Review #65 WRONG TURN 6: LAST RESORT (2014, Valeri Milev)

 

* * 

A young man inherits a luxury spa in Bulgaria ... I mean, in the rural US somewhere. But upon visiting it with his party-animal friends, he finds trouble worse than your standard probate dispute.

Starring  Anthony Ilott, Chris Jarvis, Aqueela Zoll, Sadie Katz, Roxanne Carrion

Written by  Frank H Woodward  

Produced by  Jeffery Beach, Phillip Roth  

Duration  91 minutes   

   

By the time a film series reaches its sixth entry, the avid franchise-follower can observe certain trends.

Here's one. When that fifth sequel roles around, the saga in question has often got to the point where it wants to comment on itself. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES, for instance, is a pre-SCREAM commentary on the slasher genre, including making a point out of its series-first move of having actual children at the summer camp. ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE, meanwhile, was the first non-Connery Bond and has one-and-done George Lazenby quip, "This never happened to the other fellow."

Elsewhere, FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE includes a Kruger childhood flashback and cameo from Johnny Depp, who made his debut in the original film. More recently, ROCKY BALBOA saw the Italian Stallion reflecting on his legacy, visiting Adrian’s grave, wearing a garish maroon suit jacket while running a pizza restaurant, etc.

Sometimes (OK, usually), the sixth film is considered to be terrible. There's little love out there for HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS or POLICE ACADEMY 6: CITY UNDER SIEGE. On the other hand, STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY is a prime example of the ‘even ones good, odd ones bad’ trend for Trek movies (although, hey – I like THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK!). And FAST & FURIOUS 6 is seen as a high watermark, the point where the car saga got comfortable with its international-heisting identity before reaching later levels of space-faring lunacy.

Something else that is likely to happen once a series lurches on this far is that it reboots itself. The WRONG TURN franchise began in 2003 as an out-of-townies-fall-afoul-of-hillbillies shocker, starring former child star Elisha Dushku (TRUE LIES, TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer). I’ve seen the original, and remember liking it just fine, although not enough to check out any of its sequels.

It's actually the next and seventh entry of this franchise that was the reboot. This could easily be a sign that part six was so bad that they felt compelled to hit the reset button. But, as ever, I tried to go in with as few expectations as possible. 

On reading this film's subtitle, my first hope was that it would be about wood-dwelling mutant maniacs descending upon a luxury holiday resort, kind of like zombie video game Dead Island. No such luck, sadly, but I must nevertheless admit that WRONG TURN 6 isn’t all that bad ... considering.

We begin with an attractive couple stripping off at a hot spring in the middle of the forest. But it's not just the squirrels and rabbits that are getting a free peep show. Sure enough, we glimpse some of the WRONG TURN movies' signature, um, 'differently appearanced' woods-dwellers, spying among the trees. Soon enough they're shooting arrows through eyeballs and decapitating with barbed wire.

The actual plot, such as it is (which has nothing at all to do with the unfortunate couple from the opening), concerns a young chap who has inherited a big stately home/spa resort from relatives he never knew he had. He's come to check it out for the weekend with his spliff-toking, beer-chugging pals, as well as his girlfriend. It's run by a creepily incestuous brother and sister (I think they’re his cousins?) and his arrival seems to have attracted the attention of the local, er, 'interesting-looking' individuals from that opening sequence, who, it turns out, are in league with the inappropriately familiar siblings. None of them take kindly to the intrusion of outsiders. Uh-oh. Hide the barbed wire.

You don't need me to tell you that this is not a great movie. But more to the point, is it a passable slasher – a genre that I'm partial to, or at least sympathetic towards? Broadly, yes. The kills are all pretty satisfying, and the occasional bursts of violence and nudity do tend to pull one's attention back from scrolling the phone screen. That's about it, but WRONG TURN 6 does manage to clear this admittedly very low bar.

The acting is poor; as you'd expect. The dialogue is unnatural and stilted; that goes with the territory. But what I noticed the most were two things. Firstly, the editing was somehow off: shots cut too soon or too late, resulting in a disorientating sense of space and a jagged rhythm. It didn't seem to be a stylistic choice, unless the style they were going for was 'incompetent'.

Secondly, the accents were equally all over the place. Now, it’s set in America but, like a lot of movies these days (300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE, THE EXPENDABLES, RAMBO: LAST BLOOD, etc) it was shot in Bulgaria to save a few quid … or, um, to make use of the picturesque landscape? More unusual in the case of WRONG TURN 6 is that the director is also Bulgarian: Valeri Milev, of RE-KILL and BULLETS OF JUSTICE ‘fame’. So this time, they probably saved on location scouting, as well.

And possibly casting, too? I can't be sure how many Bulgarians are in the cast, but someone who was definitely putting on a Yank accent, and who I certainly didn't expect to see, was British Roxanne Carrion (née Pallett), former Jo Stile (née Sugden) in soap opera Emmerdale. (Actually, she was in LAKE PLACID 3, so maybe I shouldn't have been surprised to see her turn up.) Carrion is subject to one of WRONG TURN 6’s more gruesome and unpleasant deaths, combining (more) voyeuristic sex, ancient monuments and having her legs ripped from their sockets by robe-wearing pseudo-monks. That never happened on an average night down The Woolpack pub.

Put it this way: WRONG TURN 6 is so-so: definitely more of a CHILDREN OF THE CORN 666: ISAAC'S RETURN than a MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT. Nuff said.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Well, I guess our man isn’t likely to inherit any additional resorts. Although he could always open up a franchise.

What would a movie called WRONG TURN 6: FIRST RESORT be about?  In a situation where you’re surrounded by murderous, arrow-happy cannibals, the first resort is usually to get the fuck out of there. Which, keeping to slasher traditions, many people in this movie plan to do but don’t ever manage.

Previously:  LAST CHRISTMAS

Next time:  THE LAST SONG  

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #64 LAST CHRISTMAS (2019, Paul Feig)

 

* * 

An underachieving young woman lives an aimless existence, until she meets a tall, dark stranger at Christmas.

Starring  Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Emma Thompson

Written by  Emma Thompson, Bryony Kimmings

Produced by  David Livingstone, Emma Thompson, Paul Feig, Jessie Henderson  

Duration  103 minutes

"Last Christmas, I gave you my heart ..."

Tying your film closely to a song. You've got your two basic ways of doing it.

There's the approach used by LAST CHRISTMAS, commonly known as the STAND BY ME method. That's where you name your film after a well-known, beloved hit. 

If you're really serious, as STAND BY ME director Rob Reiner clearly was, you'll play this song over the end credits and even transpose its melody into the musical score. Further examples of this method include PRETTY WOMAN, SWEET HOME ALABAMA, YESTERDAY, MY GIRL, etc. (For the Reiner movie, they wanted to evoke their chosen classic so badly that they even renamed it after adapting it – from Stephen King's story 'The Body', part of his Different Seasons collection.)

Then you've got films for which a song is specially written that ends up taking on a life of its own. A classic case is Berlin's Oscar-winning 'Take My Breath Away' from TOP GUN, which arguably has the greatest soundtrack of the '80s – they released six singles from it! 

TOP GUN was from the 'popbuster' era, often movies produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. Other popbusting tunes include Irene Cara – 'What A Feeling' from FLASHDANCE (another winner of the Academy Award for Best Original Song); Maria McKee – 'Show Me Heaven' (DAYS OF THUNDER); and Coolio – 'Gangsta's Paradise' (DANGEROUS MINDS). The belated final nail in the coffin of this trend came in 1998, with Aerosmith's Godawful 'I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing' for ARMAGEDDON.

It's worth noting that when this second strategy is employed, the song's title rarely matches the movie's. The only one that comes to mind is Billy Idol's 'Speed' from SPEED. "Speeeed!" go the lyrics; "Give me what I needed!" they press on. Oh, and THAT THING YOU DO!, but there the original song was actually woven into the story.

For LAST CHRISTMAS, we get an entire soundtrack from one artist, a la THE BODYGUARD or PURPLE RAIN. The difference here is, unlike Whitney Houston or Prince, George Michael had sadly already passed away – three years before and on Christmas Day, no less. LAST CHRISTMAS positions itself as being "inspired by the music of George Michael and Wham!" and its soundtrack features 12 songs from him and three from the pop group he formed.

(The soundtrack lists George's rousing 'Freedom 90', but they missed a trick by not getting Tiesto or Calvin Harris or whoever to mash it together with Wham!'s earlier single 'Freedom' in a tranced-up remix. Or they could have done something similar with the way that 'Faith' opens with some bars of the 'Freedom' melody. Ah well.)

I was curious about the phrase "inspired by" used in the marketing. I knew that LAST CHRISTMAS wasn't an all-out musical (thank God and the baby Jesus), but to what extent would the film's story reflect the choice of songs? And how many of the tunes on the soundtrack would actually be played onscreen – would it be like that "Deluxe Edition" of the TOP GUN LP, which added '80s classics by REO Speedwagon, Mr Mister, Europe, Starship and Jennifer Rush that were nothing to do with the film?

