Knock Knock

Director: Eli Roth (2015)
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Lorenza Izzo, Ana de Armas
Find it: IMDB

Knock knock. Who's there? Why, an Eli Roth film that doesn't massively annoy or largely disappoint, hopefully. No such luck with this one, which mostly manages to sidestep the latter (my expectations for Roth being fairly low at this point) but delivers on the former in spades. It's a Keanu Reeves horror film though! And for that, it deserves a look-in, at least.

Reeves plays loving dad and devoted husband Evan Webber, an American one-percenter with a house almost as beautiful as his wife and kids. Staying at home to work while said family take off to the beach for the weekend, Evan settles in for the night with only his old rock music, weed (it is an Eli Roth joint after all) and dog for company. And then there's a knock at the door...

It's here where Knock Knock is at its most fun - the bashful, confused but tempted family man battling against the attentions of two nubile damsels, both of whom seem uttery determined to do the dirty with the dim dad. It plays like a hilarious game of cat and mouse; a sexy farce in which Keanu keeps leaping out of seats, changing the subject and desperately trying to keep his cock in his undies while two very young, very beautiful young ladies offer him 'free pizza' on a silver platter. Keanu's words, not mine. Talking of Keanu's words: how much did Uber pay Eli Roth to get him to have Evan declare the taxi service 'the only reliable way to travel'?

Where it all dives into familiar tedium is after the deed is done, when Roth's horror inclinations are allowed to come out to play. What follows is like a cross between Hard Candy*, Fatal Attraction, Funny Games* and Sheri Moon Zombie's performance in House of 1000 Corpses*, intensified double via Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas. Trashing the house, drawing gigantic hairy boners on his wife's fancy artwork (alright, that did make me laugh) and acting like shrieking snot children, the duo give two of the most annoying performances I've seen in a horror film in years. Which would sort of be the point, I guess, so well done.

Which is more than we can say for Keanu, who is surprisingly bad at times. Fair play to the man for following up the wonderful John Wick with a film in which he plays a victimised idiot who spends almost the entirety of the second half tied to a chair, helpless and ridiculed. This he does gamely enough, but there's nothing about his performance which couldn't have been replicated by any number of less famous, lesser-paid actors. His presence is a gimmick - a gimmick which works well, but a gimmick nonetheless.

Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Keanu.

Keanu who?

Keanooooooo, not my ears!

Shorn of the expectation that comes with his enormously delayed Green Inferno*, this understated home invasion piece is short and sharp enough that it's hard to get into a tizz. Besides, it is pretty effective in its constant ratcheting of the tension, and admirably inventive in torturing poor Keanu. Like everything Roth has done so far, it has a tendency to go overboard, but it's worth a look at least. Even better, it finishes on one of the best laughs I've had from a horror film in years.

Knock Knock isn't a terrible film by any stretch, but it is Uber annoying.

*Which I also found to be tremendously irritating.

Mother's Day (2010)

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman (2010)
Starring: Rebecca De Mornay, Jaime King, Shawn Ashmore
Find it: IMDB

Note: this review has lost a Screaming Scream Queen since I watched it in 2013. Between then and now, I have seen the original Mother's Day and this, sirs and madams, does not compare well. 

A family of criminals break into a house full of the bickering middle classes and their also bickering, also middle class friends (plus crap toupee) looking to recover a stash of money they left there years ago. Leading the criminal clan is Natalie 'Mother' Koffin (the hand that rocked the cradle, Rebecca De Mornay) who proves to be just as ruthless and violent as her horrible sons. Mother's Day is a heartwarming tale of the bond betwixt mother and child.

Mother's Day also continues a recent trend in horror movies in which Shawn Ashmore (Iceman from X-Men) plays useless characters in horror movies and lets everyone he loves die around him. Here he plays a doctor, but not a good one, like The Doctor or Doctor Dre; no, a sad, wet one, like Doctor Jack from LOST.

He's not alone though: all of the characters in Mother's Day are either unlikeable or ineffectual. Sometimes they're both. The house guests (the invited ones) argue and lie and throw one another under the bus at the slightest chance of survival. It's little wonder that Mother Koffin gets so frustrated with the lying bastards. In its treatment of the characters and depiction of its villains, Mother's Day feels very old-fashioned, like an authentic video nasty or exploitation flick. Darren Lynn Bousman does a great job with this remake; it's far more enjoyable than any Saw movie (of which Bousman directed the best instalments) - it's tense, thrilling and a lot of fun, even in its more unpleasant moments. It also stars Briana Evigan, which I most definitely approve of.   

