Black Death (Review)

Black Death

Black Death (2011)

Directed by Christopher Smith

"The twist of Black Death is there is no twist"

-Director Chris Smith in a Q&A after the NYC premiere of Black Death

Let me give you some context of where that quote came from. I was lucky enough to attend the NYC premiere of Black Death, the latest film from British director Christopher Smith who has given us some gems as Triangle (its #10 on my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2010) and Severance.

He was in attendance and gave an opening speech before the film and a Q&A after the film which was hosted by UGO.com. One of the LOLs he told the packed theater was the mercenaries in the film got to pick their weapons based on there rankings on IMDB. Hence Sean Bean getting an awesome sword. I got to talk to him after the film which was kind of all sorts of awesome.

But let's talk about Black Death.

Black Death is a medieval throwback that stabs and slices with intense battle scenes and also challenges your cerebral with religious themes and the quest for power. It's an unbelievably constructed film that stays true to being a 14 century story without going into the ridiculous of being Monty Python. Smith takes the setting of the times of the bubonic plague and spins a story that you'll think about weeks after you've seen the film while balancing it out with characters that you empathize with. Only a master storyteller can keep you interested in such a tale and Smith just does that.

I had no idea what I was going to get going in. Would it be filled with ridiculous scenes of gore and splatter ala Severance? Would it be a thinking man's film like Triangle? Somehow Smith somehow takes both worlds and blends a thinking man's LOTR. Black Death is seriously entertaining and when you get to the end, you'll be mesmerized by the journey you've just seen.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

The year is 1348. Europe has fallen under the shadow of the Black Death. As the plague decimates all in its path, fear and superstition are rife. In this apocalyptic environment, the church is losing its grip on the people. There are rumors of a village, hidden in marshland that the plague cannot reach. There is even talk of a necromancer who leads the village and is able to bring the dead back to life.

Ulric (Sean Bean), a fearsome knight, is charged by the church to investigate these rumors. He enlists the guidance of a novice monk, Osmund (Eddie Redmayne) to lead him and his band of mercenary soldiers to the marshland, but Osmund has other motives for leaving his monastery. Their journey to the village and events that unfold take them into the heart of darkness and to horrors that will put Osmund’s faith in himself and his love for God to the ultimate test.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Clearly the film has to establish we're in a time of pestilence and we get to see the havoc wrought by the plague. Boiled littered bodies, burnt and barely alive litter the streets of a small English town. We meet Osmund, a young monk who is not as virtuous as he seems. Later, a knight, Ulric (Sean Bean) visits the monastery and tells the Abott ("It's that guy!", David Warner) he needs a guide to investigate a town that has not been ravaged by the plague. Osmund volunteers and they begin their journey into the marsh within the forest.

Ulric is accompanied by a band of misfits who are only on this mission for money. The mission? Find an evil necromancer where claims of the dead coming back to life have been heard and bring him back to the bishop. The gang is filled with a variety of weirdos. A former executioner, a Frenchman and a few rogues.

They soon see villagers who are about to burn a witch. Ulric takes matters into his own hands and kills her. The film starts to reveal the men on this journey. They all reveal their motives to the monk, who also has his own motive for being on this mission. When one of their team falls to the plague, Hob a sort of 2nd in command does the dirty deed of executing the sick man. It's this development of character that shows Black Death is not just a quest flick but one that develops the emotional impact the pestilence has on the people it surrounds.

But what's a medieval movie without some random violence and slaughter? Smith makes sure we get a meal full as a group of bandits attacks them. Sword play is the main attraction but we get even more brutality than an iron maiden. Your Gore-ipedia includes necks snappage, sliced throats, arms are severed, heads decapped and spiky hammers trauma. Oh it's damn glorious all of it. And there isn't much CGI blood thank goodness. The civil savagery of it all is a ballet of splatter. Good times.

They finally get to the village and are greeted with open arms. What they see is a village without any signs of the plague and where the women outnumber the men. A woman, Langiva is the leader and she takes a liking to our young monk, as she heals his wounds. They go all Medieval Times and drink some mead and Ulric notices something isn't right. This leads to frenetic reveal that this village is not of God but worships something else.

The men are soon tortured and are given a choice to denounce their God or die. And die they will. Oh my. Some of the men seek death and do not betray their God. The torture our mercenaries endure is insanely awesome. Let me say it just involves rope and horses. It's not until we see what the monk does and what our hot Langiva reveals do we get the full impact of Black Death.

The themes within Black Death are complicated and layered. Smith wants you to pick a side but endorses neither of them. It's a skilled manipulation of the film to tug your emotions one way and then give you a different POV the next. Christianity is portrayed not as the "good" religion compared to the necromancer's "evil" belief, but a way to show you man's control for power. And it goes both ways. Christianity or Necromancy is but a quest for power by the people who seek it. In a time of despair and hopelessness, one man's religion is anothers blinded folly.

Our monk sees the magic involved when he witnesses his true love Averill "risen" from the grave. Is this magic or something else? Higher beings, sorcery and magic are staples of medieval films. Black Death shows us humanity faced with challenges and given the option of living or dying, many may select the option you don't necessarily think they'll make. Many of these themes hold true today which is why Black Death echoes so well.

The ending will make your jaw drop and you won't see it coming. Well I didn't. It's an ending that fits the atmosphere of the movie and everything that came before it. Smith later revealed in the Q&A that the completed ending was not what was originally scripted. The original ending involved a battle in hell?!? Jeez. Thank goodness Smith took over this film.

Sean Bean plays the noble knight solidly but its Eddie Redmayne as the young monk who's evolution we relate to the most. He fell in love with a woman Averill and has to prioritize who he loves more, God or her. It's a intense emotional journey for Osmund and Redmayne does a phenomenal job. Performances by Carice Van Houten as Langiva are also strong.

The only gripe I would say is we did not see more of the POV of the villagers and of Langiva. I wanted to see what the villagers conflict of denouncing God and choosing their new belief system.

Black Death is a conflict waiting for you to see. A conflict of the body vs disease, man vs man and belief vs non belief. The contradictions man has to endure are as brutal as the battles and Black Death makes you experience all of these. There is no twist in Black Death. The only curveball is that it's brutally honest right up to the very end about the plight of humanity during one of the worst periods in history.

Nude-ipedia

Nada

WTF moment

The ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Black Death is currently on Video in Demand and comes out in theaters March 11th. Don't miss this epic film. It's clearly one of the best films of 2011. And if you want to complete your Smith filmography check out Triangle, Severance and Creep as well.

The Vitals

• The official site
• Facebook Page
• UGO.com coverage of Black Death premiere
• Black Death Review from Planet of Terror
  

Rating:
1/2

Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2011 horror movies, black death, indepentent horror, indie film, indie horror, severance, triangle

Triangle (Review)

Triangle

Triangle (2010)

Directed by Christopher Smith

It's that time of year where I look at every body's Top 10 lists and watch the one's I think may make mine. So I saw that Triangle was on one of these lists and I gave it a shot.

It's no square.

Triangle delivers everything you want from a horror movie. Heightened Hitchcockian suspense, twizzler twists and turns and there is blood by the pint. For a movie created out of the UK/Australia that boasts a group of Aussies doing their best American accents, it delivers on everything you want in a horror thriller.

Your mind will trip out from the amount of WTF is in this film. So much head turning plot twists you may need to drink some Four Loko to get it all straight. It all comes full triangle and by the end you checking IMDB message boards and trivia to find out what's the what.

Well I did.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

When Jess sets sail on a yacht with a group of friends, she cannot shake the feeling that there is something wrong. Her suspicions are realized when the yacht hits a storm and the group is forced to board a passing ocean liner to get to safety, a ship Jess is convinced she's been on before. The ship appears deserted, the clock on board has stopped, but they are not alone... Someone is intent on hunting them down, one by one. And Jess unknowingly holds the key to end the terror.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

This review won't be that long because if I explained what's going on it would give away tons of good stuff. Like all movies like Inception, Sixth Sense, The Others you have to pay close attention to get the clues sprinkled throughout. But the film gets into the creamy filling quite quickly. Jess (Melissa George) and her friends go yachting, big storm, encounter strange ship. Spooky strange things happen on the ship.

SLIGHT SPOILERS below...

