Detour aka Snarveien (2009): A Norwegian couple on a booze run in weird and peculiar Sweden (gasp!) end up stranded in a forest, encountering one strange situation after the next. Violent men in gimp suits, a disturbing backwoods family and a cop of dubious trustworthiness are only parts of a very bad night.
Severin Eskeland’s shortish horror-leaning thriller is pretty silly and improbable in its set-up, and obvious in many of its twists. Yet it is also well-directed and effectively paced, and dominated by a handful of very solidly structured and shot suspense scenes, as well as helped along by quite a few fun performances. That’s more than enough to make for a pleasant time of thrills and a bit of violence.
Vampire Virus (2020): This entry into the ever-growing filmography of the apparently indefatigable Charlie Steeds mixes elements of the Lesbian Vampire film with very 80s horror lighting (and a perfectly fitting synth score by Matt Akers), a bit of a male gay romance, some subtext about vampirism as a metaphor for all kinds of societal outsiders, and a bit of blood and gloop. All the while, it keeps to a handful of locations and sets – as typical for Steeds, all looking better than you’d expect or fear, which also always goes for his filmmaking – and has one eye pointed in the direction of proper low budget cheesiness.
It’s pretty great for what it is, even though you won’t confuse Steeds with Rollin, Larraz or Franco.
Impulse (1984): After a pretty shocking call from her mother during which the good lady first berates her and then shoots herself, Jennifer (Meg Tilly) and her boyfriends Stuart (Tim Matheson) return to her small town home. There’s something not at all right in the place: her family – played by people like John Karlen and Bill Paxton – and the rest of the population act very strangely indeed. It seems as if they have lost some of their impulse control, doing whatever comes to mind, whenever they please.
Director Graham Baker portrays the ensuing chaos with a nice eye for the creepy in the familiar and some suspenseful set pieces. There’s a feeling of creeping dread running especially through those parts of the film during which little happens on a surface level.
The film also looks fantastic in a very specific early 80s way that would be lost to films just a year or two later. The only real minus is the conspiracist coda that adds little to the film at hand.
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