Mother's Day is a remake, but it is one of the decent ones. It's nowhere near as intelligent, inventive or original as the film upon which it is based, but then it doesn't take much from that movie other than a few character names, death sequences and a title. It's largely content to go off and do its own thing, which is infinitely preferable to scene-for-scene robbery or cheap imitation. Stack this among such remakes as The Hills Have Eyes and Dawn of the Dead, in that they do justice to their predecessors without completely re-inventing the wheel.   

Happy Mother's Day, mummies! This review is not dedicated to my mother though, because she most definitely would not approve of this movie. She's more of a Walking Dead woman, herself.

Truth or Dare

Director: Robert Heath (2012)

Starring: Tom Kane, Jack Gordon, Florence Hall

Find it: IMDB

The reason I don't play Truth or Dare. Or go to parties. Or have friends. In Truth or Dare, a gang of friends play a game of terrible truth or dare. Tied to chairs and bullied to death, all in the name of vengeance, it may just be the worst game of their lives. See, you don't get this shit playing Scrabble. At least, not unless you're taking it really seriously, in which case you should probably chill out a bit.

Led into the woods to attend the birthday party of a chap nobody really liked, the protagonists of Truth or Dare bring everything they get upon themselves. The villain of the piece isn't much better - a homophobic posh army veteran (think James Blunt, except not quite as beautiful) - so we're left with very few people to sympathise with. As secrets are revealed and truths are unsheathed, that list of the not-as-loathsome becomes smaller and smaller. One person, to be exact: the lovely and fairly decent Florence Hall. Well, it's impossible to hate someone called Florence. My nan's name is Florence, so there, I have proof.

Better Florence than her horrible ex-boyfriend, Chris (Gordon), the guy responsible for setting a whole chain of events into motion. He does have an impressive David Hess style perm though, so at least he has his redeeming feature. Much like the film has a few of its own. For all the annoying characters, bad acting (none of the kids can do villainous for shit) and Saw type torture bollocks, it does offer a few surprises by the time the denouement rolls about. At least one of these I saw coming, but there are some nifty left-field shocks that might make the film worth your while.

The truth is (predictable joke) I would recommend this film in spite of its more irritating flaws; it's worth a watch, even if it is only for a dare (predictable joke).

The Collection

Director: Marcus Dunstan (2012)

Starring: Josh Stewart, Emma Fitzpatrick, Lee Tergesen

Find it: IMDB

In my review of The Collector, I had a good old whine about the state of modern horror. Coming at the tail end of the whole torture tripe Zeitgeist, it was a surprisingly good horror film marred by a number of silly contrivances and a wholly predictable ending. Oh, that ending. A self-consciously cynical, sequel-baiting ending that anyone who'd ever seen a horror film before in their life would have sussed out from the moment that bloody red box appeared on the scene.

That sequel is here with The Collection, in which the Collector returns to add a few new assholes to his collection. Stewart returns as Arkin, the unfortunate would-be cat burglar added to the Collector's box set the last time around. Escaping after the Collector attacks an underground rave (thereby rendering my earlier rant redundant) Arkin finds himself free, at last. But in the very best of horror movie traditions, his ordeal is barely over before he volunteers to go toe-to-toe against the Collector again. For the Collector has kidnapped a pretty young rich girl (Fitzpatrick) and her daddy's mercenaries are out to recover her. Led by Lucello (the great Lee Tergesen) Arkin and the mercenaries enter the Collector's lair. Because, y'know, calling the police from the doorstep was apparently not an option. Collecting ensues.

The Collection is more or less a straight redo of its predecessor, and feels less original and interesting because of that. With its armed mercenaries wandering around the house getting picked off one by one, The Collection is a cross between the first Resident Evil film and Saw. There are even zombies, in the shape of the Collector's brainwashed victims, who attack the interlopers like slavering attack dogs. There are some cool traps and brutal gore gags, but too much of The Collection is like a replay of the original film. And there are at least three too many incidents of our heroes running into a room to rescue a screaming, distressed victim, only to discover that it was a trap laid by the villain. Frankly, some people deserve to be locked up in suitcases and tortured relentlessly by a twinkly-eyed man in a luchador mask. Yes, by that, I mean stupid people. I'm suggesting that stupid people should be locked up in boxes and tortured. But only mildly so. I'm not a complete psychopath.

Where it really redeems itself is in the ending. While it's by no means original and certainly not great, it is less predictable than the original movie's, and fairly satisfying. You can probably extrapolate a spoiler from that if you try hard enough, so stop thinking now, people. There's also the opening thresher sequence (similar to the opening of Ghost Ship), Josh Stewart's adorably sad-looking face, and a number of fantastically satisfying fight scenes.       

The Collection is a decent sequel packed full of enjoyable splatter, likeable characters and a truly memorable villain. It ends, once more, with the suggestion of a sequel, but we can probably do without that one. Not unless they call it The Collectables, which I would genuinely think brilliant.

The Collector

Director: Marcus Dunstan (2009)

Starring: Josh Stewart, Andrea Roth, Juan Fernandez

Find it: IMDB

Not an adaptation of John Fowles' novel of the same name, The Collector is a daft but vaguely sort of good torture guff bit which pits a likeable thief against Michael Myers in a Mexican Wrestling mask. Lots of torture and nihilism ensues, and epic fails all around.

Arkin (Stewart) is a nice-guy-handyman-come-safecracker-thief-type. Down on his luck, and needing $1 million by midnight, he decides to break into an employer's house to steal their really big jewel. Only there's a slight hiccup in the form of 'The Collector' - a serial killer who breaks into families' homes, tortures them, sets up stupid traps and steals one of their number for his 'collection' (he carries around a victim in a box, like Asami in Audition). Being a nice but misguided sorta fellow, Arkin sticks around the house. Mostly because the doors and windows are all locked. But also so's he can try to rescue Mum, Dad, Slutty Teenage Daughter and Little Girl from The Collector. Can he succeed? Can he stay hidden? Can he survive? And why doesn't he have a mobile phone?

The Collector is ostensibly Saw in a house (it was originally penned as a Saw movie) crossed with Home Alone, Die Hard, Panic Room and Halloween. It benefits from having more likeable characters than a Saw movie and an excellent central performance in Josh Stewart's Arkin. The guy is actually really, really likeable. Which I didn't expect. Unusually for a horror flick, you'll emphatically root for Arkin as he attempts to rescue the family and escape the house. This emotional investment makes for a much better moviegoing experience than that Jigsaw bullshit in which you'll hate everyone and only Donnie Wahlberg is good. Plus, there's the best Dog + Bin + Fire related death I've ever seen. At its best, The Collector is extremely tense, gripping and brutal.

That said, it is a very flawed movie. Why did The Collector go to the trouble of setting up a bunch of overcomplicated traps when he already had the family tied up at his peril? How did Arkin manage to sneak in and get upstairs before he noticed the traps that were ALL OVER EVERY INCH OF THE HOUSE? Why does The Collector never wonder how his victims keep magically untying themselves? And the torture is too much. There's already a good concept and great traps. The scenes of protracted and unpleasant torture are unnecessary and overly unpleasant. And the sequel-baiting ending ruins the whole movie for me.

Sadly not.

Spoilers now, because I really fucking hate that ending: over the course of the movie, Arkin fails to rescue anyone save for the Little Girl. The Collector is temporarily defeated and Arkin is taken to safety in an ambulance. Nice place to end the movie. Except, no. The Collector rams the ambulance off've the road, kidnaps Arkin and locks him in his little red box. The end. Literally fuck off, The Collector. It's a move which pretty much sums up my biggest problem with the torture subgenre (well, aside from all the torture) - the unremitting, predictable nihilism. Just for once, I'd like to see a movie like this with a 'happy' ending. For variety's sake. Every single Saw movie has ended like this; not to mention its imitators and inspirations. You think because Se7en ended all sadlike you have to do it too? And also, because I'm utterly fed up with seeing movies in which decency and heroism are rewarded with death. I get that the villain has to survive for sequelisation. But what is the point in having your hero fall at every hurdle? The Collector should have had the confidence - or originality - to let Arkin save the family - or at least more than just one of them - and defeat the villain. The moment I saw that stupid bloody box, I knew how The Collector would play out. In the end, The Collector is depressingly predictable and predictably depressing.