George's 'Heal the Pain' is first out the gate, sung by a church choir, like with Prince's 'When Doves Cry' in Baz Luhrmann's ROMEO + JULIET. It quickly segues into George's rendition on a pub jukebox, and our hapless protagonist Emilia Clarke, nursing a pint, quickly namechecks the man himself. The movie's title song then plays over the opening credits – and does again throughout, in various intentionally terrible cover versions. 

Later, 'Too Funky' punctuates a quickie flashback about a quickie; 'I Want Your Sex' accompanies a frantic oh-shit-I'm-late sequence; 'Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go)' and the opening of 'Fast Love' ("Gotta get up to get down") are unimaginatively used for scenes when the main character is waking up. There were a few more, but I gave up taking notes. But we did seem to cover all 15 soundtrack choices, or at least it certainly felt like it.

So yeah, it turns out that plot-wise, LAST CHRISTMAS is just a pretty routine romcom, one that sprinkles George's music throughout either randomly or on-the-nosely, all anchored by a game turn by Emilia Clarke as the lead. It does throw in a heart-tugging twist at the end, one that does explicitly reference 'Last Christmas' the song, albeit in the clumsiest possible way. (Go back to the opening line of this review, if you want a spoiler.)

In the spirit of Christmas goodwill, I won't be completely negative about this film. For one thing, at least LAST CHRISTMAS is not a typical film from Paul Feig, a terrible director in my opinion. I haven't seen his 2016 GHOSTBUSTERS, although not for the sexist reasons that spread across the internet at the time. It's because I'd tried Feig's first three efforts (BRIDESMAIDS, THE HEAT and SPY) and concluded that he suffers from the same annoying tendencies as his Freaks and Geeks alumni, Judd Apatow (although F&G was a good show, for what it's worth).

By this I mean every joke is milked to death, with actors allowed to improv scenes to the extent that they feel hours long. Many of those scenes desperately try to mine humour from characters hurling insults at each other, often of the "you're like a [insert famous person] version of [insert another famous person]" variety. There is a reluctance to use the editorial scissors running through both Feig's and Apatow's work; I myself have never seen the need for a comedy to last 2-plus hours, unless it's THE BLUES BROTHERS fitting in all its musical numbers and cameos, or BEAU IS AFRAID, where being a relentless endurance test is part of the point.

Another tick LAST CHRISTMAS gets from me is by being a British made and/or set romcom where, in Clarke, they actually cast a British lead actress. There's a weird trend in the genre where it seems like Hollywood doesn’t have any faith in our native ladies to capture hearts, and so they instead cast a hot young American – sometimes playing American, sometimes imitating a Brit. 

I'm talking about FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL (Andie MacDowell), NOTTING HILL (Julia Roberts), BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY (Renne Zellweger – London accent not bad), ABOUT TIME (Rachel McAdams – actually Canadian, but close enough) ... And sometimes Richard Curtis isn't even involved, like with WIMBLEDON (Kirsten Dunst) or MAN UP (Lake Bell) or ONE DAY (Anne Hathaway – Yorkshire accent awful) or SLIDING DOORS (Gwyneth Paltrow – London accent passable) or SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (Paltrow again – London accent passable, for the 16th Century) or A LIFE LESS ORDINARY (Cameron Diaz).

Oh, and final props to LAST CHRISTMAS for setting its opening in Brixton, South London. We swiftly switch to the more movie-conventional Covent Garden/Oxford Street/etc for the duration, but I appreciate the effort for geographical diversity in the Capital, however fleeting.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Since the whole thing takes place in the present, I'm gonna give it a 'no' in this case.

What would a movie called FIRST CHRISTMAS be about?  Clarke would be playing Mary. A character who has far fewer one-night stands, that's for sure.

Previously:  AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER?

Next time:  WRONG TURN 6: LAST RESORT

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #63 AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER? (2007, Anand Tucker)

 * * * 

A writer reflects on growing up with his domineering, now-dying father.

Starring  Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth, Juliet Stevenson

Written by  David Nicholls

Produced by  Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley

Duration  92 minutes

From the dawn of artistic expression, stories have dealt with Daddy Issues. Ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles threw patricide into Oedipus Rex; Hamlet’s dad came back from the grave to kick off the whole revenge plot; Henrik Ibsen explored 'the sins of the fathers' in his play Ghosts.

And movies dealing with angst toward a male parent or authority figure are too numerous to count. Just off the top of my head: TOP GUN, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, ON THE ROCKS, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, BEGINNERS, THE SAVAGES, THE FATHER, BLAME IT ON RIO, THIS BOY’S LIFE, THE SHINING, AD ASTRA, INTERSTELLAR, SOMEWHERE, ABOUT A BOY, BEAUTIFUL BOY, KRAMER VS KRAMER, NEBRASKA, THERE WILL BE BLOOD… (OK, some of those weren’t off the top of my head; Google was invented for a reason, people.)

