THEM (2006)

aka "Ils"
Directors: David Moreau and Xavier Palud

Synopsis: The French being determined to make a good horror movie, Ils, or Them, shows the supposedly true story of a young couple terrorized by a group of intruders at their country home.

My take: Let's begin with what is wrong with this film -
1. The story is too formulaic, offering only a slightly different twist to this genre. The concept of Them is much like Funny Games, only without the anti-violence message. The twist to the story is kind of intriguing, but the scares are not really all that original.
2. Also like Funny Games, the couple here is pretty ineffective. They don't really attempt to fight back against their attackers. How the husband manages to get stabbed in the ass by a broken glass door and thus incapacitate himself for the rest of the film is beyond me.
3. The couple deserves everything that happens to them for owning this particular house. It is the perfect horror movie house with its long, spooky hallways, its remote woodland location, construction area complete with hanging plastic sheets, and the extensive underground system of poorly lit tunnels under their house.
4. This was too short for a movie, and alot of it was filler material. With some more judicious editing, this would clock in at under an hour.
5. I didn't need the 'where are they now' stuff at the end - this is just a cheap way of avoiding actually showing the end of the story.

But, maybe I'm being overly critical. Them was a damn scary movie at times, fun to watch in the dark with a bunch of easily frightened friends. The opening sequence was fairly intense. There are no monsters, nothing supernatural, just pure, realistic terror, the kind of stuff that makes you want to run out and buy a gun.

Body count: 7

Moron Award: The woman is being held down and molested(?) by 2 attackers. The husband kills one of them and then the couple trusts the other one when he says he won't hurt them and wants to help them gets away?

2 out of 4 Zombie Faces

MASTERS OF HORROR: RIGHT TO DIE (2007)

Director: Rob Schmidt

Synopsis: A dentist is faced with the tough choice of whether or not to pull the plug on his comatose wife after a bad car accident. His decision changes as he becomes tormented by the retribution-seeking ghostly spirit of his wife.

My take: I am enjoying these Twilight Zone/Tales from the Crypt style MoH episodes (Right to Die, Chocolate, Pick Me Up) much more than the ridiculous zombie/vampire episodes (Haeckel’s Tale, Dance of the Dead, Dreams in the Witch-House), I think they are much more suspenseful and interesting to watch. This episode proceeded very well most of the way, providing a good mix of nightmarish gore and mystery. However, things do start falling apart towards the end ***SPOILERS*** with the re-imagining of the car crash and the do-it-yourself skin graft. Overall though, it was entertaining for an hour. The potentially controversial right-to-die issues really don't come in to play much here, it exists as more of just a background story to the supernatural occurances.

Favorite Part: The woman’s grisly body crawling around was pretty cool and creepy.

Body count: 3

2 out of 4 Zombie Faces

MASTERS OF HORROR: CHOCOLATE (2005)

Director: Mick Garris

Synopsis: A recently divorced and lonely food researcher starts having strange hallucinations where he is sensing things through the body of a beautiful female artist/murderer. As these visions get worse, he goes on an obsessive quest to find out who this woman is.

My take: This episode has taken a lot of criticism for not really being horror – I thought it was. Randomly losing your own vision, hearing, etc. and experiencing these senses through someone else’s body would be pretty damn terrifying if you ask me. When you mix in the element of murder and the mystery of trying to locate the woman, you end up with what I felt was a thrilling episode. Maybe it was slow at first, maybe there wasn’t a whole lot of blood and gore, but it was a solid story, and it was well acted by Elliot from E.T., all grown up now. My only complaints were an unnecesary shower masturbation scene, and the abrupt ending, but I can’t really think of a better way to wrap it up.

Body Count: 2

2 out of 4 Zombie Faces

MASTERS OF HORROR: PICK ME UP (2006)

Director: Larry Cohen

Synopsis: A bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere in Washington state. The passengers are taken out one-by-one as two separate serial killers happen to converge on the area.

My take: This one turned out to be pretty entertaining – the concept of two serial killers trying to one-up each other was fun to watch. The entire way through, you are guessing how it will turn out, which killer will prevail, and the ending does not disappoint. While it has some frightening moments, the overall tone is more humorous. Michael Moriarity in the role of the truck driver serial killer really ends up stealing the show. The rest of the acting is very uneven though, the people that play the victims are just terrible. While not extraordinary, this episode was enjoyable.

Body Count: 9 plus a rattlesnake

Best Death: The bus driver gets strangled to death with aforementioned rattlesnake. I don’t think that’s been done before, although wasn’t quite as cool as it sounds like it would be.

2 out of 4 Zombie Faces

IZO (2004)

Director: Takashi Miike

Synopsis: The film starts out with Izo, a notorious assassin, being executed in ancient Japan. What follows is Izo’s punishment in the afterlife – he is doomed to bounce (literally) through time and space, killing anybody he encounters. And that’s pretty much the extent of the plot, Izo killing lots of people.

My take: Even hardcore Takashi Miike fans have mixed feelings about this one. Watching Izo kill people is fun for a while, but gets tiring and tedious after 2 hours. This is often described as the “false plot” because its not what the movie is actually about, even though it takes up the majority of the film. Miike tries to infuse deeper meaning into the movie’s true plot with reflections on redemption, human nature, and criticism of Japan’s violent history (especially WWII), but sometimes this comes across as pretentious. There are some really good analyses floating around on the internet, if you really care by the time you reach the end of the movie. Some points for creativity though – all the trademark Miike film-making is here.

The Rundown: I count 123 on-screen deaths (yes, I counted them all), but there is room for philosophical discussion here – do some of the dead count twice if Izo kills them once in the world of the living and then a second time in the spirit world? Does Izo killing a spiritual representation of himself count?

Best death: So many to choose from…I’d have to say Izo’s execution at the beginning was my favorite, he gets crucified and run through with spears and wets himself.

Favorite moment: The end of the movie, because it really was too long. And also because it was cool watching “Mother Earth” give birth to a fully grown adult Izo.

2 out of 4 Zombie Faces