Also depressingly predictable: this closing gag. It's a surprisingly good movie. But does it merit adding to your DVD stash? For Collectors only.

All Superheroes Must Die

Director: Jason Trost (2011)

Starring: James Remar, Jason Trost, Sophie Merkley, Lucas Till

Find it: IMDB

A movie I read about on CHUD.com years ago (as far back as 2011) and immediately became obsessed with. It's Saw with superheroes, starring Dexter's own dad, James Remar. Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long for this violent spandex movie called All Superheroes Must Die to become one of my most hotly anticipated in recent years.

Stupidly named and outfitted superhero Charge (Trost) wakes up bloodied and battered in the middle of nowhere, suffering quite the supervillain beatdown hangover and with no clue what's going on. There's an odd wound on his wrist, and his superpowers are gone. After suffering a little display of his captor's power, Charge rejoins his superhero chums, who find themselves stuck in the same situation. A nearby television crackles to life, and supervillain Rickshaw (Remar) begins his monologue. He wants to play a game...

Charge, Cutthroat (Till), Shadow (Merkley) and The Wall (Lee Valmassy) are trapped in a small, deserted town, surrounded by Rickshaw's goons and hostages. Try to escape: the hostages die and the town goes up in smoke. The only way to win out is through a series of challenges; each more dangerous and vicious than the last, with ever increasing stakes. It's like Arkham City, but without Batman's gadgets, elegance or competence. It helps Rickshaw's plan in that Charge and his friends are a bunch of imbeciles who get pretty much every civilian they encounter killed. The Wall is the only one of them with a good superhero name and they all speak like stupid children attempting a Superman impression.

Hi! You might recognise me as the only one having any fun around here.

It's like Kick-Ass crossed with The Running Man, with James Remar in the overacting Nicolas Cage/Jesse Ventura role. Seeing as only one of the youths is any good (that'll be Merkley) it's good that Remar is there to distract from all of the sullen sub-Spider-man "power and responsibility" type posturing. He's given disappointingly little to do, but he has a nice cravat and seems to be enjoying himself.

The rest of the film fails to live up to most of those expectations I built up reading about it on CHUD and various news websites over the years. Much of that is probably my fault, but it's effectively a Saw rip-off with people in crap superhero costumes instead of arrogant doctors and overly obsessed police officers. With its hard violence, unlikeable characters and cynical attitude towards superheroism, it could have been a Mark Millar adaptation.

And no-one wants that*

But for all of its flaws, All Superheroes Must Die is an enjoyable action romp, with an engaging story and very interesting concept. It could have been so much better, but as far as low-budget DVD releases go, it's a cut above most. It's certainly better than bloody zombies or Hillbillies again.

*Except for Mark Millar

9 Days: Whipped, Chained and Tortured by a Psychopath

Director: Samuel M. Johnson (2011)

Starring: Chris Schleicher, Maura Murphy, Simone Frajnd 

Find it: IMDB

Occasionally, being a horror fan who enjoys (probably not the right word) watching movies from the more extreme end of the spectrum, you have to balance your sucky taste in scary movies with family life. You don't want everyone thinking you're a psychopath, for example, because that sort of perception tends to prevent one from having friends, a job, girlfriend, or not being in prison. Generally I do a good job of not being seen as a complete psychopath. I keep my collection of ball gags somewhere they can't be found by snooping family members, always clear my Internet history and try to avoid saying things like "I really know where that Dexter fellow is coming from" in front of an audience. And then something like 9 Days comes along.

