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FROZEN (2010)

If you like the idea of watching a girl pissing herself - set to an uplifting string symphony - then ‘Frozen’ is the film for you.

If you like spotting plot-holes and rushing onto IMDB to write 500 words on how stupid it was that jumping off the chair-lift would be the VERY FIRST THING Dan tried... then ‘Frozen’ is also the film for you.



And why not? The acting in ‘Frozen’ is good. And the story is admirable. Admirable in the way that it happily traps itself in a ridiculous, terrifying-but-boring situation, then gamely tries to make a film out of it. Someone once said the secret of film-making was to "Get your man up a tree. Throw rocks at him. Get him down.” And ‘Frozen’ is the most literal interpretation of this that I have ever seen. Only the tree is a chairlift. And the rocks are wolves. And they’re not thrown. But it’s still quite close.

‘Frozen’, or ‘Chairlift!’ as I would prefer it to be called, starts off with three teens arguing, joking, laughing and generally just wasting screen-time until they pull themselves together and get stuck up the Chairlift! But who will survive and what will become of them?

So – what would you do if you were stuck in a chair-lift? That’s the question we all ask when we watch ‘Chairlift!’. If you’d just jump into a pack of wolves without discussing any options then you’ve got a lot in common with Dan, the first of the chairliftees to (spoiler) die in the most hilarious death I think I’ve ever scene. Apart from Nicolas Cage in The Wicker Man remake obviously.






... and Jon Voight in The Champ.



It’s worth watching the film purely for Dan's death throes alone, as the poor swine howls at the sight of his broken bone protruding from his leg, and then howls even more at the sight of howling wolves turning up and looking a bit peckish. Then, as he's being eaten, he howls.




The laughs even keep coming after Dan dies, as Parker (the girl) recreates the scene from Dumb & Dumber when Jim Carey licks a frozen pole and gets stuck to it.

Then we’ve got the aforementioned pissing scene and some more incredibly exciting stuff as our hapless heroes come up with some innovative-yet-dumb ways of escaping with varying degrees of success. I won’t spoil it for you, but let’s just say the ending is... not all that exciting.

All in all then, fair play to the film-makers in getting themselves stuck up a metaphorical tree and managing to make it laugh out loud funny. If they make a sequel where 3 teenagers take a wrong turning and somehow manage to get themselves stuck up an actual real tree, getting rocks thrown at them, count me in!



If you enjoyed Frozen then you'll also like:

Dumb & Dumber

Alive

Where Eagles Dare

Golden Shower Girls #4

A SERBIAN FILM (2010)

You wake up with no memory. On the TV there is a video of a burly man having rough sex with your prone body. When you go to the toilet, you find yourself pissing blood!!

Yawn - honestly, what’s the big deal? This sounds like a fairly typical Wednesday morning for me, after a Tuesday night out with Big Al from the Accounts Department at work.

It's also one of the many amusing scenes from A Serbian Film, the most shocking film ever made. I can handle watching it because I'm an experienced horror blogger but you, you've got no chance. You'll probably die of shock during the baby shagging scene.

Oh yeah, there's a baby shagging scene where a guy shags a new born baby. Not in real life though, obviously.

But A Serbian Film does have a point. Compare the family at the start of the film - dysfunctional, but happy - with the final scene where they're traumatised, catatonic and have had their lives ripped apart. This is what war does to a family, a country. The message isn't too hard to grasp (like Milo's cock) and what's more the film also looks like it has used the notorious Milgram Experiment as a source of inspiration. So lots of genuine food for thought if you can stop masturbating and/or proclaiming your disgust long enough to think about it.

If you want to watch A Serbian Film, then please do. It’s a full on, unforgettable and blackly (with a capital 'B) humorous cinematic experience. But please don’t blog about it afterwards warning people against seeing it and telling us all how you wish you could wind the clock back and not have to put yourself through it – for our behalf – again. It’s not that bad. Well, it is, but still a lot less painful than watching Mona Lisa Smile for example. All this furore reminds me of the film ‘Funny People’ where a bunch of mental patients end up working in advertising and come up with some fabulous slogans. Their strap-line for the (sadly fictional) horror film ‘The Freak’ goes, “The Freak will fuck you up for the rest of your life!”.

Put it this way, if you’re shocked by the sight of a guy getting killed by an erect penis being thrust into his ocular cavity then A Serbian Film might not be for you. But if this is the case then be warned - you have no sense of fun. And you’ve obviously not been out with me on a Friday night either.

Required further reading to discuss A Serbian Film at dinner parties:

The Milgram Experiment


Serbian War Crimes


Horse Viagra

This trailer will fuck you up for the rest of your life:

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932)

Day #I've stopped counting to be honest.

