Mubi Monday: We Are What We Are (2013)

A remake of a 2010 Mexican movie (which I have yet to see), We Are What We Are is a film I'd been hearing good things about for the past few years. I really wanted to see the original film first, but the timing didn't work out. That leaves me with this insular experience, nothing to compare and contrast it to, so anyone who has seen the 2010 movie should bear that in mind.

The Parker family are a strange lot. The father (Frank, played by Bill Sage) seems to spend a lot of his time reminding his daughters (Rose, played by Julia Garner, and Iris, played by Ambyr Childers) of the importance of their family traditions. There's also a younger son (Rory, played by Jack Gore) to be looked after. And the family are cannibals, which starts to come to the attention of a local doctor (Michael Parks) after he performs an autopsy on the dead mother. As the doctor is also looking for his missing daughter, he has a vested interest in finding out the truth, no matter how unpalatable it may be (no pun intended).

A family drama with occasional dollops of gore, this is a fairly tame and aesthetically-muted film from director Jim Mickle (who reworks the original into screenplay form with his favoured muse, Nick Damici, once again). Fans of his style will recognise his fingerprints throughout but it's impressive to see him create something that manages to feel like his work while also feeling removed from any of his previous outings.

The cast are uniformly excellent, even Gore as the youngest family member. Garner gets the most to do, and handles it all very capably, but Sage and Childers do great work, and Parks gives another of those performances that made him such an additional joy to watch in the latter portion of his career. There are also good supporting turns from Kelly Mcgillis and Wyatt Russell (both also effectively used by Mickle in previous films).

A cannibal movie more about the baggage that can be passed along from one generation to the next, We Are What We Are may prove slightly disappointing to anyone wanting blood-drenched gut-munching. But it should be a worthwhile viewing for those who go in expecting a quality drama with some thrills and a side dish of viscera.

7/10

You can chew on the movie here.
Americans can eat this.

Prime Time: Nightmare Beach (1989)

Nightmare Beach starts with an execution, the execution of a biker named Diablo. He claims to have been set up, and also vows revenge. Skipping forward a year, it's Spring Break time in Miami. Two friends (Nicolas de Toth and Rawley Valverde) join in with the drinking and partying, but soon find their fun being spoiled by a number of inconvenient deaths. Yes, a mysterious biker is picking off a number of revellers, often killing them with a fatal dose of electicity. It's eventually up to Skip (De Toth) and a young woman named Gail (Sarah Buxton) to uncover the identity of the biker, and try to put an end to his killing spree.

Released in 1989, Nightmare Beach feels every bit like a film made much earlier in that decade. It has a bit more of a sheen to it, perhaps, but the pacing and characterisations already feel quite archaic (especially most of the moments involving Valverde, the kind of guy who enjoys telling a woman that smiling more would make her much prettier). Perhaps that didn't seem so obvious back when it was released, and there are a number of films from the end of the decade, and even the start of the '90s, that feel almost designed as quintessential slices of '80s cheese. It makes the film impossible to take seriously now, however, but also helps to make it a hugely entertaining experience.

With direction credited to Umberto Lenzi, although it seems to have actually been helmed by writer Harry Kirkpatrick (AKA James Justice), with Lenzi servind in an advisory capacity, this is a real bag of mixed treats. People looking for a quality classic horror can skip it just now and look for something else, but those of us in the mood for entertaining trash? This is a perfect pick.

De Toth, Valverde, and Buxton are a mixed trio of central performers. None are really memorable, but they're fine. Genre fans will have more fun with the "old guard" onscreen here. You have a small role for Michael Parks, and fun turns from Lance LeGault, as a reverend, and John Saxon, playing a tough cop who may or may not have something to hide. Luis Valderrama is a biker spoiling for a fight, and Yamilet Hidalgo makes quite an impression as his fiery girlfriend.

Despite the attempted mystery element, it's hard to care about the identity of the biker. What matters here are the death scenes, all of them surprisingly impressive and somehow managing to feel different from one another while often managing to use the same method of murder. The pacing is perfect, with deaths interspersed by moments of humour and gratuitous sequences like a wet t-shirt competition (hey, it's Spring Break), and there are enough enjoyable random diversions (e.g. the plot strand with the thief that plays out and then just... ends) that will soon lead you to realise that this is not a film concerned with a cohesive narrative that makes complete sense.

It's a fun time by the beach, that's all. Watch it when you're in the mood for sand, sex, and senseless murders committed by a vengeful biker.

7/10

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Tusk (2014)

Tusk is a strange beast, no pun intended (considering the content of the film). A highly flawed, uneven film that many will find impossible to like, it shows writer-director Kevin Smith continuing to develop and highlight his darker side. Many of his comedies had black humour in them, of course, but it was Red State that really let him dip his toes into something approaching horror. Tusk, at least on the surface, does the same. But the fact that it's actually a comedy makes it a tough one to easily recommend.

Let's get the basic storyline out of the way. Justin Long plays a podcaster named Wallace Bryton. Wallace and his friend,Teddy (Haley Joel Osment), use their airtime to look at clips on the internet of people who have gone viral, mainly through stupidity but sometimes because of certain strange characteristics. Wallace is always after the next big thing with which to shock and impress his audience, which takes him to the home of an old man (Michael Parks) who assures him that he has a story or two to tell. He does indeed have some stories. But his most interesting one hasn't been completed yet, and it may well involve Wallace.

Based on an idea that came about during Smith's own podcast (SModcast), and featuring a number of ideas and even lines of dialogue pre-approved by his fanbase, you'd be forgiven for wondering if Tusk was a franken-film. It certainly feels, at times, like a number of disconnected scenes thrown together with little thought given to the central storyline. Yet it also has a pretty obvious message underlying most of the content, so writing it off as nothing more than an easy fan-pleaser is probably doing it a bit of a disservice. It's also worth noting that every moment that doesn't quite work, every comedic beat that feels too weird, every wild image pushing the film further into dark absurdity, it all shows a confident (or brave . . . . . or foolish) director in the hot seat.

Long isn't at his best here, but he's not too bad. His characters is supposed to be mildly irritating, at best, and he is. Parks is the star turn, reeling off tales that range from the sublime to the ridiculous with equal ease and aplomb. Osment and Genesis Rodriguez both do well in supporting roles, with the latter playing the girlfriend of Long's character, and there's a performance from Johnny Depp to add to another list of his kooky performances. It's that performance, if anything, that should clue viewers in to the fact that this is a pitch black comedy. Although if you don't get it by that point then you've just not been paying attention.

Anyone expecting another piece of nastiness like The Human Centipede (First Sequence) should content themselves by instead renting The Human Centipede: Full Sequence. This is a film aimed more at people who start to grunt and mutter as soon as they hear of yet another internet "celebrity" with no obvious talent. It's not one I'd rush to revisit, but it's certainly an interesting curio.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Tusk-Blu-ray-Michael-Parks/dp/B00NX8RUZE/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1418819387&sr=1-2&keywords=tusk

Death Wish V: The Face Of Death (1994)

The last film in the original franchise, it's a shame that Death Wish 5 is such a damp squib ending the series.

Written and directed by Allan A. Goldstein, this sequel sees Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson in his final film role) returning and getting close to some people who you just assume are going to be hurt in some way. Right enough, the inevitable happens and Kersey goes into full-on gunhappy mode.

With a cast that includes Lesley-Anne Down, Michael Parks, Saul Rubinek and Robert Joy, this movie may have a familiarity factor that the others slightly lacked but it's offset by the fact that it's slightly below average from start to finish. The film even loses the vibe of borderline exploitation nastiness that the preceding four movies had, making it nothing more than a standard revenge action movie that fails to stand up alongside many better films from the the time (ruled, essentially, by the likes of Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger defining modern machismo).

Charles Bronson is still highly watchable, and Michael Parks makes for a decent villain, but there's so little effort put in to the other aspects of the movie that it just feels lazy, tiresome and tired out. The violence isn't shocking enough compared to the previous films and the premise starts to become a bit of a joke, in many ways. Viewers most certainly considered the awful truth by the second or third movie in the series - being close to Paul Kersey is a very dangerous place to be - but it was often hidden behind the escalating violence and the quest for revenge that the central character would embark on. Sadly, there's just not enough going on this time around to detract you from thinking "actually, maybe Paul Kersey just shouldn't get into relationships".

The end of an era in many ways, and the last film role for Bronson, Death Wish 5 is just one disappointment after another. But it's not unwatchable and it doesn't take anything away from the many other great movies that gave us Bronson at his bad-ass best.

4/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Wish-DVD-2012-Release/dp/B0073DOJWM/ref=sr_1_4?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1329081969&sr=1-4