Bearing in mind that my Dad thinks I watch Snuff movies, the last thing I needed was Chemical Burn Entertainment coming along with their terrifying envelopes. "There's an envelope on the stairs," said my mother, as I arrived home from the day job last week (yes, I live with the folks at the moment - like a less well-dressed Howard Wolowitz). "And what's 9 Days?" I had no idea what 9 Days was. A white airmail envelope, as advertised, sat on the stairs. On it, a black sticker. On that black sticker was printed the words '9 DAYS: WHIPPED, CHAINED AND TORTURED BY A PSYCHOPATH.' With my name stickered next to it, thank you very much. Even dodgy fetish sites (so I'm told) have the good grace to send their kinky tickle videos (other fetishes are available) in unmarked envelopes (apparently) or even with a little fake company name printed on it (I'd imagine). Ahem, yeah, I think I got away with that one. Anyway, yeah, 9 DAYS: WHIPPED, CHAINED AND TORTURED BY A PSYCHOPATH does my "totally not a weirdo" protestations no favours. And never mind my parents, now the Postman carries protection (not a condom) whenever he comes to my door. Thanks a lot, Chemical Burn. And I don't think any of them believed me when I said, "no, right, it's actually an adaptation of Dante's Inferno!" 

Actual image from the movie.

Really, it is. On the run from her abusive foster father, Danielle (Murphy) hitches a ride with nerdy Virgil (Schleicher) who offers her a room for the night. Having apparently missed every single after school special about not getting into cars with strangers and definitely not going home with them, Danielle agrees. And yet she seems surprised when this edgy, bug-eyed creep breaks out the chloroform and locks her in his cellar. Virgil's plan: to 'cleanse' Danielle of her sins through the medium of torture (the least popular bath bomb in Lush) and his own verbal diarrhoea. It's like Martyrs crossed with Captivity, as made by someone who played Dante's Inferno once.   

A predictable, grimy torture movie, 9 Days is amateurish on most levels. The acting is particularly suspect, although Murphy garners some goodwill simply by not being co-star Schleicher (who actually is playing Howard Wolowitz). The torture scenes are unpleasant but not particularly memorable, the story old and overplayed. Kudos though, for the lack of rape. I had envisioned 9 Days being a veritable rape fest, so I was glad to be proven wrong there. It's no Divine Comedy, but it is amusing in places too.

Actual image from the movie.

As low-budget torture movies go, 9 Days isn't entirely without merit. It's cheap, amateurish and stupid, but it's also strangely watchable. Call off the Criminal Minds team Mother, 9 Days is not the film you expected it to be.  

K3: Prison of Hell

Director: Andreas Bethmann (2009)

Starring: Suzi-Anne, Candy-Sue, Bianca Germany

Find it: IMDB

Describing the plot of K3: Prison of Hell to a relative, I may have accidentally given off the impression that I am something of a psychopath or serial killer in training. In fact, as I tried to tactfully describe this movie to my Dear old Dad, the question "it's not a snuff film, is it?" may have been asked. It didn't help my case that K3: Prison of Hell was delivered to me via a friend, ordered from Germany and given on a nondescript DVD-RW. "It's definitely not snuff," I insisted, "snuff doesn't have an IMDB page."

That said, you won't find K3: Prison of Hell on Amazon, less because it's a snuff movie, (honest Dad, it's not) more because of all the giant cocks being sucked all over the place. Also, what with all the hardcore sexual violence, it's probably illegal here in the UK. Not snuff, though. The word 'torture porn' is bandied around horror movie territories with depressing regularity (not by me, except for when I use inverted commas) but in the case of K3: Prison of Hell, that's about right. This movie consists of nothing but torture and pornography, neither of which is particularly well done. 

The plot has lots of women in prison (it's never explained why) while the guards go around raping them all the time. I had never seen a Prison Exploitation movie before (apparently The Shawshank Redemption and Schindler's List don't count) so I Googled Prison of Hell to see what I was in for. One of the first pictures I found was of an arm shoved all the way up a poor lady's arse. Most of the action consists of things going up arses or erections going into various other orifices (usually the face). This is brought to us by infamous exploitation director Andreas Bethmann; responsible for a number of other horror/porno movies, most of which have 'rape' in the synopsis. Also involved is special effects maestro, occasional director and chum of Uwe Boll, Olaf Ittenbach. The gore effects, when they come, are decent enough - there's a reasonable head explosion scene - but otherwise, Prison of Hell is just plain boring. If you've seen one cock sucked, you've seen them all. The mix of sexual violence, titillation and torture is horrid, but that's the point. The film knows its audience (Fetlife friends, aficionados of hardcore cinema and probably Mel Gibson) very well, and everyone else won't even know it exists in the first place. Given that I don't really enjoy pornography, I was doomed from the start.  

