Hartley and Sharon Mitchell, who have some surprising things to say about the business. Hartley and Mitchell came into the business decades ago, and there was much more of a stigma attached to the industry. Mitchell went on to earn a PhD and now runs AIM, which is where adult stars routinely go for medical checkups. Many of today's stars come off markedly different than the older, more experienced performers. Two of today's hottest stars Sunrise Adams and Jesse Jane remark that since they grew up in a generation that was so well versed with porn, they viewed adult stars in the same light as they would a major Hollywood celebrity. That's typical for most people in their age bracket. Sunrise was so ecstatic to have done a sex scene with Jameson that she asked people to "smell her face" after her first scene! Jesse Jane does most of her interview naked in a pool. Even by porn standards, this woman just oozes sex and has a body that is almost beyond belief. It's worth mentioning that female stars compromise about 95% of the interview footage for the documentary.
We learn from watching the documentary that porn used to be hard for women. For years the industry was run by men for men and so it was understandable that women would feel threatened by porn, but it seems that more and more these days it is an industry where women are coming out on top. Female porn stars are usually much more highly paid than the men and, at the top end of the market, really do call the shots. Female directors becoming more prevalent, and others even setting up their own companies to produce a more female friendly product. To further emphasize this point adult star Chloe is prominently featured. Her success shows how the industry is changing for the better. She is one of the pioneers of the last decade, when women began to direct porn. Chloe is not augmented with breasts implants; she is not blond. There is nothing false about her, which emphasizes the unmistakably authentic orgasms she has in her videos. Chloe is a small woman, nearly flat-chested; her ability to orgasm has made her one of the most famous porn stars in history. This is an incredibly important evolution in porn. Because she is so good at what she does, not because of what she looks like, she is a superstar
If you want to take a feminist perspective, you would have to say that things have never looked better for the female adult stars after seeing Thinking XXX. Exploitation does still happen however, but this is no longer the norm. I feel that it is a mark of how society has progressed that women are no longer afraid to embrace their sexuality, and have a great many ways to do so. I find quality porn a turn on and feel that women all over the world also benefit from porn either by profiting from its sale or enjoying an improvement their sex lives, so why not seek to eliminate the bad parts rather than attack the industry as a whole? You can love it, or loathe it but there's no way to deny that in a time in which sex is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our society, the porn industry is influencing our culture just as much as any other form of media is, whether that may be the world of music, television, or film. It's worth mentioning that about the same time this documentary premiered on HBO, I saw in of all places a major grocery style chain an issue of FHM with Tera Patrick on the cover. Patrick was the first adult start to ever grace the cover of a mainstream men's magazine It instantly became their highest selling issue ever. I sincerely hope that FHM's decision to feature Patrick on the cover is only the beginning of mainstream America's embracing the performers shown in Thinking XXX as well as their fellow peers in the industry. They sure deserve it.
Savage Weekend (1979)
Audacious, Erotic And Imaginative Horror
On of the most unusual 70s horror films, Savage Weekend is a truly remarkable movie from an era made in which filmmakers were allowed to get away with in your face political incorrectness. Whether it's a scene of erotic cow milking, a nude woman being tortured with a branding iron, or a man in a boat ripping his girlfriend's bikini top off followed by a man in a bed ripping HIS girlfriend's nightgown off, Savage Weekend might cause you want to take a shower afterwards. Director David Paulsen seems to shoot the film with a European sensibility, and it's pretty clear that Bava's classic Bay of Blood had a HUGE influence in this film.
The movie begins with a woman in a blood splattered white gown running through the woods from a killer. We then cut to four friends preparing for a weekend incursion in the country. Marie, Shirley, Robert, and Jay are heading upstate with Nicky, their friend, for some fun. Marie's estranged husband Greg is staying behind, as he has been having all sorts of personal problems recently. The group arrives at their lodging to find a bat nailed to the door. They unwisely laugh it off. The next morning the five are busying themselves with various activities: Marie and her male friend are fishing with a local, Shirley is frolicking naked in the field and Nicky is room to the radio. Otis, a very disturbed man, is in a graveyard yelling about boats. Back in the fishing boat, we learn from a local that Otis once locked a female cousin in a neck-vice and branded her. No one seems worried at all. Meanwhile Jay comes across a VERY naked Shirley in the field and the two engage in the first of what is to be many soft core encounters featured in this film. We move onto some plot development; mostly odd tidbits of the town the five friends are spending time in. Marie and Robert aren't really concerned, and proceed to go at it like rabbits. The next day, Marie makes a move on the local who took them fishing, caressing his arm. Even though he was earlier flirting with her, he winds up spurning her advances, sending Marie away. We cut to a POV of the killer walking through the house, rifling through the visitors' belongings. We find a fright mask that Shirley picked up at the market and puts it on. And this all takes place in this first 25 minutes! As you can see, there's a lot going on here.