Whilst whistling a jaunty yet unfamiliar tune as I shaved myself in the igloo mirror this morning, I couldn't help feeling a sense of foreboding, a sense that something just... wasn't quite right. I looked at my reflection peering out at me through the grubby glass and noticed a small cut on my upper lip. Carefully, I dabbed it with my handkerchief. My reflection didn't, and continued to whistle that unfamiliar tune. Then I realised why the tune was so unfamiliar and I had that sense of foreboding - I can't whistle!

I was given no opportunity to ponder this fact however, as my reflection stuck a fist out of the mirror and punched me square in the face, round about where my nose used to be. "Here's something that doesn't happen every day." I remember thinking to myself as I collapsed unconscious on the floor.

When I came to I was strapped to my bed with my assailant standing over me.

"Dammit, he's good looking!" I thought to myself as I asked him "Who the hell are you?"

"You really don't remember, Basil?" replied my attractive attacker. "What on earth have they done to you? I'm Sean Berman. Your twin brother."

This place gets more like a far-fetched pulp horror novel every day...

And... Basil? What kind of name is that?

"Hey, this TV actually works!" I heard my stunningly handsome twin say as I slipped back into sweet unconsciousness...

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932)






The Most Dangerous Game is the first ever celluloid example of one of my favourite horror sub-genres - humans hunting humans!

However, I don't think that the title is particularly apt when you consider that:

A) Humans aren't as dangerous as leopards or tigers really, are they? Oh, I know that humans have greater intelligence and have done more damage to the planet than any other living creature, but If I was walking through the jungle with a hunting rifle I'd rather come face-to-face with, say, Billy Ray Cyrus than a pissed off panther. But that's probably just me...

and

B) Is hunting humans really 'The Most Dangerous Game'? What about Snakes & Ladders with real snakes and rickety ladders that have random rungs missing? What about Hungry Hippos with real Hippos? I'm sure there are many other examples.

But I digress. We're in a small passenger ship traversing through dangerous waters as we meet our hero Bob Rainsford, a hunter by trade. One of Bob's chums engages him in a philosophical discussion along the lines of, "Who is the real savage, man who hunts for pleasure or the beast who hunts for necessity? What would you do if the roles were reversed?"

Bob laughs this off with a "Ha, that'll never happen to me! Never happen! Why, what possible set of circumstances could ever..." CRASH!!!! "What was that noise?"

It was the ship crashing. It sinks.

Bob and the captain are the only survivors!

A shark eats the captain.

Bob is the only survivor!

Somehow he manages to swim ashore unharmed. After wandering around for a bit he spots civilisation in the shape of a large, forbidding looking mansion.

The door creaks open and Bob steps inside. A hairy, scary man appears from behind the door. Bob tries to engage him in polite conversation but gets blanked, much to his annoyance. It never seems to register with Bob that this guy might not actually speak English, so thank goodness for the appearance of Count Zaroff to explain that Bob is speaking to Ivan who not only can't speak English but can't speak, being as he is that classic horror film staple, a mute man-servant.



Ivan is actually played by the African-American actor Noble Johnson - making this the earliest known example of a black actor play a Caucasian character.

Count Zaroff cuts a fine figure, I must say. Perfectly groomed facial hair, elegantly tailored suit and with a cigarette holder held just so.



He's foppish and he's fey and has impeccable manners, as he cordially welcomes Bob to his humble abode and has Ivan show him to a room, explaining that he has other guests who have also been shipwrecked. It would appear that Bob has had a stroke of luck finding the mansion. Count Zaroff seems like a really nice guy.



He's quite insane, of course.

Bob freshens himself up (luckily this was the 1930s, in the days before people got traumatised by being in disasters and getting chased by sharks) and meets his fellow shipwreckees; an annoying drunk called Martin Towbridge and his distinctly unannoying sister Eve Towbridge, played by the stunning Fay Wray.




Naturally, Bob makes a beeline for Eve.

Eve seems somewhat unhappy with the situation, and we see Bob surreptitiously sniff his armpit. But it turns out that it's Count Zaroff that is worrying Eve. "Two of our party have gone missing! They were last seen entering Count Zaroff's trophy room!"

"Hic! I'm going with Count Zaroff to his trophy room!" shouts her drunken brother, cheerily.

"Stop bothering me Martin, I'm trying to explain to Bob about people going missing!" she replies.

Anyway, Martin is never seen again. Bob and Eve search for him later that night, and creep into the trophy room. It's full of heads. Human heads!

"Something's not quite right here..." thinks Bob, but he has no time to piece the clues together as Zaroff and Ivan burst in and tie Bob and Eve up.