So we get into weird time travel mode and things get kooky doubly as they investigate the ship. Our crew gets bloodied and shot at and everything seems to revolve around Jess. The best comparison to Triangle is the low budget brilliant Timecrimes which I never reviewed because my head hurt after watching that awesomeness. I would say Triangle is a horror version of Timecrimes.
END SLIGHT SPOILERS

The performance of Melissa George is solid. She plays her part well evolving her character into different iterations. The rest of the cast are just stand ins to the reveals we see. Smith who directed the uber awesome Severance cleverly employs the stand by suspense techniques with Kubrick's The Shining and Hitchcock flicks. There's talk of mythology scattered throughout as the film creates its own. Sure there may be BIG plotholes and logic questions. Even I started questioning if our main hottie Jess did this or that, her dilemma would get resolved but I decided to go with it. When your watching a fantastico time triangle, you just have to shut down the old cerebral CPU.

The funny thing about Triangle is when you think it's over, it keeps hitting you with more crazy WTF.

Suffice it to say Triangle is the one flick I've seen this year that had me Wikipedia-ing, Googling and IMDB-ing after I saw it. I enjoyed the film but wanted to understand it completely. There is always one film a year that makes my Top 10 list that has me hitting the message boards to get some answers. That makes you think minutes, hours, days and months after you've seen it. I like seeing those films (though in small quantities).

Triangle tries to out clever you and it succeeds. You want a horror thriller to challenge you, make you really try hard to find out what's going on. As the ending approached I had my theories and I kinda knew what was going to happen. You can see the cliche coming but it's all good. You want to see THAT ENDING. The one you feel is coming.

Triangle does just that. It's definitely going to make my Top 10 List for 2010.

It's that time of year where I look at every body's Top 10 lists and watch the one's I think may make mine. So I saw that Triangle was on one of these lists and I gave it a shot.

It's no square.

Oh oh. Fuck me.

Gore-ipedia

Shotgun trauma
Head trauma
Slice and dice

Nude-ipedia

Melissa George for an hour and change is in a tight white tank top and Daisy Dukes. Yum.

WTF moment

A pile of dead bodies....say what?

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

One of the year's best horror films you never heard of. Its out on DVD and probably on Netflix as well. One of the year's best....ARGHHHHH I better stop writing now.

The Vitals

• Buy it at Amazon
  

Rating:

Categories: 2010 horror dvd, 2010 horror movies, melissa george, severance, time travel, timecrimes, triangle, twilight zone

The Cottage (Review)

The Cottage

The Cottage (2008)

Directed by Paul Andrew Williams

The dry sense of humor the Brits have can either be considered bloody unfunny or bloody fuckin brillant.

I'm a big believer in that the subtle inappropriate remarks are better than the big jokey, long winded kind.

And that's why somehow the Brits have time after time made the horror-omedy work. Shawn of the Dead, Severance and now we have The Cottage.

Mixing the 2 genres together is very tricky. Sam Raimi's Evil Dead is an example of classic horror-omedy. But this film would not work without the comedy. If you remove that, it's just a used DVD bin rehash of The Hills Have Eyes meets Fargo.

Hell, when you can me somebody's foot being cut off funny, that's deserves praise.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

2 bumbling petty criminals kidnap the daughter of a underground kingpin and hold her for ransom in a cottage in the farmland. What they don't know is they've stumbled upon a pissed off redneck after they trespass on his land.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

The Cottage is cardboard cut out horror caricatures to a tee. But just like eating a slice of pizza, you know how it's gonna taste and once you've eaten it, it's still damn tasty. Peter (Reece Shearsmith) is our reluctant hero criminal. The regular guy who gets caught in a scheme gone wrong. Steven (Andy Serkis) plays his brother, a leather coated, gruffy goatee tough guy who hatches the plan.

The kidnap victim, Tracey (Jennifer Ellison) is a spoiled Mafia princess whose brother Steven gets caught in the plan as well.

The first 40 or so minutes are your average crime gone wrong brand of ridiculousness. Inevitably it will be compared to From Dusk til Dawn in structure. I was slightly bored watching the paint dry with the jabbering British dialogue but Ellison's breasts kept me entertained.

