Bronson

In Charlie Bronson's world, pain does not exist as either a hindrance nor pleasure. It exists as madness, pure and concentrate. Nicolas Winding Refn's latest film is a hybrid of a surreal arthouse piece combined with a biopic that is as short-lived as Bronson's time out of the bird. Long since have I seen Refn's previous effort titled Fear X and had you read my review of the film, you'd recall that film forcing tears from my face at a mere 15 minutes in. But the rumors of his company's bankruptcy made me feel as if it were the end of his short-lived yet illustrious filmmaking career. After I heard the title Bronson being circulated through the gossip mill, I thought to myself "Who'd want to see a film about Charles Bronson?" Not to knock his acting credentials or anything but the man seems hardly fitting for anything I'd love to experience through a visual third-person art piece. The term art is also applied very loosely, gentlemen. After reading who the director was, my heart skipped a beat and I soon endeavored into a film other than Die Hard that made me want to walk outside, inhale a deep breath of fresh, free air and punch someone in their fucking face. Welcome, folks, to the demoniac composure of Bronson.


Bronson follows an infamous prisoner named Mickey Peterson who, after robbing a post office and initially receiving 7 years in prison, blows his short time behind bars into an overwhelming 34 years locked away, eventually becoming a victim of his own aggravated insanity. This berserk powerhouse of insane glee has given way for the near perfect portrait of creative liberties with an identity and a stunning and successful enactment to get inside of the mind of an unstable, hyper-violent machine. Buzz on the street even leads to a potential Academy nod for Tom Hardy's breakout performance. From RocknRolla's queer to Bronson's machismo statue, Hardy's turnover as our troublemaker at least deserves him some critical status and to be completely fair, It would seem much of Hardy's influence on mannerisms is a mix of the real Charlie Bronson and Daniel Plainfield's character in There Will Be Blood. Note the scene in which he responds to an attempted hostage negotiation with "What have you got?!" The similar demeanor, head shudder, and tone bring Daniel Day-Lewis' character specifically to mind, although I could be mistaken.


A notion recently brought to mind, most "bloggers" don't really understand the nature of the film they're viewing nor do they grasp the fact that this film is presented through the mind of someone who is not all "together" up there. A Current.TV film review chronicles the scattered thoughts of video bloggers and manipulated women alike. Such thoughts as "not a complete biopic" and "bad pacing" were some of but the few complaints against this film. Granted, every film is magnetic towards harsh criticism but if anything, only the male nudity could be lashed at as seen by the opening weekend pour out of Watchmen reviews. The pacing in Bronson was set at a remarkably fast and efficient speed that, by the end of the scene, you're left wanting more. Remember kids, Bronson isn't a godforsaken miniseries. It's a two-hour feature length presentation without the desire to bore with more than bargained for. Another waived the fact that the picture is "indie" and expressed a contempt for the operatic violence while referencing the notion that Refn "must have seen A Clockwork Orange!" Wow, bitch, way to read back Damien McSorely's quote directly from the theatrical trailer. Vile and spiteful cynicism aside, the film contains nothing akin of Kubrick's "best," as there is nary a scene of rehabilitation in sight nor is there any morals dictated other than madness rules all in it's own kingdom.


Visually, Bronson is an arresting feat in starched and rusted masculinity with a raw contemptuous anger for authority. Refn must have a deep chip on the shoulder for creating such a maniacal fit of renegade filmmaking that even only begins to humanize such a monster. and in the meantime making him one of recent cinema's most beloved starring character. It's generally safe to say that tight and taut editing and brilliant palettes of blood and bruises make Bronson the only quintessential biopic but not only within the characters deeds, the entire tale is weaved masterfully. Whether to thank the fantastic storytelling or the ability to create an unofficial Problem Child 3: Goes to Prison is beyond me. If anything, I congratulate Refn for creating an icon purely consisting of utter destruction - a masculine tornado of whose virility is untouched in any way, shape or form. It doesn't even matter which badge you carry. Finally, a villain of which you can safely root for.


Armed with a violent nature one can appreciate, Bronson maims the competition as being fiercely watchable. In fact, I haven't been able to rewatch a film in some time but Bronson has me viewing this film over & over again as I introduce new people of Refn's more accessible masterpieces. Bronson certainly didn't leave me sobbing like Fear X did, but Bronson is more of an intimate film. That's surprising to even my self. I haven't seen the lauded Pusher trilogy but knowing my past with his works and how deeply they've touched me in many-a-clever emotion, I'm sure I can find something personal to adore about it (them.) Bronson is the "indie" classic to end all classics. Now I'm sure I won't think this when another gem comes along but as it stands, Bronson is one of the only films that make potential homicide look thrilling and admissible as an everyday activity in physical vulgarity. A hay maker for critics, this is one motion picture that won't leave my head for sometime.

-mAQ

Away We Go as a White Man Performs Cunnilingus on a Negro

In the liberal-petit-bourgeois “feel good”(but of course sometimes unhappy) film Away We Go, a 30ish year old white (only in skin, not in soul) male figures out he is going to be a father whilst eating out his Negress girlfriend. This scene happens to be the opening scene of the film and it also sets the feeling for everything that goes on there afterward. What I mean by setting the “feeling” is that the hipster (of course sporting an ironic army jacket) “white” guy is completely dominated by his sista girlfriend. The Negress proves her dominance merely by complaining while the male (in a subservient sexual position) performs cunnilingus on his ungrateful girlfriend.

Away We Go is your typical release from Focus Features, a mainstream (part of NBC) “Independent” film studio. The difference between the films released by Michael Bay and Focus Features is that the films released by the latter are apparently supposed to be artistic. Focus Features idea of art must be ugly people, flat aesthetics, and cultural Marxist (AKA “progressive”) ideals. The “male” lead in Away We Go is no doubt the “ideal” man in our “progressive” contemporary socio-political world. After all, he is introduced to the film as a castrated “male”, unable to assert himself (inside his girlfriend’s vagina), he settles for satisfying his complaining woman by licking her meat curtain (a true tribute to the gender politics of the iron curtain). Don’t get me wrong, it is ok to return certain types of sexual favors, but the “man” in Away We Go certainly seems more interested in pleasuring his “woman” as if he were her lesbian lover.

This guy's ancestors were Berserkers?!?

“Progressive” film studios like Focus Features are often pushing collectivist cultural Marxist ideas on to the “educated” classes of America and pretend its “revolutionary.” Mainstream “Gay” culture, “unconventional” (aka degenerate) families, multicultural nihilism, internationalism, and anti-individualism are just some of the new “values” being pushed by films that for the most part have absolutely nothing to offer in the way of cinematic innovation. If a man has been dominated by a woman sexually, does that make the film groundbreaking? Wasn’t commie Guido Bernardo Bertolluci already doing sexually deranged/Marxist cinema like this almost over half a century ago? At least Bertolluci actually knew how to do it artistically. What white man would ever eat out a black woman? I bet Bertolluci would.

The scene of cunnilingus in Away We Go is easily the most “powerful” scene in the whole movie and I do not say that as a compliment. I say that in that I was completely disgusted by the scene and it is evidence that even upper middleclass America has been completely desensitized by and succumbed to degeneracy. The mulatto child born through miscegenation practiced by the couple in Away We Go is best representative of the global degeneracy being pushed by studios like Focus Features. A world without roots, without culture, without gender, without race, and without tradition. Away We Go indeed, into our own self-prophesizing apocalypse.

