Review #36 THE LAST HORROR MOVIE (2003, Julian Richards)

 

* * *

A wedding videographer who has a sideline in brutal killings starts filming his murderous exploits as a documentary.

Starring  Kevin Howarth, Mark Stevenson, Antonia Beamish, Christabel Muir  

Written by  James Handel, Julian Richards

Produced by  Zorana Piggott, Julian Richards   

Duration  79 minutes 

   

Found footage. The V/H/S franchise is keeping the fire of this sub-genre burning, to mostly successful effect, but by and large it feels like a style of filmmaking whose time has passed.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT popularised found footage in the modern era, of course, back in 1999, but few were able to recapture that magic. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and CLOVERFIELD did well in 2007 and 2008, but while the former birthed a franchise, the peak was brief and (with some exceptions) the decline swift.

Found footage actually draws its origins back to the epistolary novel: your Draculas (good) and your Frankensteins (didn’t like it) that were structured around characters' correspondence or diary entries, or from newspaper clippings. The desired effect is to make everything seem ‘real’ and thus more involving. 

But there is a danger that the reverse will happen. Any time we enter the world of a movie, we know we are being asked to suspend our disbelief – to enter a dream-like state where we take things as they come. In removing the sense of artifice, the found footage approach can in fact create more artifice; be a distancing effect rather than an engrossing one.

Because without any of the traditional manipulative cinematic techniques (precise use of editing, lighting, staging, scripting, etc.), there's the risk that we never reach that suggestable state. And so, what looks like an amateur pointing his camera at random things happening in front of him may only ever end up feeling like an amateur pointing his camera at random things happening in front of him, an experience as incapable of engrossing us as a relative's boring video of their two weeks in Camber Sands.

Although not in the found footage style, for me the same principle applies to those one-take gimmick movies. They take me out of the story, forcing me to step back and admire the filmmaking rather than the film. The odd sequence can work out OK, but I was left deeply unimpressed with the feature-length ‘oners’ BIRDMAN (2014) and 1917 (2019) – both of which actually had several disguised cuts. The latter was especially misguided – rather than an immersive experience of the horrors of war, it turned the protagonists’ odyssey into a tedious trek, without the breaks and rhythms that good editing and pacing provide. Hitchcock’s ROPE is an example of the gimmick that actually does work – and the big man had fewer ways to cheat back in 1948.

(I’m similarly unimpressed with all the lauded one-take action scenes which litter the genre nowadays, such as in the overrated JOHN WICK films. All I see is how well Keanu has rehearsed for something the ends up looking like a video game cutscene, with none of the grace, tension or beauty of an expertly edited Peckinpah, Cameron or Woo.)

But back to found footage. Some of those films are actually very good. BLAIR WITCH didn’t do much for me, but I’ve been meaning to revisit it. The aforementioned CLOVERFIELD does a great job of combining high-quality SFX within a lo-fi aesthetic, and CHRONICLE works, if you’re into that sort of thing. And I can’t neglect to mention CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980), one of the best ever horror films, period. REC (2007) and TROLLHUNTER (2010) also deserve your attention.

And, I’d say, so does THE LAST HORROR MOVIE – just about.

At first, the viewer is made to feel that they’re watching the wrong movie. An opening sequence takes place in a distinctly American diner, with a stereotypical slasher setup: a waitress closing up on her own is stalked and attacked by a maniac. It’s clearly not found footage, as was advertised.

Then we cut via a fuzzy screen to a British man addressing the camera from his grubby West London flat, admitting to taping over the diner slasher – which was the ‘real’ movie that we the viewer rented. He goes on to promise that what he’s about to show us will be much more horrific.

This is Max Parry, a serial killer, and he’s going to tell us about his exploits – he estimates he ‘does’ eight to ten people per year, between stints as a wedding videographer. More than that, he’s going to show us.

So, it’s basically as if after Henry and Otis from HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986) filmed their home invasion they decided to carry on bringing the camera along and started to enjoy the documenting as much as the killing. It’s also like the Belgian MAN BITES DOG (1992), but without the accompanying film crew (Max just has a protégé ‘assistant’ to film him).

THE LAST HORROR MOVIE isn't as good as those two, lacking their power and insight. Max is far too smug and cocky and doesn’t really convince as a homicidal maniac – the idea persists that he’s doing his whole video project as one big prank. The film tries for some thematic depth by calling out the viewer for their bloodlust and complicity, but is not nearly as incisive or witty as Austrian director Michael Haneke was with the same message in his FUNNY GAMES in 1997.

Nevertheless, it does have its moments.