Zaroff helpfully explains the situation which we knew anyway - Zaroff likes hunting humans. But he recognises Bob as a fellow hunter and asks him if he'd like to join him in his horrifying human hunting hobby. Bob says no, one thing leads to another and before you know it Bob and Eve are running for their lives through the jungle (which you'll recognise as being the same jungle used in King Kong. You may also have recognised the screams of the shipwrecked sailors being the same as the screams of the equally unlucky sailors shaken off a log by Kong).

I almost forgot the rules - If Bob and Eve last until dawn, they're free to go. And Bob's been given a knife. That's all.

"Oh I'm slowing you up I shouldn't have came!" shouts Eve as they come to the edge of a cliff. You can see that Bob is thinking that she's right and he'd have been better off without her, but being a gentleman he keeps quiet about it.

Bob sets a couple of clever traps but Zaroff equally cleverly evades them, the clever count!



He's right behind Bob and Eve now and sets his dogs on Bob! Bob manages to fight one off, but here comes another one! And it's a big bitch!

The remaining few minutes of the film are pretty damn exciting and full of incident. Perhaps I'm being over-cautious in not wishing to give away spoilers for a film that's over 80-years old, but look, it's only an hour long. You should really watch it. And because it's Public Domain I can post a link to the full version here (I think) for your viewing pleasure. So here it is. Enjoy:


Watch The Most Dangerous Game

Inside The Slaughtered Lamb 2010

Much excitement was had over the weekend when, on a rare trip from Igloo-Land, I went for a rather nice meal in a country pub. I opted for Pork Belly on stir-fried Cabbage, topped with Mustard Mash and washed down with a light and fruity Beaujolais. It was fantastic, it really was:



PS I almost forgot, the pub in question was The Black Swan in Effingham, Surrey, a key landmark in horror film history as it was the interior of The Slaughtered Lamb pub which Jack and David had the misfortune to stumble into in, of course, An American Werewolf in London.

It's now almost unrecognisable unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately come to think of it) and there were no weird goings-on to be reported. Although at one point, I could have sworn my Guinness magically refilled itself...

Also rather aptly, the nearby hotel I stayed in was called The Talbot Inn.

Here's some professionally taken photographs:

A shot of the bar itself



The door where Jack and David walked in (and out) and sat down to the left of. It's no longer a functioning entrance (or exit) to the pub, so go round the back.



Excuse me but what's that star on the... oh, it's gone...



Bit of history to finish with.

Becoming...

“Enjoy your exile, murderer!” shouted the pilot and co-pilot in unison as they threw me out the plane. “Don’t I get a parachute?” I replied, not unreasonably I thought. But it was too late, and I was already plummeting to the icy wastes below...

Luckily I landed on some soft snow and some talking penguins sheltered and fed me. Until I realised I was hallucinating, and they left on a magic carpet.

And so I found myself wandering. Lost, half-mad and half-dead, all hope gone. Then I saw the igloo.

Something uncanny about it, I remember thinking. Maybe it was the supernatural glow that seemed to emanate deep from within it. Maybe it was the sense of destiny that I felt as I stumbled towards it. Maybe it was the large wooden sign saying ‘Igloo of the Uncanny’ nailed above the door…

It was warm inside. The old man said nothing as he handed me a hot drink. I gulped it down greedily and fell into a deep sleep. Such strange dreams… glaring hospital lights... blue pills and bibles... and when I awoke the old man had gone. But when my eyes fell upon his dirty old shaving mirror, I saw his face staring back at me.


Maybe I’ve always been him.

Maybe I’ve always been here.

Women of Horror that we need to see more of #23 - Lisa Houle

If you’ve seen Pontypool – and you really must – then you’ll be in love with Lisa Houle and her beautifully judged, multi-layered performance which manages to be incredibly moving yet bloody funny at the same time.



And you’ll probably be in love with her as a person too. Which I hope co-star Stephen McHattie is, because he’s married to her. Here's a pic from their wedding day album:



Incredibly she’s hardly acted on-screen if those reliable people at IMDB are to be trusted:

# "Pontypool" .... Sydney Briar (2008)
# "Emily of New Moon" .... Eve Kinch / ... (7 episodes, 1998-2000)
# "Due South" .... Madeline Carnes (1 episode, 1996)
# "Seinfeld" .... Cheryl (1 episode, 1993)
# "Scene of the Crime" (1991) TV series (various episodes)

Of course, it may be that she doesn’t particularly want to act and has other things going on in her life, which is fine. Except it’s not because it affects me. Let’s see Lori in lot’s more films from now on - McHattie, do some house-sitting!

EVIL DEAD - REMAKE

In Claymation. In 60 seconds.

Evil Dead done in 60 seconds with CLAY - 2010 from Lee Hardcastle on Vimeo.

... just one of the nominations for the Jameson Empire 'Done in 60 Seconds 'Awards 2010. You can view the rest of the nominations here, including Avatar, Predator and Nightmare on Elm Street...