-Ty E

Moon

Following Sam Rockwell's over-the-top hilarious cameo in the holy grail of television, Stella, I became incredibly interested in his upcoming science fiction project known as Moon. Upon Moon's release, this Twilight sensation really hit the fan and the shit. was. everywhere. When one would inquire about Moon, some scantily clad obese chick somewhere would ask "New Moon?" as if to insult my intelligence further. Hopefully this pandemic of glam vampires will end but I don't foresee that happening so I figured I'd rather write down my thoughts instead of fishing for a handful of opinions as I'm sure most of the local townsfolk would surely call this film "boring." Like many deep space films before this, Moon encompasses the idea of solitary madness as explored in that Resident Evil-in-space film titled Pandorum. Pandorum is a fictional breakdown of the mind in space. Not to call this entirely fictional, in fact, I'm sure if we (humans) did more long term experiments in space, we too could adopt the a usage of Pandorum. So apart from the terrible film references, How does Moon hold up?


Moon is a film that relates to its own symphony of infinite quiet. Clint Mansell, best known for his work on Requiem for a Dream, collaborated with his own experiences of a resonating orchestra within personal hollow white walls to create a repetitive theme to the dreary, melancholy status of isolation and loneliness unheard. Suffice to say, Sacrifice from the score to Moon is simply the best film theme to be produced in a long time. My own fears leeched and sapped so much from me than I could handle just while viewing the trailer, Some credit goes to Sam Rockwell as well for providing the perfect visage of Sam Bell. No one else could have near pulled off what he has accomplished. Paired with both this and Bronson, which has a review coming soon, this year in festivals and "independent" cinema seems to be the most promising I've experienced yet.


The only complaint with Moon yet is simple and most simpletons seem to share this in common with each other; It's too "boring." With a film set in space circulating the plot around a single man working in a solitary lunar station for 3 years with very little outside contact to civilization, I wouldn't expect a science fiction masterpiece to be anything but. Moon is something of a stand still staple in filmmaking. For the budget being what it is and the welcome absence of computer-generated imagery, the practical model effects are simply outstanding. The lunar landscape looks anything but artificial and the open claustrophobia of a bleak surface is present with a resounding "Yes!" What really stands out as special in Moon is the composition and pacing of this accelerating mystery. While the film's internal makeup is frequently bouncing around, the set pieces and pivotal plot stay almost frozen, so to speak. As to say, Moon is a tidy film that takes place in a very short time with not much happening other than a dual mono-character portrait that is active within it's own steadily paced storytelling.


Moon is a film that is as ambiguous as its purported ending, but an ending can only mean a beginning as well. With many positive aesthetics and the stark and heavenly-white set design of this specific lunar base, Moon fashions itself a polished film that suffocates you with many emotions and its phobia inducing fits of madness. Along with Rockwell's incredible performance that marks him as one of the most incredibly underused actors, Kevin Spacey wows as the robotic helper Gerty whose simple vocal demeanor goes a long way for him just be utilized as a voice actor with an expressible monotone pitch. His wide variety of on screen "emoticons" really sets the mood for each and every scene he appears in, although not meaning to give a robot gender. With my subsequent viewing of Moon, I feel as if all science fiction up to this (excluding several) have lacked the real mechanics of what composes a space classic. Moon has all those and more, with an intriguing beginning, mysterious middle, and tragic end. I could find some aspects of faulty presentation, I'm sure, but I'm too busy enjoying what I experienced during Moon, especially what I'm experiencing after. This is a film that will stick with you no matter if you loved it or loathed it. Personally, I find Moon to have what science fiction has been missing all along - misadventure and despair.

-mAQ

The Entity

There's a lot on my mind after my fresh and initial viewing of this loose adaptation of what is known as the most extraordinary phenomenon to ever occur in parapsychology. It's starts off as simple as this, when I was a child I thrived off of books of the occult, paranormal, and plain horror. When I was around ten years old, I received two things from a box in the attic - 1) Complete set of Man, Myth, and Magic and 2) A dusty hardback copy of The Entity. Excited more for the paranormal and plain weird rituals that exist within the pages of Man. Myth, and Magic, I gleefully opened the first volume I grabbed to find this insidious photograph of a doll stuffed with human blood and possibly innards. Needless to say, I opted for The Entity at the time, at least until I grew a pair.


