Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Three Films Make A Post: In Da Hood

Murderlust (1985): A seemingly mild-mannered Sunday school teacher and watchman kills prostitutes and dumps them in the Mojave desert in his free time. He has a splendid time with it, until his state of mind begins to influence his job performance.

This is one of the unending mass of US serial killer movies, here done in a local independent style, but without anything to distinguish it from all those other serial killer films, unless you always wanted to see one which is too timid to show the viewer anything untoward or interesting. No actual exploration of psychic or physical abysses here, but at least there's slow and affectless acting to help you find some sleep. Oh, and a neat Sunday school sequence, of course.

 

Bloody Beach (2000): A bunch of young and characterless young people who know each other from a chatroom go on a beach vacation together. But there is dark chatroom drama in their past. Could that have anything to do with the guy who sloooooowly slashes and stalks them in a not very interesting manner?

South Korean director In Soo Kim proves that he can make a boring, completely generic slasher movie in which nothing exciting or suspenseful happens as well as anyone else. I have of course seen much worse slashers, but those weren't as boring as Bloody Beach. Congratulations, director of generic slasher movie #2457.

 

Det Okända (2000): A quintet of Swedish grad students (biology? geology? who knows?) make a field trip into the deep dark woods. All is well except for the incessant bickering until a specimen that looks like a badly made roast sneaks into a woman's belly to start its own little invasion of the body snatchers. Aesthetically, this is one of the children of Blair Witch Project, just without an in-plot reason for the shaky cam and a lot less sense for creepy mood. It's not bad, especially in the last half hour or so when the body snatching really begins, but the script is problematic (why exactly aren't these people just leaving?) and the photography never as good as the woods the film takes place in deserve.

 

No comments: