These Final Hours (2013)

Nathan Phillips stars here as James, a selfish mess of a young man who is trying to get to a party, and to his girlfriend. He wants to get drunk and messy, but ends up distracted from his main journey by a young girl (Rose, played by Angourie Rice) he ends up saving from some dangerous pedophiles. The two head along to the party, an occasion with added significance for being the last one that many will attend. The world is about to end, you see, and people are making choices about how to spend their last living moments. Many want to break rules and wallow in excess and debauchery, some just want to find the right person with which to shuffle off the mortal coil.

Written and directed by Zak Hilditch, These Final Hours is a very good film, technically speaking, that just didn’t resonate with me. I finally checked this out after friends mentioned it recently, and nobody really had a bad word to say about it, so I expected good things. Weirdly, I can recognise all of the individual moments that should affect and move me. They just didn’t work, mainly because this film feels so derivative of many other films in this specific sub-genre without ever really committing to any specific tone. You have moments of tension, but they are too fleeting. You have moments of strong emotion, but they are often held in check by the characters. You have a good central relationship between James and Rose, but it already begins with everyone knowing that they won’t have much time together.

Phillips and Rice are both excellent in their roles, believable and easy to root for, especially when compared to almost everyone else appearing in the movie. Sarah Snook makes a strong impression as a woman who sees her own daughter in Rose, Daniel Henshall is the party host, and both Kathryn Beck and Jessica de Gouw play the main women figuring in plans that James has for his last day of life. Lynette Curran also deserves a mention, onscreen for a key scene between James and his mother.

I cannot put my finger on why I didn’t like this as much as so many other people. I like the cast, I like the journey that the main characters go on, I like the decisions made by Hilditch to avoid providing any easy escape, or deus ex machine, for his leads. I just didn’t truly settle in to the full experience, and I was always wondering about the many different directions this could have gone in, to make the film a bit darker or lighter. Maybe it hits a bit differently after seeing how awful human beings can be when there’s even a hint of something affecting their day to day lives, which makes the behaviours shown here far from shocking. Or maybe I am just growing a bit more heartless and/or stoic in my “old age”. 

5/10

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Netflix And Chill: Snakes On A Plane (2006)

Okay, I understand if you hate the idea of Snakes On A Plane because, as it was developed, decisions were made to lean into the silliness of the b-movie concept and try to create an instant cult hit. Some people view that as a cynical ploy, and they think it makes the film a lesser one. That's not really true though, is it? You could say that most major movies are made that way, with a central idea fleshed out and tweaked to appeal most to whatever demographic they're aiming for. Snakes On A Plane may not be a major movie, but it certainly tries to be a hugely entertaining one, with the budget used well as things move quickly from one enjoyable set-piece to the next.

Nathan Phillips plays Sean Jones, a young man who has witnessed an execution carried out by the deadly and powerful Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson). With his life in danger, Sean ends up in the care of Agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson), a man who convinces him that the best way to stay alive is to testify against Eddie Kim and get him in jail. The two board a plane to Los Angeles. And that's where the main plan starts to become clear, with Eddie Kim having apparently exhausted every other possibility in his thoughts about stopping Sean. The plane is full of typical disaster movie stereotypes. You get a flight attendant (Claire, played by Julianna Margulies) on her last job, a young woman (Mercedes, played by Rachel Blanchard) with a small dog, a mother and child, two unaccompanied minors, a horny couple, a moaning Brit (Paul, played by Gerard Plunkett), and others. There's also Three G's (Flex Alexander) and his two "minders" (Troy, played by Kenan Thompson, and Big Leroy, played by Keith Dallas). The timer counts down. The snakes are released from their container in the hold. There have been pheromones sprayed strategically to, in the scientific parlance, send them fucking mental. 

As silly as you expect it to be, Snakes On A Plane is also a fun rollercoaster ride for the runtime of 1 hour and 45 minutes. It is much more terrifying if you really have a phobia of snakes, which I found out this time around while watching it with someone very ophidiophobic. But no matter how you feel about the creatures, there's no denying that this film tries hard to make everyone squirm, showing you snakes casually snaking their way into places they really shouldn't (biting boobs, coming up from toilet bowls, heading up skirts, nestling inside bags, etc). The script by John Heffernan and Sebastian Gutierrez mixes things up nicely, also building up the problems caused with the actual mechanics of the plane.

Moments of dodgy CGI aside, although some of it holds up surprisingly well (it's very hit and miss, as you might expect considering the time it was made and budget), director David R. Ellis does good work at the helm. The layout is easily displayed, the characters get to interact with one another, and one or two deaths are actually unexpected. The snakes are varied enough, although most of the deaths result from them lashing out to bite people, and the perils doted around the plane are numerous as panic takes hold.

Jackson may get to deliver THAT line, and is his usual cool self, but everyone else mentioned does well to remember what film they're in. They play their roles with admirably straight faces, going through some standard soap opera moments. I'm not going to say that anyone here is doing anything worthy of awards recognition, but everyone knows the tone of the film. Lin Shaye, Sunny Mabrey, and Bruce James also do well as the other flight attendants, David Koechner and Tom Butler are the pilots, and Bobby Cannavale and Todd Louiso end up working together, as FBI agent and snake expert, respectively, to race against time in order to deliver a variety of anti-venoms to the victims, IF the plane can land somewhere in time.

It ain't high art, but this is absolutely perfect fodder to liven up an afternoon, or to enjoy any evening when you want something that doesn't require too much thought. I have owned the DVD for years now, and this recent rewatch was an even better viewing experience than the last time I watched it (and not JUST because my girlfriend sometimes cried out "oh, shit the bed" during certain moments of serpentine carnage).

7/10

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Shudder Saturday: Blood Vessel (2019)

When Blood Vessel started, I am not going to pretend that I didn't make a couple of assumptions. The first one was a prediction of the ending, and I am happy to say that I was wrong. The second one was a thought about this being a remake of a fun '80s horror Death Ship. If you're a horror fan of a certain age then you remember Death Ship, even if you never saw the movie itself. It was yet another one of those titles that had a ubiquitous trailer during the early-ish days of VHS.

But that is neither here nor there, because Blood Vessel is a different beast. And it happens to feature a different beast. It starts with a group of people drifting along in a life raft. They're in the North Atlantic. It's 1945. Tired, thirsty, and hungry, their fortunes may change when they pass by a huge ship that they manage to board. It's a Nazi ship though, but also a seemingly abandoned one. As this is a horror movie, however, viewers can be pretty sure that the ship is not as abandoned as it seems. The corpses littered around show that something very bad happened. But what? That may be revealed in time for the second half. 

Directed by Justin Dix, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jordan Prosser, this is a film that ends up becoming a bit more disappointing after every main sequence. Not that anything is handled so badly that it is unforgivable, it's just that it starts off with a bunch of very familiar tropes and never does anything to subvert them. The stock group of characters feel as if they could be lifted from any other survival horror movies (the greedy one, the "fair maiden", the person of lower rank who is now an equal, the enemy they are forced to work with, the person driven by self-preservation, etc), and not enough of them stand out from the group to help you become invested in wanting them to stay safe. That's a shame, because Dix does a great job in the other departments, making the visual side of things a real treat. The production design throughout, the special effects, the camerawork, all of those things are great. The two main areas that let things down are the script and the main death scenes, with the latter even more disappointing than the former in some ways (us horror fans are used to some weak writing, but one or two spectacular deaths can often make up for that).

The cast don't do a bad job. Nathan Phillips is the rough potential leading man, and Alyssa Sutherland is the leading lady, both at times arguably better than the material they have to work with. The rest of the group allows for turns from Robert Taylor, Christopher Kirby, Alex Cooke, Mark Diaco, and John Lloyd Fillingham. It's a shame that they're all wasted, with nobody getting a big moment here and there to punctuate the proceedings (although you can tell that some scenes have that aim). Ruby Isobel Hall makes a stronger impression in her role, a young girl named Mya who is found on the boat, but even she is just a riff on the whole "Newt in Aliens" storyline.

Not a hard film to watch, Dix tries to at least pace everything well and it doesn't overstay its welcome, but Blood Vessel could have been much better than it is. It could have been a bloody and exciting adventure, whereas it ends up feeling like a flashback episode of The Strain instead.

5/10

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Wolf Creek (2005)

Based on true events. It's a line that has been used to market movies for a long time now, and it's hardly ever accurate. Wolf Creek is based on a couple of famous murder cases, but it could just as easily be a complete work of fiction. At least this horror movie doesn't make the same mistake that so many other "based on true events" horror movies make. It remembers to actually deliver some real horror.

Nathan Phillips, Kestie Morassi and Cassandra Magrath play, respectively, Ben, Kristy and Liz, three youngsters who head off on a long road trip to see some of the sights that Australia has to offer. Ben is a born and bred Australian, while Kristy and Liz are both from Britain. They all, however, end up as potential victims when they have car trouble in the middle of nowhere. That's when Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) turns up. He seems like a very helpful man. Of course, appearances can be deceptive.

Written and directed by Greg Mclean, showing no signs that this is his first feature, Wolf Creek is an intense horror that isn't easily forgotten once the end credits have rolled. It takes its time, allowing viewers to get to know, and warm to, Ben, Kristy and Liz in the first half of the movie before then dragging them through a hellish ordeal. Some people may find their patience stretched a bit too thin, but the second half certainly provides a big pay-off. Rewatching it today made me wince and cringe all over again, just as I did when I saw it for the first time.

Phillips is a ball of energy as Ben, but Morassi and Magrath don't slouch alongside him. All three of the young travellers feel like real people, imperfect and not quite as prepared for their adventuring as they could be. And then there's Jarratt, giving horror fans a new horror villain, with a performance equal parts entertaining and terrifying. Mick Taylor is not an unstoppable boogeyman. On the contrary, he just happens to be someone who is very good at his awful hobby, especially when compared to his prey, who are unwary and unable to get their bearings in the countryside sprawling all around them. He may not be a new horror icon, but he comes pretty close, and Jarratt is undoubtedly the star of the show.

Not one for the faint-hearted, Wolf Creek is a nerve-shredding experience that doesn't have to throw blood and guts all over the screen to get a reaction. There IS some of the red stuff flowing, don't get me wrong, but viewers will tend to react most strongly to the relatively bloodless, yet no less visceral, moments.

There are a couple of flaws, mainly with the structuring of the second half and the less plausible moments that take it into proper slasher territory, yet they're not enough to drag it down too far. This remains a superior modern horror, and I'm sure that it has put more than a few people off the idea of a backpacking holiday.

8/10

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