Now before I get started, Know that I never actually read the novel and only skimmed through it. No matter the charges, what I read still stayed with me for some time. Not terror, no, but a prepubescent arousal of the strange. This feeling of wrong dominated by lust has only been felt twice, once while "reading" the book and the other while watching the film based on the same perpetrating book. During the scene of the first attack, while you watch a wonderfully aged Barbara Hershey apply lotion to her legs, that stare as if she knew she wasn't alone. It ripped, the smack too. Her frail body then flew back on the bed and a pillow applied over her head. While she writhed in agony, I felt for the first time, deliriously turned on and terrified at the same time. Such a weird intake of emotions kind of left me in a daze that only grew with each attack. It's hard to pinpoint what it is about the events. Maybe it's how helpless Carol Moran was. Maybe it's the fact that her true-to-life character still experiences these attacks. Whatever it was, It turned me on for all the wrong reasons.



Much of The Entity's power comes from all directions. The complacent family at the beginning. The degradation of a perky single mother. The riveting and intense score created by Charles Bernstein. Watching her sweaty and defeated face stare off, Barbara Hershey's lifeless stare scorching through your soul. Watching invisible fingers knead her breasts.


It's all there - The Entity is the perfect mix of both supernatural and erotica and it's a shame that a tasteless taboo-cracking version hasn't been released. Instead we get a Bollywood remake entitled Hawa and I'm still not too happy about that. What the remake tries to do is to keep the attacks, lessen up the intensity, and in general, dumb down the fear-provoking process of watching The Entity in the first place. The Entity did one thing for me that so many have failed to do before - terrify me beyond any explicable explanation. For the duration of this film I had tears in my eyes from the chills shooting up my spine constantly. This is the effect of a great scene set up and a masterful score of pounding guitar.



I haven't too incredibly much to say about a story that has existed since the late seventies. My connection with this tale goes for me in such a ludicrous and drawn out manner that I'm surprised I never cared to watch this sooner. In part, I blame The Nest for that - such an incredible novel and such a sub par film. The Entity excels at showing the horrors and delights of rape without all the awkward male grunting and obtrusive fingers and hands getting in the way of the real prize - repulsive perversions. This, quite frankly, is a horror movie for most but a porno for sociopaths. I lie somewhere in between on what to think of this film but I can state one thing for certain, this is a film I will never show my fiancé lest I want her to never sleep with me as I can imagine this being the harbinger of "I'm not in the mood." The Entity is a cruel film of bold horror and sexuality and within that lies the essence of something shocking. Now that I have pinpointed it, It should be much easier to find something truly nerve-shredding. To keep it short, the best ghost film I've seen.

-mAQ

Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead

Supposing that the director himself has decided to cash in on the upcoming release of Left 4 Dead 2, Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead will hit DVD shelves worldwide on 10/24 and leave many appreciators of the 2nd Wrong Turn, directed by Joe Lynch, wondering if this inexcusable sequel could muster any of the magic that Henry Rollins' ode to ass kicking did just some years back. To be fair, I'm mainly supporting devil's advocacy on blacklisting this infernal straight-to-video hellspawn. I didn't really give it much chance nor did it deserve such. I could have embraced Wrong Turn 3 the same way most people have and wrote a piece of writing involving one or more of these words- "fun," "entertaining," "slasher," "gory," and/or "enjoyable." Since I'm not a tool nor some fool that appreciates something with a mindless body count or a single scene of (very nice, fake) breasts, I have pulled not a single punch in loathing this film next to the unsavory The Hills Have Eyes 2 or the unforeseeable The Cell 2 and thus, my abusing begins.