Does it have its flaws? Sure. There are quite a few plot holes here. Then there is the fact that a very large chunk of this film is just the couples going at it. During the scenes when the cast members aren't having sex, the director reminds us that he is not exactly thinking with his, um, head. I'm not complaining though. In fact, it can be argued that the film most comes alive during its numerous scenes of bare flesh. It's worth noting that the two lead actresses in the film spend the majority of Savage Weekend in either their bikinis, underwear, or no clothing at all. The sexiest scene by far occurs about 15 minutes into the movie. Marie is sunbathing on a canoe with two male friends, and the camera suddenly zooms in on her sprawled body. Beginning at her lower legs, which are suspiciously spread wide open, the camera slowly pans over her form, lovingly surveying every square inch of skin. The director is practically lying his camera on top of actress Mailyn Hamlin's body here. I am not going to lie to you--I wore out my old VHS tape from playing this scene on my VCR one too many times. It is a classic scene where David Paulsen quickly points out not just what he as a director and the character of the two sexually frustrated men focus on but also the audience themselves. He uses this scene to immediately point out that the audience is just as fascinated with sex and the female form as he is and most importantly that there isn't any shame in it.
This film is a bit long winded and slow moving, but it never loses you. For the most part, though, it is the cast that really makes this film succeed so well. They're are all fascinating, some of the most memorable I have ever seen in a film. While all of the casts give good performances Marilyn Hamlin as Marie steals the show as a woman so brazen that she even shocks the men around her. She becomes aroused by the sick tale told by Mac about Otis and his twisted past, then has sex right after wards! I was equally impressed with Christopher Allport as the flamboyant Nicky. He's hilarious in a few scenes, and I found it interesting that the filmmakers portrayed a gay man as being so tough as opposed to the common stereotype of a cringing weakling. William Sanderson is frightening as the disturbed Otis, and it's no surprise that he became such a prolific actor following his skillful performance here. However, the true star of the show here is the location. The director brilliantly captures the lakes, hills, woodlands, and surrounding nature of upstate New York that you might want to pay it a visit just by watching this movie.
Despite all of it's flaws, Savage Weekend is undeniably entertaining, frequently imaginative, and quite memorable. It's an absolute must for people who love horror films that take place in rural and rustic settings. I am highly recommending it as an underrated gem of a movie that has so much going on that it makes most current horror films feel uninspired and bland in comparison.
Beach Babes from Beyond (1993)
Debut From Torchlight Is Not a Total Waste
Tacky, but mildly entertaining early 90's soft core comedy features Xena (Sarah Bellemo), Luna (Tamara Landry), and Sola (Nicole Posey), as three outer-space teenagers. Xena's parents have gone on vacation for a couple of days. Following some persistent persuasion from her friends, Xena agrees to take her father's spaceship for a ride. The end result? They wind up running out of gas in space, and crash-land on planet Beta 45, AKA earth. Meanwhile, teenagers Dave (Michael Todd Davis) and Jerry (Ken Steadman) have come to California to stay the summer with Dave's Uncle Bud (Joe Estevez ) a beach bum who lives right on the beach. The three of them wind up meeting our three space girls who have walked away from the crash without a scratch. Uncle Bud is about to be thrown out from his soon-to-be-condemned beach pad thanks to Sally (Linnea Quigley), who lives right up the hill and used to be in a relationship with Bud. She's also a bikini magnate, and is trying to win a bikini design contest to the tune of, $30,000....exactly what Bud would need to fix up his property, so the girls decide to try to win the prize for him. And that's about it, folks. Knowing that their paper thin plot was barely enough to sustain a feature length movie, the filmmakers subject us to scene after scene of endless beach parties featuring tons of extras gyrating their half naked bodies in the scorching sun. Oh, and lets not forget the sex. There's quite a deal of it. Before I go any further, I need to put this movie in context. It was released in 1993, long before the advent of such soft core labels such as Surrender Cinema and Seduction Cinema. Compared to these newer, edgier, more explicit movies, the soft core movies of the 90's sure seem somewhat mild. When Beach Babes From Beyond first came out in 1993 from the Full Moon offshoot Torchlight Entertainment, it was heralded as the debut release of a label that specialized in "mature audiences" type films. Needless to say, the times have changed. This particular film genre has gone from a few steamy, but brief sex scenes and fleeting glimpses of female full frontal nudity to extended sex scenes that occasionally threaten to venture into the realm of hardcore. Looking at Beach Babes From Beyond again after viewing it upon its 93' release, it's safe to say that if this same film were to be made today, there would be a hell of a lot more emphasis on the sex scenes and less time spent on plot and dialog. As for the