The plan goes way off target, from the ransom being compromised to some Asian thugs trying to kill our bumbling bafoons (I always wanted to use that in a sentence).

The 50 or so minutes where we get into the horror are where The Cottage shows some balls. It seems this reclusive house is in some psycho farmer's land and he's got some issues. Lots of blood, splatter and gore ensue which are done in some Benny Hill like moments.

Foot slicing, decaps and entrails all get shown and I gotta admit, I wanted all of these people to die.

Our farmer slasher is straight out of the Hills Have Eyes disfigured family of monsters and though I've see this a thousand times, I enjoyed his chasing of these idiots.

Alas, the ending is ironic (as the Brits guarantee in almost all their horror), it wraps it all nicely. Suffice it to say this isn't no Shawn of the Dead, but the Cottage is clever enough to not waste my time. Bloody well done.

So grab some tea. I suggest Earl Grey, hot. And watch our friends across the pond make you laugh, squirm and be merry. Bollocks.

Influences

Shawn of the Dead
Severance
The Office
The Hills Have Eyes
Fargo
Probably some British films I've never heard of

Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Head butting
Groin kicking
Intenstine spilling guts
Throat slashing
Shovel decapitation
Foot slicing (top part only)
Picket through the leg
Decapitated heads
Body parts galore
Picket trauma
Picket through the groin
Head and spine decapitation

Nudipidedia (because you like boobies)

None.

So here's a picture of Jennifer Ellison to keep you entertained.

!!!!WTF moment!!!!

The last thing on the Gore-ipedia list. That rocked

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Severance and Shawn to me are just horror-omedy done fuckin right. And I'm glad the Brits are continuing to make these sub genres of movies because they are so fuckin good at it.

Some American horror fans won't like this. We don't like when our horror and comedy intertwine. We need our Superbad and our Hills Have Eyes 2 separated.

But that's too bad. Because its movies like the Cottage that know how to do it right. It's 90 minutes of laughs, shits and giggles and buckets of gore. Bloody fun!

Rating:
The Trailer:

Tags:
the cottage, the cottage review , the cottage dvd review , the hills have eyes, gore splatter, horroromedy, top horror movies of 2008, horror blog, shawn of the dead, british horror comedy, UK horror, jennifer ellison,

Categories: horror-omedy, severance, shawn of the dead, the cottage, the cottage review, the office

Top 10 Horror/Underground Movies of 2006

10.) The Hills Have Eyes

After seeing Haute Tension at the Museum of the Moving Image a while back and meeting the director Alexander Aja, he told me it this was his next film. I asked him if he was going to do anything different and he told me that Wes Craven told him to make the movie in his own style. That's what Aja does in THHE. The set up is familiar but the payoff is outstanding. Grotestue mutant americana is interspersed with reltentless disturbing imagery. Good survival is always bloody, and Aja makes us see it without the Hollywood PG-13 tag on it.







9.) District B13

This may have come out in 2005, but District B13 is a fun little action flick that makes me think I can go and parkour around NYC. Gibberish plot about nuclear weapons and a cop/thug team up to stop the nuke from going off. Whatever. The stunts are classic here. Chase scenes as the 2 parkourers (?) go climbing, jumping and vaulting over every man made object. Totally excellent. Totally nuts.








8.) Severance

If the Office (British version) collided with Sean of the Dead, you'd get Severance. One of the most hilarious horroromedy flicks that got me laughing out loud. Bunch of office defense contractors go on a wilderness retreat and encounter some well....you're going to have to find out. The sly witty British humor mixed in with oodles of gory and bloody carnage is well done. Bloody well done.






7.) Snakes on a Plane

Without the internet hysteria, nobody would have seen this except me. But what Snakes is really is going back to basics. Forget the plot, just give me when animals attack in a confined area and I am happy as a kid on Christmas. Samuel L. Jackson plays Mr. Cool and the snakes are well...snakes....on drugs. Good Times.












6.) Feast

If Severance was the British horroromedy entry into this list, Feast is the American version. Where else can you find Henry Rollins playing a motivational speaker and bloody thirsty hell creatures boinking. I'll forgive this is a Project Greenlight movie because Krista Allen and the rest of the unknowns gave me a happy movie about killer monsters rampaing through a small town and attacking a bar where we know most of the characters (paper cutouts explained via a killer funny intro) are going to die. Totally gross, very goofy humor and an insane ending that still gives me hope American horror is not dead after all.