Wrong Turn 3 lacks a single unimaginative bone in it's terrible packaging. I immediately became somewhat excited for this film after seeing the esthetically stunning teaser poster plastered above and journeyed in a vain quest to comfort myself with the idea of Joe Lynch to reprise his directors chair for a final outing. Alas, I was verily disheveled to learn of the director not being Joe Lynch but someone who directed such admonished titles as Cyclops, Rock Monster, and Monster Ark. I'm not one to judge on a skill that seems to require so much anguish and sacrifice, that being a director. But neither of these "films" look to be anything more than a cheap ticket into a hopeful contract with Dimension. Or maybe to be more predictable and down to earth; Syfy. Now, with no Henry Rollins and no Joe Lynch, the Wrong Turn series has nowhere to go but down, right? Yes.

Needed more of the above.

This desecration to "torture porn," slasher fare starts off with a group of college co-ed med students of some sort vacationing, camping, relaxing out in the woods. Pardon my deteriorating memory. I promise these lapses are for my own good as well as your own. Awkward dialogue is bantered back and forth until two people that couldn't possibly be "together" start to straddle each other and make conversation so amusing that it seems implausible the only high moment in the film is in the first 4 minutes. After a dorky looking guy gets straddled by one of those supermodel types, she inquires "Alex thinks I'm a slut. Do you think I'm a slut?" To which he wisely responds "Yes. But that is what I love about you!" He then begins off on a short-lived tirade on her exquisite breasts which lands an arrow through her bosom and his adulterous hand. Scene. The creative oasis of director Declan O'Brien has just ran dry and so has your capacity for real film making. Unless of course you respond "Dude....awesome."

As long as you're having fun...

Once this scene is soiled, Wrong Turn 3 pulls no stops in setting up what could be deliverable sequences only to tarnish this withering bud of a flower with CGI that one could sincerely call the work of a child. Not only are the special effects unimagined, but the whole backwoods family motif is recycled for what could be some new terrible disease upon horror films with credits going to Cube and bastardized by James Wan and his unmistakably buoyant Saw franchise. No longer are horny teens slaughtered for little or no reason with primitive weapons handled by genetically primitive creatures capable of only murder and mating, but now they cannot even safely venture the woods without fear of getting sliced into three pieces with a makeshift twin vertical guillotine trap. Hypercube seems a much more fitting environment for my precious time as of now.


Once I met the two prison inmates that bicker the entirety of the film, the razors were aimed directly at my throat, skipping 3 of the 4 steps of cinematic suicide. The typical skinhead and dirty Mexican accompany most, if not all, of the screen time. While the title role is credited towards Tom Frederic. His role is cut short during the subplot of the escaped prisoners finding bags upon bags of money from a crashed armored truck. To go off subject, How do these "cannibals" have electricity? Once all is said and done, I really began to wonder what the point was to include these characters other than to buff up a script that could have managed to be three pages or less and still have been the same quality as the one presented to a mass audience. *Gulp*


My final (worth noting) gripe with this film is the severe lack of intimidating villains. While the first and second film had at least a minor roster of titular villains, the third entry, and hopefully last, decides to keep a childish "Three fingers," as he is called, and an unidentified Elephant woman who is killed like a little bitch. The film takes an unexpected turn at this point as this group of hardened criminals find it hard to cope with surviving the onslaught of a 5'9, 151 pound inbred monster. I've read reviews calling the characters reaction during this time believable and this assumption is entirely laughable. In the perverse canon of Wrong Turn, Wrong Turn 3 detaches itself completely for what was painstakingly created by a horror fan with an expensive camera. I'm not glorifying Wrong Turn as a pivotal horror film but at least it got the backwoods retard thesis correct. Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead is one of the worst offenders of Direct-to-DVD lore. Wrong Turn 2: Dead End will go down in history as being "fun," "gory," and "enjoyable," all at the same time, but it's sad to say that Wrong Turn 3 will only be known for wasting a pair of really nice tits in order for an awful movie to continue. Talk about sacrifice in the movie making industry.