There’s a queasily suspenseful sequence where we're led to believe that Max is luring a young boy away to be his latest victim, but it turns out the lad is his nephew and he’s only bringing him home to his mum/Max’s sister. A montage of bludgeoning kills cuts comically to Max tenderising some steaks with a mallet. Max runs up to a woman while she’s doing the laundry and stabs her repeatedly, and then while she sits there bleeding out he passionately explains to her, "We're trying to make an intelligent movie about murdering while doing the murders... we’re trying to do something interesting!"

That last example is more thematically rich than chastising the viewer with "so why are you still watching all this unpleasantness, eh?", presenting as it does an artist whose frustration to create something meaningful has driven him to murder – similar territory to Abel Ferrara’s DRILLER KILLER (1979).

If THE LAST HORROR MOVIE had had more of that kind of thing, and less oily smugness delivered straight to camera in extreme close-up, then Max's exploits might have been compelling and disturbing enough to put him up there with HENRY’S Henry and DOG'S Ben in the pantheon of narcissistic killers with a camera. Pity.

Three stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Max actually explains this towards the end, in a nice meta twist that I won't spoil here, all the while pondering whether his over-analysis makes him "sound like a wanker". Cough-cough.

What would a movie called THE FIRST HORROR MOVIE be about?  Universally, that would be THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI (1920). For me personally, it was probably ALIENS – not strictly horror, I know, but pretty scary when you're eight years old.

Previously:  THE LAST THING HE WANTED

Next time:  I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #35 THE LAST THING HE WANTED (2020, Dee Rees)

 

* *

While investigating something really important, other equally important things happen to a journalist during the course of her important investigation.

Starring  Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Rosie Perez, Toby Jones, Willem Dafoe

Written by  Marco Villalobos, Dee Rees

Produced by  Cassian Elwes, Dee Rees   

Duration   115 minutes

  

OK, so we’ve all been there. You’re watching a movie, and realise you don’t know what’s going on. If it’s within the first 10-15 minutes, then that’s fine: things are being set up, questions are being asked, you’re settling into its rhythm.

By the end of the first third, you can expect to know what those questions are, and won’t be surprised that they are developed further into act two. You’ll want to be surprised as to the exact ways that they develop, but what the things that are developing are should come logically from what was set up in act one – and which will be resolved in act three (again, hopefully hitting that magic balance of surprising yet inevitable.)

OK, but what if you’re halfway through the movie – deep into act two – and you still don’t have a handle on things? And at this point, this far in, you’re getting the sinking feeling that it’s unlikely comprehension will ever arrive?

There are times when this is acceptable. For instance. You’re on a date and the date is going well, extremely well. You may glance up at the screen every now and then and have no idea what’s going on – and not care in the slightest. Similarly, if you’ve gone to the movies in the early throes of an exciting new relationship, where the two of you feel contentedly cocooned in your own world where nothing outside matters, then you may intentionally lose track of what’s going on. Not following the plot becomes another of your hilarious in-jokes, since it's just another part of an outside world that's irrelevant to your loved-up interactions.

Other examples. Where the convolutedness is kind of the point, and the pleasure comes from watching the characters untangle the mess they’re in. Private eye stories come to mind, particularly the Howard Hawks/Bogart THE BIG SLEEP (1946) and, more recently, John McNaughton's trashterpiece WILD THINGS (1998).

Also. Movies where the plot doesn’t matter or isn’t the priority, where the regular conventions of narrative are not necessarily adhered to. These could be purely allegorical, or follow a dream logic, or be artistic experiments in the form. See examples from the output of Andre Tarkovsky, Michael Haneke, Lars Von Trier, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, etc.

So fine, it can happen and not matter. Other causes can be the viewer’s fault: keeping half an eye on their phone; falling asleep mid-movie.

But then there are films that have a lot of plot, and want you to follow it, and really try to get you to follow it, but which fail and leave you baffled and frustrated.

Films like THE LAST THING HE WANTED.

I wrote in my review of THE LAST SUMMER that not recognising anyone at all from the cast or crew can be a bad sign – not always, but it rarely bodes well. With this film, it's a case of recognising people (A-listers Anne Hathaway and Ben Affleck! Character acting legend Willem Dafoe! Dee Rees, director of critical darling MUDBOUND!), but never having heard of the movie. And it only came out three years ago!

OK, so you’ve got Anne Hathaway. She’s a journalist of some kind, being led into a jungle by an armed escort, here to presumably report on something. There are dead and burned bodies – alright, so she’s not here to study the local fauna for Botanical Monthly. She wears no makeup (or at least not much), another sign that this is a ‘serious’ role. And she smokes – that never happens anymore! She must be serious.

Cue Hathaway’s reflective voiceover, saying things like ‘I wanted to know why’ and ‘I see now that the clock was ticking’ and ‘weightlessness seemed like the mode where we could be both time and the effect itself’ – all over shots of classified papers. Then she’s grilling some politician type in a press conference, something to do with trade disputes, I think? Is this film a remake of STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE?