sex scenes themselves, they tend to run hot-and-cold. Our three space girls waste no time in getting comfortable with the boys that evening. So each couple gets a soft core scene, complete with annoying slow motion camera work and too dark lighting. They're really not that horrible, and are surprisingly graphic in a few spots, especially the scene between Xena and Jerry that takes place in the back of a trailer. But the one sex scene that REALLY leaves a lasting impression, and causes you to be surprised in its overall intensity, occurs quite early on in the film. Sally is attending a topless photo shot with three of her models posing by a pool. All of the actresses in this scene are beautiful gorgeous, but Nikki Fritz stands out from all the two due to her enormous presence. Remember that this point in her career she had yet to achieve the type of enormous popularity that soon would follow. Her posing nude by a pool leads to an unforgettable fantasy sequence where she shows her soapy body in a tub and then again when walking away from her bath. Walking toward the bed towards a nearly nude pumped up guy in the waiting, we get a full length complete nude scene with her almost heart shaped rear end and perfectly shaped back. It's good that Nikki's back is so muscular as it is about to get a pretty good workout. Nikki spends the next few minutes completely nude with a hunky guy in a variety of positions in a scene that is filmed completely differently than the three other lovemaking scenes. No dark lighting or annoying slow motion here...just two actors in one enormous bed sans sheets and covers who seem at time to be barely acting at all. Nikki's ecstatic body language just goes to prove that few other actresses seem to enjoy filming sex scenes as much as she does. It's really the only time where Beach Babes From Beyond truly delivers the goods. But even without this spectacular scene, I am mildly recommending this film just for the fact alone that it's fairly watchable and never dull no thanks to an incredibly energetic and attractive cast, many of whom would show up in various direct to video features in the remainder of the decade.
Wolf Creek (2005)
Simply Put, Wolf Creek Is Not An Entertaining Film
I'm a HUGE fan of horror/thriller/suspense movies and I must say I could not find one positive quality about this film. As much as I love cinema from "Down Under", it is painfully obvious that Australia is not a country which produces memorable horror films. More than a few movie critics were comparing Wolf Creek to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, what a insult that was to Tobe Hooper's timeless classic! What really boggles the mind is how many well known critics gave positive reviews to this instantly forgettable film! Never before has such a worthless film received so many favorable reviews from some amazingly shortsighted critics upon its release since King Kong ('76). With it's poor pacing, unlikable protagonists, flat lighting, and overall misanthropic tone, Wolf Creek is not an entertaining film by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, it is a bit disturbing to know that Wolf Creek is based partly on actual events and that some of the things in this movie happened in real life, but it just didn't get me interested at all. The plot of Wolf Creek is wafer thin, and for this genre, that's acceptable. What I have a problem with is Greg McLean's obsession on lingering too long on the the most minute details before he FINALLY gets the ball rolling and the terror takes shape. The entire first half of the film plays like an amateur travelogue. All of it consists of are three main characters basically do nothing but wander around in the Australian outback while muttering some of the most forced dialog ever heard in a movie. This isn't character development in the slightest, just amateurish filmaking from a painfully inexperienced director. I suppose Greg McLean was going for realism here, but I think he wound up destroying any potential the film might have had by putting too much emphasis upon these tedious scenes. By the time the women find themselves awakening to all the horror and chaos, the movie had already lulled me into a state of apathy, and I just wanted it to end. This wouldn't be so bad if our three travelers were likable people, but they just did not appeal to me. It's not as if they were underdeveloped or thin characters, they just were not amiable enough for the film to devote its entire first hour to. This fact also makes it kind of hard to root for them when they're fighting back against the villain, as the film has given no reason to care up until this point. At times Wolf Creek feels more like a snuff movie where you are just watching scene after scene of women getting slowly beaten to death. While watching Wolf Creek, I couldn't help but think that Greg McLean decided to make this film after a long-term relationship went sour. I mean, how else can you explain it when the movie does not want to entertain us, but simply wants to make us watch two women get raped, humiliated, stalked, and tortured for almost 40 minutes straight? This isn't a horror movie, or ANY movie for that matter. it's the director personal payback on the female species. You'll most likely not be frightened from watching this film, just left with a bad taste in your mouth after watching what is easily THE most virulently misogynistic horror film ever made, and this is coming from a guy who has seen Bloodsucking Freaks! Avoid.