-mAQ

I'd Rather Hump Trash Instead of Watching Another Movie about the Holocaust

I cannot lie, I am losing faith in cinema. Sometimes I feel like I have lost complete faith in cinema. Will there ever be another director that compares in artistic integrity and real artistic progress (a career that noticeably developed with each groundbreaking film) as F.W. Murnau? Everyone that is truly serious about cinema knows that Europe is responsible for the bulk of the masterpieces of cinema history. How could a “great” Hollywood artisan like John Ford ever compare to the brilliance and auteur artistry of Carl Th. Dreyer? Is Steven Speilberg an auteur because he has “Spielberg-esque” traits in his films like often having socially retarded children play lead characters? Is Spielberg an middle aged socially retarded child? Who wants to pay $10.50 a movie ticket to see a made up socially retarded child? Would Spielberg?

Nowadays, 12 year old kids are making two minute and thirty second long short films that are more entertaining than your typical Michael Bay or Spielberg film. Youtube is flooded with those type of videos. Hollywood refuses to display real humanity. Instead, they offer us propaganda that is coated with sentimentalism so the lies don’t taste bad while being digested. Those 12 year old filmmakers that are fucking around with their family camcorder have more to offer humanity than Steven Spielberg. The 12 year old creates for the enjoyment of those he cares about (and of course himself). Spielberg makes films to help his politically aligned kinfolk rob Swiss banks and to show the “moral superiority” of those same swindlers. For some reason, Spielberg also enjoyed portraying black males as the ultimate misogynists while promoting the "strengths" of sista-sista style lesbianism. Why else would Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah star in The Color Purple? The question is, does humanity really benefit from the big budget degeneracy that is the Hollywood studio system? Most Hollywood films are criminal products whose makers deserve a special type of punishment.

A couple contemporary filmmakers give me “hope” for the future of film. I have no hope that there will ever be aesthetically pleasing films like Triumph of the Will every again, that are full of beauty that cannot be impersonated or contrived by classless Hollywood. I believe that it was that dirty and precise Kraut F.W. Murnau that directed probably the most beautiful film to ever come out of Hollywood. The film won the super unique (only offered at the first ever Academy Awards) Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production. That was a very longtime ago when the United Sates did not resemble a third world sewer and people actually had some (granted many times banal) values. So the question is, can cinematic art (and art in general) exist in a cultureless world that has complete and utter contempt for natural beauty?!? Of course, Harmony Korine and Giuseppe Andrews are the two new leaders of a new type of degenerate realist art that speaks to the soul of the “forgotten” part of America.

No doubt, Harmony Korine’s directorial debut Gummo is a masterpiece that the world needed. What better way to get rid of the icky feeling of a film like Schindler’s List than to watch Gummo right after. Just like Gummo Marx, Harmony Korine is the odd Jew out in the world of filmmaking. Korine follows in the tradition of such honest “chosen” gentlemen as Otto Weininger and Carlo Michelstaedter (minus suicide, thankfully Korine came off heroin completely unscathed). When Gummo first came out, the cultural Marxist film “critics” acted as if Korine was worthy of a one man pogrom. Was it the fact Korine showed what the many American whites really live like (in poverty)? Was it the fact that a gay black dwarf insulted Israel by wearing an Israeli flag t-shirt? Or more importantly, did the critics hate Gummo because Harmony Korine was able to bring vaudeville to the slums of Tennessee?

After watching Harmony Korine’s recent effort Mister Lonely I felt that maybe the young auteur had grown soft. That was until I saw the trailer for upcoming picture Trash Humpers. It seems Korine is reverting back to his earlier and stronger filmmaking days when his drug addiction hadn’t fully caught up with him. I bet Bavarian Werner Herzog is very proud of his young Yiddish buddy Korine’s upcoming effort, a film influenced in someway by Herzog of course. Herzog is a brilliant filmmaker that turned Cinéma vérité into a sideshow. Of course, Korine turned that sideshow into modern day vaudeville. After all, Harmony doesn’t pay tribute to Al Jolson and blackface for nothing!

