29/07/2011

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

15/04/2011

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: