Long Time Dead (2002)

Some days I remember the younger me as an idiot. That is true in many different ways (and the younger me can be the me of decades ago or the me from the last time I drank alcohol), but I am sometimes reminded of it unexpectedly. Take Long Time Dead, for example. This is a British horror film I was looking forward to revisiting, having enjoyed it on VHS when it was first released and remembering it fondly over the intervening years. I believe I have probably mentioned it whenever people have asked for lesser-known horror gems. So getting to rewatch it was a treat. Then I remembered that the younger me was an idiot. Long Time Dead is not good.

Directed by Marcus Adams, someone with only a small selection of features interspersed throughout the many music videos he has helmed, Long Time Dead has a decent, and simple, idea at the heart of it. A group of relatively young and carefree people play around with a home-made ouija set-up (using an upturned glass and letters written on pieces of paper) and unleash something supernatural and dangerous. The problems start with the mix of annoying characters, but things get worse when the writers, and it took about four people to write this thing, decide to complicate their story by making the leads suspect that the killer entity could be a djinn.

Joe Absolom, Marsha Thomason, Lara Belmont, Melanie Gutteridge, James Hillier, Alec Newman, Lukas Haas, and Mel Raido make up the core group, with Absolom, looking to move from TV into movies, given what feels like the central role, but jostling alongside Thomason and Newman as the film-makers shift focus and spend the runtime turning what should have been a lean and entertaining horror into something that feels baggy and loose, and occasionally even laughable.

I am not going to name all of the writers, none of them have the biggest filmographies worth exploring, but the script certainly feels like too many chefs spoiling the broth. There are a couple of great moments - one highlight, although it may not sound as good written down here, shows the exterior of a house where some lights are being turned on by someone fearing for their life, only to see them being turned off again - but they are very few and far between. And even when the script is working well, the dark visuals can make it hard to enjoy what should be a nice bit of tension.

There’s one great death scene, as entertaining as it is preposterous and illogical, but everything becomes tiresome by the time the third act starts to play out. Revelations don’t feel surprising, repeated sequences of characters being stalked just become boring, and there’s nobody who feels worth really rooting for. 

Is it unwatchably awful? No. It’s just not worth your time. It clocks in at just over the 90-minute mark, which is a plus, but it feels like it runs longer than that. I still like that central idea though. Someone should take it, strip away all the fat, work with a better visual palette, and give us a much better end result.

3/10

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I Spit On Your Grave 2 (2013)

As soon as it was announced that a movie entitled I Spit On Your Grave 2 was being released fans of exploitation fare started to get a bad taste in their mouths. The original movie was an astonishing, powerful piece of nastiness, praised and pilloried in almost equal measure. The 2010 remake, on the other hand, was better than expected, mainly because it walked a fine line between the unpleasant aspects of the material and the fun to be had watching the leading lady get her revenge. I Spit On Your Grave 2 has nothing to appeal to fans of the previous movies, other than a title that instantly lets people know there will be rape and revenge.

Jemma Dallender plays Katie, a young woman who wants to try her hand at modelling. Her portfolio needs updating, but she can't really afford it. Well, that is until she finds an ad that offers a free photoshoot. Unfortunately, when she's at the photoshoot, Katie is asked if she wants to do some topless shots. She doesn't. And THAT starts off a chain of events that lead to her being kidnapped, raped and abused, which then leads to a vengeance-filled third act.

There's a degree of technical competence on display here, and that's the only reason that I rate this movie as highly as I do. Director Steven R. Monroe tends to keep the camera pointing in the right direction. Oh, and Jemma Dalllender does fine in the lead role, and there's one pleasingly nasty moment during the final few minutes. That's it. Three reasons to save this from the lowest score possible.

Everything else in this movie is dross. The script, by Thomas Fenton and Neil Elman, is lazy, none of the supporting cast members make a decent impression (and Joe Absolom is the worst of them all with his horrible, fake accent), and both the first and second half fail at whatever they're supposed to achieve.

It's obvious that those involved just didn't have the guts to go through with something genuinely shocking, but they should have realised that you can't make a rape revenge flick for a wide demographic. When the main abuse is either too polished, or edited in a way to make it easier to stomach, it loses a lot of its power. Watching any such abuse should make viewers uncomfortable. It's the least that any such cinematic victim deserves, because this kind of thing can't just be a plot device for a lacklustre thriller. It's not something to be used lightly, otherwise we'd end up with a situation that puts Liam Neeson in a film entitled Taken III: I Spit On Your Shamrock. Or something.

Likewise, revenge being doled out should be visceral and harsh, but also believably delivered. As sorta-decent as Dallender is, she never convinces in the second half of the movie, which leaves the revenge feeling quite flat and unentertaining (strange choice of word, but you know what I mean - it's always satisfying to see scumbags get their just desserts onscreen).

So, I think that just about sums up all of my feelings on this piece of rubbish. I know that some people will enjoy it more than I did, but I seriously doubt that this is a movie that any of us will even remember by next year.

3/10

http://www.amazon.com/Spit-Your-Grave-Blu-ray/dp/B00DMUFYZQ/ref=sr_1_2_bnp_1_blu?ie=UTF8&qid=1401480117&sr=8-2&keywords=i+spit+on+your+grave+2