Western civilization is a rotting corpse covered in international maggots (the chosen maggots have entered the corpse deepest of course) of all slimy stripes. What was once beautiful and strong, has now become just another thing for those that cannot create to exploit. Do Giuseppe Andrews and Harmony Korine exploit those unfortunate subjects that they make films about? No, I honestly believe they do not. I believe that both video camera auteurs have a certain amount of empathy for their truly interesting and one of a kind stars. I would compare Korine’s and Andrews’ portrayal of his stars to that of Tod Browning in his masterpiece Freaks. On top of that, Korine and Andrews don’t have to coat their films in sentimentalism. Korine wasn’t selling a lie when he showed that young cowboys hate queer rabbits. Andrews wasn’t selling a lie when he showed that Bill Nowlin had no problem showing off his chode while drinking a beer in his trailer shower. In the age of Kali Yuga, what kind of art can one really expect?

-Ty E

The Thaw

The Thaw is a very recent entry in those Ghost House Underground DVD releases that showcase mediocre horror material borrowed from many classic ideas in an attempt to lure consumers in with flashy and mindless cover art that hints to frights and confusion to as why it was made, with the exception of Last House in the Woods. What The Thaw has going for it are two things - top billing for Val Kilmer, whose career is as dead as the potential characters in this film of choice, and actual suspense built with a fear of parasitic hosts. This fear isn't even limited to just these prehistoric creatures. If you haven't heard of a Human bot fly, I recommend you keep it that way and not let your morbid curiosity search for it.


The Thaw opens with a potentially disturbing scene of a blonde woman adorning an open sore on her forehead. Many chattering people are in the background of this shaky-cam film opener and the heightened sense of urgency is on each of their tones. Behind the woman's crying figure is a blowtorch heating up a needle. Carefully positioning her sobbing face still, the hot needle is applied to the wound. A few stunning seconds pass and a tiny larvae protrudes from her creamy-complexioned flesh. At first I was overcome with a premature form of disgust but then the effects of terrible CGI took hold and my muscles relaxed once more. This scene in particular is what happened endlessly throughout the entirety of The Thaw - some suspenseful build up with an incredibly lackluster pay off on every end.


Soon after the opening credits of the film, we (the audience) are force fed one of the most appalling, mind-numbing trends in horror films these days - global warming propaganda and ecoterrorism. Hints that later flourish in an impatient stab to sideswipe with a twist one can see coming from the first time Aaron Ashmore opens his mouth. I hate to say it but the only reason worth watching The Thaw is for the maybe 5 minutes of especially graphic footage wrapping up with the parasitic consumption of multicultural flesh. With the line up in this film, you'd be surprised that this wasn't a high school reunion of the original cast of Saban's Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Let's see, you got the chink, the negro, the two lead white couples with a minor bit of sexual tension between the both and that one white guy whose only noticeable effort in the film is making a grab for a gun cause he "inconveniently" has a terrible phobia of insects.


Personally, global warming isn't a very good cinematic mantle piece nor an effective plot device. To move me with terror requires the extraordinary, not dime-a-dozen morality inducing monologues about the stinginess of humanity. I get it, we're shit to our planet that has so graciously given us food, shelter, and all the necessities of life, but I will be damned if some remake of The Last Winter will preach to me what is apparent as the directors with their flashy gas-guzzling cars and spacious condos try to shove their "social commentaries" in my face. Nor do I like it when they shove Val Kilmer's post-mortem "acting" in my face - to which I would more or less credit as a cameo.


You'll find hype for this film as I surprisingly uncovered many "10 star" blessings. I guess Ijust don't "get it." A film with 10 minutes (give or take) of mediocre cinematography and a few key scenes of gross out body horror combined with 80 minutes of coma inducing dialogue and terrible CGI worthy of Lorenzo Lamas' mug shot is enough to make it credible enough to horror fans to rave about. Now I now know why Dreamcatcher is so reviled. While I appreciate the prehistoric reinvention of the Bot fly, I'd rather spend my personal time in purgatory watching reruns of Raptor Island than ever watch this dismal piece of shit again. The only thing I could even mutter as the credits ran was a sternly deserving "eh..."

-mAQ