Then Ben Affleck turns up, looking a bit chunky, playing some kind of political aide who's getting told off by his boss, the same man who Hathaway just pissed off. Hathaway, meanwhile, is on the phone to ‘kiddo’ – so her job makes her an absent parent, too. Of course it does. And then she argues with her boss (editor?) who tells her to drop the story, for whatever reason, whatever the story actually is.

But then Willem Dafoe, playing her Dad, calls and they meet for a drink, him wearing sunglasses indoors and a maroon suit, and spouting homophobic barbs at unassuming bar patrons while munching handfuls of almonds. He delivers a lot of backstory, and possibly present-story, too; it’s hard to tell. It becomes apparent that the director has instructed the actors to speak extra fast, too, which just makes it even harder to keep up. It feels like about 40 minutes of story is hurtled at us in the space of 5 minutes.

THE LAST THING HE WANTED is a bit like when you’re on holiday and skipping through the channels in your hotel room, and you start watching a movie in another language. You can follow what’s going on (it’s a thriller, she’s in danger, there’s a cover-up) but the details remain elusive.

It’s the kind of film that would benefit from turning the subtitles on – but I hate doing that, it’s distracting and shouldn’t be necessary if the filmmakers have done their job properly.

It’s the kind of film where you get so much information that none of it sticks, and at the end you don’t really remember anything. It’s a tactic politicians use: instead of giving straight answers to complicated or thorny questions, they resort to obfuscation.

I tend to hold my movies in higher esteem and expect more from them than that.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  I don’t really know who ‘he’ is supposed to refer to, let alone what it is he wants and whether or not he went on to want any other things or not.

What would a movie called THE FIRST THING HE WANTED be about?  Watching this movie, a stiff drink comes to mind.

Previously:  THE LAST STARFIGHTER

Next time:  THE LAST HORROR MOVIE 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #34 THE LAST STARFIGHTER (1984, Nick Castle)

 

* * *

A teenager is so good at videogaming that aliens snap him up to fight in an interstellar war for reals.

Starring  Lance Guest, Dan O'Herlihy, Robert Preston, Catherine Mary Stewart

Written by  Jonathan R Betuel

Produced by  Gary Adelson, Edward O Denault

Duration  101 minutes

INT. LORIMAR PRODUCTIONS, HOLLYWOOD, CA. -- MID ‘80S


FADE IN on a HUGE MOUNTAIN, not unlike the Paramount logo.

PULL OUT to reveal that it is actually a HUGE PILE OF COCAINE, stacked up on a LONG DESK in a CORPORATE BOARDROOM.

We take in more of the boardroom and the several MOVIE EXECUTIVES who are buzzing around in an animated state of BRAINSTORMING. The walls are covered in POST-IT NOTES and the EXECUTIVES are GESTICULATING WILDLY at each other.

One of them, clearly the BOSS, CRASHES DOWN face-first into the coke and begins SNORTING IT LIKE AN OPEN DOOR ON A SPACE SHIP, while we tune into a nearby conversation.

 

EXECUTIVE #1
(excitedly)

I’ve got it! I’ve got it!

 

EXECUTIVE #2

What? What?

 

The BOSS looks up from his SCARFACE-STYLE MOUNTAIN OF POWDER to take in their exchange. The white mask on his face makes it look like he is participating in a DRUG-FUELLED REVERSE MINSTRAL SHOW.

EXECUTIVE #1

Okay, so you’ve got Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? He’s big, right?

 

EXECUTIVE #2

Big. Yeah?

 

EXECUTIVE #1

Right, okay, and so then you’ve got Danny Devito. He’s, he’s--

 

BOSS
(getting it)

Small ...

EXECUTIVE #1

Yes! Small! They couldn’t be any different, but what if, what if-- guys, you’ve gotta hear this-- what if--

 

EXECUTIVE #3
(interrupting)

No good.

 

EXECUTIVE #1

What?

 

EXECUTIVE #3

My buddy is Ivan Reitman’s assistant. His people are already working on a treatment, I think it’s called CONDOM FULL OF WALNUTS MEETS TESTICLE WITH ARMS. Arnold and Danny as brothers ... 

                 (beat)

I said they’re gonna need to work on that title.

 

SILENCE. Apart from the sound of ENORMOUS LINES OF COCAINE being snorted.

BOSS
(getting an idea)

Guys ...

 

His colleagues all TURN TO HIM IN TWITCHY ANTICIPATION.

 

BOSS (CONT'D)

I’ve got it. Kids like video games, right?

 

EXECUTIVE #2

Yeah ...

 

BOSS

What’s better than just playing a video game?

 

No one knows. Many stand around RUBBING THEIR GUMS, as if expecting to find the answer there.

 

BOSS

Being a real hero in your own video game!

GASPS around the room. Everyone starts to rack up an EXTRA CHUNKY LINE. Everyone except EXECUTIVE #1.

 

EXECUTIVE #1
(timidly)

But, but boss ... didn’t Disney already do that? TROM or something--

 

BOSS

You’re fired!

(pushes an intercom)

Marlene, get me Universal.

                          (thinks a beat, then adds)

And Pablo Escobar!

FADE TO BLACK

Allow me to indulge in some nostalgia for a moment.

No, not for THE LAST STARFIGHTER. I’m certain I watched it as an adolescent but couldn’t remember much – just something about an arcade machine in a motorway service-station (actually turns out it was a trailer park), some kind of proto-X-WING game that our lead was so good at, he somehow got recruited to fight actual aliens. Other than that, I wasn't sure which memories were of this film and which were of everyone’s favourite Fred Savage-starring Super Mario Bros. 3 commercial, THE WIZARD.

My nostalgia is instead for a time when arcade machines were everywhere. If you popped out with your Dad to get fish and chips on a Friday night, there would be a Streetfighter 2 or Final Fight cabinet you could have a go on while the bloke behind the counter was still scooping out the chunky chips to join your battered saveloy. Cinema foyers had them, too; I have vivid memories of darting out of the queue for ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES at the ABC Catford to give the 3D Pac-Mania a go.

But as the ’90s wore on, bit by bit the coin-operated game in the corner disappeared. Some suffered the indignity of being replaced by a fruit machine, which was no worthy substitute, let me tell you.

THE LAST STARFIGHTER takes us back to that glorious time when the arcade machine was still king. 

The film booms into life with a space backdrop and a musical score that is the exact median between STAR WARS and SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, over credits that come at you like FLASH GORDON. You certainly can’t accuse this thing of not setting its stall out early or failing to indicate what’s coming.

Our hero is Alex Rogan, who pines for an escape from his small town existence, where his reliability as a handyman around the trailer park means that he can't get away to spend Saturday with his pickup-driving pals and love interest – old Mrs Elvira’s dodgy pipework isn’t going to fix itself!

Now, Lance Guest was 24 at the time of filming, playing a character who is supposed to be a teenager. As with every time this happens, the most the filmmakers can do to sustain the illusion of youth is to keep poor Lance completely clean-shaven at all times. They must have had to put a razor to him between every take to prevent even one tell-tale hair poking through, sending trash bags of empty shaving foam cans away from the set in dump trucks. It’s surely only a matter of time before we see a class action lawsuit filed by Guest, Richard Grieco (TEEN AGENT), Alan Ruck (FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF), Billy Warlock (SOCIETY) and the rest against movie studios for historic abuse, claiming debilitating skin conditions caused by years of stubble rash.

Anyway, Alex saunters off to relieve his frustrations by yanking furiously on his joystick. But today won't be like any of the other times he's stood prone in front of a screen with his brow furrowed and sweat seeping out of his pores. "Nine-hundred thousand – you're gonna bust the record!" exclaims the toothless old cleaner who likes to watch Alex when he's playing with himself.

This prompts the entire community to evacuate their trailers and gather around one man (I mean, boy) and his Starfighter arcade cabinet. The bleeps and blips are joined by whoops and cheers until the entire spectacle climaxes with the machine announcing that Alex is indeed a "record breaker".

But the trailer park folk aren’t the only ones to witness Alex be the best of the best at aiming long pixilated lines at moving pixilated shapes on a black background. Later that night, a humanoid alien in a flying DeLorean (five years before BACK TO THE FUTURE PART 2!) turns up and tells Alex that the game was really a recruitment tool and that Alex is "the best we’ve ever seen".

From then on, it’s basically what A NEW HOPE would have been like if the third act had taken up 80% of the movie. Back in 1984, with no new STAR WARS on the horizon after RETURN OF THE JEDI closed off the trilogy the previous summer, this would have been catnip for those desperately jonesing for more battles in space.

Viewed today, it's a palatable slice of cheese-on-toast from an era when a kid could still dream of immortality being just a 20p coin away.

Three stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  It’s kind of unclear as to how Alex is the last of those who fight among the stars, since he meets a shitload of others from a bunch of different planets in a space station. 

What would a movie called THE FIRST STARFIGHTER be about?  Arguably, it's STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE – since that whole saga is set ‘a long time ago’, they presumably made it into space before any of the rest of us.

Previously:  THE LAST SEVEN

Next time:  THE LAST THING HE WANTED

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com