5.) Hard Candy

Question: Can you really make a movie about pedophilia and pass it off as a revenge horror movie?
Answer: Yes

David Slade's Hard Candy doesn't just aimlessly go all Kill Bill but delicately takes our heroine Hayley and disects her meticulous calculated revenge upon Jeff in a most intelligent way. There aren't outright scenes of carnage (except for a wee bit piece of unscheduled surgery). Most of the movie are scenes of painstaking conversation between Hayley and Jeff. And these disturbing talks about nothing and everything make the ending totally mindblowing.




4.) Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Chan-Woo Park's final installment of his Vengeance trilogy isn't as good as Oldboy or Mr. Vengeance but is disturbing and totally magnificent that you downright applaud its precise non chalant feel as you watch it. The characters, the settings and lady vengeance herself Geum-ja Lee are so well done that they make each scene mesmerizing. Of course as in the previous 2 movies, the ending is downright lovely (in that horror sort of way).




3.) Hostel

I hated Eli Roth's Cabin Fever. But I gotta admit, Hostel is a movie designed for the horror fan boy and follows the checklist of making a good horror/splatter movie. Let's go through the list.
Young horny teenagers......check.
Drugs and alcohol......check.
Gratuitous nudity......check.
Relentless gore and splatter.....check.
Plot revealed after 2/3 of the movie that makes the viewer go "oh i get it, that's fucked up"........check.
Ending that just doesn't live up to the entire movie but leaves room for a sequel that opens up this year......check.

You can't deny Hostel's disturbing imagery, ocular trauma and Achille heeling grossness. It almost makes you want to not travel abroad...almost.


2.) Slither

I knew when I saw Slither in the theatre that I was going to love this flick. And it holds firmly to #2 on my list. Spawning off Night of the Creeps and Shivers, it brings back the 80s feel of disgusting creatures infecting human carriers for the 21st century audience. The creatures are slimy and relentless (who cares what they are or why they are here). All that matters is once your infected, you go insane. Nathan Fillion is perfect as the sheriff designated to protect his small town against the parasitic invaders. The ending is so B-movie perfect Peter Jackson would have been proud. So gross, so disgusting, so apalling and over the top, I am proud to have my ticket stub of Slither framed on my wall.





and the best horror movie of 2006 is...................................



1.) The Descent

Without question, The Descent is the best horror movie of 2006. Group of women go sperlunking and all hell breaks loose inside the caves they explore. Natalie Mendoza as Juno steals the show has the pseudo leader who causes tension amongst the group of cave divers try to escape the monstrous cave crawlers. The claustrophobia and relentless darkness are done so eeriley and seemlessly you don't mind scenes that are in complete darkness.
UK ending is waaay better than the US ending and the flick has so many shocks and thrills that as the group goes from point A to point B, the ride is scary as hell. So many good things to say about this flick that by the time I'm done, the inevitable sequel will already be released.




Worst Horror Movies I've seen this year........

Saw 3, Turistas, Final Destination 3, The Hamiltons

Worst Horror Movies everybody agrees were just downright bad.......

Pulse (remake), Stay Alive, The Omen (remake), Black Christmas, The Wicker Man, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, The Grudge 2, When A Stranger Calls, Bloodrayne and plenty more that I shouldn't even take up more space.

The Most Anticiapted Horror/Underground movie of 2007.......

Grindhouse

Underground/Cult/Horror Movies that might be decent in 2007........

The Hitcher, Primeval (saw it, was decent), Black Snake Moan, Zodiac, Sunshine, 28 Weeks Later, Hostel 2, Rob Zombie's Halloween, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon


Blockbuster Movies that will have to be seen in 2007.............

Spiderman 3, Live Free or Die Hard, Transformers, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Simpsons Movie

Tags:
horror movies , top ten , cult , grindhouse, splatter, the hills have eyes, district b13, severance, snakes on a plane , feast, hard candy, lady vengeance, hostel, slither, the descent

Categories: district 13, feast, severance, top 10 horror movies of 2006, top horror movies