Most of the above focus on the child coming to terms with living up to the expectations/reputation of the pater familias. But here are some rarely (if ever) explored twists on the topic that I for one would like to see:

– The father struggles to emulate the child, whose success has overtaken his own.

– The child is more interested in emulating their mother, much to their father's chagrin.

– The child suffers an existential crisis when they realise that they actually have no desire to emulate their father at all.

– The child finds out that their famous father is in fact a fake, but ironically the intricacy of the deception makes the child start respecting him for the first time.

– Excessively focusing on their intergenerational strife distracts the parent and child so much that neither achieves anything in life and they both die miserable.

AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER?, meanwhile, goes for the old 'we've always had a complicated relationship, Dad, but because you're nearing death now we’re finally incentivised to reconcile' angle.

As the father of the title, Jim Broadbent is established in Firth's sepia-tinted childhood flashbacks as a blagger, grifting his way into a horse track's members' enclosure on a family outing. He's a self-important, pompous blowhard – not a typical role for the usually cuddly Broadbent, more reminiscent of his earlier work as cocky bent copper Roy Slater in the sitcom Only Fools and Horses. Despite the man's flaws, the juvenile Firth idolises his dad, opining in voiceover "My father was a hero... I thought he'd live forever."

Back in the present ('London, 1989'), adult Firth is a writer, accepting a literary prize at a lavish ceremony. "Two words are all I'd like: 'well' and 'done'," he laments to his wife, while holding the award flimsily and looking forlornly across at his old man, who is going around the posh do quaffing free booze and drawing attention away from his son.

Then: the bad news that we all knew was coming. The doctor who delivers it has a bedside manner that's ham-fisted to the point of being humorous, like the scene is a relic from an earlier script draft when this was a comedy. "Your father's going to die," he blurts out. "Of course, we all die sooner or later - but in his case, it's going to be sooner rather than later." It's not even as if he's a bumbling intern or anything.

From frame one, WHEN DID YOU LAST feels like it must have been based on a book... which it was, but it's a little more complicated than that. When I saw David Nicholls’ name among the writers' credits on IMDb, I assumed that this was adapted from one of his weepy novels (like One Day or Us) – but actually he was the one doing the adapting. Turns out Firth is playing real-life poet Blake Morrison, and Nicholls fashioned a screenplay out of Morrison's memoirs. 

I'd never heard of Blake Morrison, since my knowledge of his chosen medium pretty much begins and ends with doing Carol Ann Duffy poems at school. I also remember the odd random line from other people's work, like "pick a corner in that charnel house" (turns out that was 'Vultures' by Chinua Achebe) and a dying mouse that "curls in agony big as itself" (Gillian Clarke – 'The Field Mouse'). Anyway, while I respect poetry, I've come to accept that it's one of those things I just don't get on with – like rugby, or watermelon... or musicals.

Anyway, following Dad's diagnosis, the film's structure settles into switching back and forth between more soft-focus flashbacks to an idyllic childhood (possibly apocryphal?), then back to Firth in the present trying to have serious chats with the ailing Broadbent, who was always a reluctant communicator at the best of times. The past bits get more interesting when they move on to Morrison as a teenager, circa 1962 – as signified by the Cuban Missile Crisis being all over the radio. His memories of those times alone with his father include rain-sodden camping trips, driving lessons in a vintage Alvis convertible on a deserted beach, and Dad regularly calling him 'fat-head'. Oh, and he remembers suspecting the notorious lothario of having an affair, or affairs plural, possibly even siring some bastard offspring.

AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER? is professionally done and classily played - maybe a bit too classy, to be honest. The whole thing is all rather nice, in a Sunday-afternoon tea-time kind of way, albeit with a little bit of sex and the odd F-word thrown in.

Nonetheless, when the inevitable tear-jerking ending arrives and Morrison completes his journey to accepting his dad as a flawed but ultimately caring man, it does feel earned. I've only ever cried twice at movies (the blindly crawling around fruitlessly ending of THE KILLER [1989] and Sarah Conner finally telling John that she loves him in TERMINATOR 2), but this came close to being number three. Good show.

Three stars out of five.



Valid use of the word ‘last’? Yes, this last time is pretty definitive. 

What would a movie called AND WHEN DID YOU FIRST SEE YOUR FATHER? be about?  These days, usually he comes into view immediately after the doctor. In times gone by, though, he would have been nowhere near the maternity ward, instead probably camped down the pub anxiously awaiting a phone call from the hospital.

 

Previously:  THE TOXIC AVENGER PART III: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE

Next time:  LAST CHRISTMAS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com