K3: Prison of Hell is unpleasant, ugly and dull. While it will appeal to those who enjoy that sort of thing, everyone else will be either horrified or nonplussed or both at the same time. It's not really the type of movie you assign a star rating to (unless you're in the business of reviewing pornography), but I'll do so anyway. Mostly so my Dad, in case he's Googling this, can be totally sure that I'm not a lunatic nutcase who gets off on that Andreas Bethmann's prison pornographies.

Look Dad, no stars:

The Ordeal

Director: Fabrice Du Welz (2004)
Starring: Laurent Lucas, Jackie Berroyer, Jean-Luc Couchard
Find it: IMDB

This Christmas, while others were rotting their brain cells with festive shit like Elf and The Grinch and The Muppet Christmas Carol (all of which I actually like) I found me drinking myself into oblivion and watching a French horror film about a cabaret singer who finds himself kidnapped by a mad farmer, dressed like a woman and chased around by the mad farmer's also mad love rivals. It's like Emmerdale meets Something Horrible. And yes, I'm aware that every time I watch a film about mad farmers I compare it to Emmerdale. I fucking love Emmerdale, all right.

Marc Stevens (Lucas) is the cabaret singer in question. Daniel O' Donnell and Cliff Richard should never watch The Ordeal, because this film would thoroughly make them shit their pants. Not that Cliff Richard would ever watch extreme French horror anyway. He's more of a Songs of Praise sort of fellow.

When his van breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Stevens is taken in by kindly-faced inn owner Bartel (Berroyer). Unfortunately, Stevens reminds Bartel of his missing wife, and he's less than eager to release the poor club singer. A quick bang on the noggin later, and Stevens finds himself tied up wearing a dress, while Bartel rants and raves about how his lovely wife is never going to leave him again. Luckily for Mark, it is a very pretty dress. So pretty that Mark proves to be very popular amongst all of the other locals too. 

For all its violence and forced cross-dressing, The Ordeal follows the fairly standard Torture Film template. There's the sense of impending doom, the inevitable capture, the escape, the re-capture, the re-escape - then the bit where Anything Could Happen. Being a collector of 'extreme' cinema and having heard so many good things about The Ordeal, I found myself a little disappointed by the film. It's extreme, but not that extreme - a mite predictable and slow. Still, Stevens is easy to root for, and there's a nice sense of surrealism to some of the scenes. I particularly enjoyed the local pub and Bartel's dim-witted friend, Boris (Couchard). The Ordeal is a little unsettling, but never an Ordeal to watch, as it should be.

That said, it makes for great Christmas viewing. No, really, it does. There's a Christmas tree in it and everything.

Guinea Pig I: Devil's Experiment

Director: Satoru Ogura (1985)
Find it: IMDB

Pride myself, as I do, on having seen the worst of the worst horror movies in existence, there was no way I wouldn't eventually get around to seeing the Guinea Pig series. While it is nice to have added another notch to my horror movie bedpost (like a regular bedpost, except grottier), in the case of Guinea Pig, I wish I hadn't bothered.

Created before 'torture porn' was even a thing, Devil's Experiment has perhaps the flimsiest plot I have ever seen in a movie. It is literally nothing more than a series of torture sequences. The version of the DVD I watched had no English subtitles or dubbing, but not once did I miss them. It opens with a woman being slapped repeatedly around the face (which goes on for about five minutes) before moving on to more mental and penetrative tortures. But as our poor victim is slapped soundly around the chops over and over again, we can actually see the actor slapping his own hand to create the sharp striking sound. I'm sure it worked better on fuzzy old VHS, but some of these infamous tortures look remarkably shonky on DVD. Particularly daft is a bit in which the kidnappers tie their victim to an office chair and spin her round and round in circles until she gets sick.

Other tortures, however, are actually revolting. Maggots, fingernails and eyeballs are amongst the few things I can't be doing with in a film, and Devil's Experiment has all three. It's surprising that it was this film's sequel that gained most notoriety, since Devil's Experiment is by far the most memorable Pig. Of course, memorable doesn't always mean good. Devil's Experiment does its job (plotless nasty) just fine, but nothing else whatsoever. There's less going on than an episode of Dirty Sanchez or Jackass. It makes Captivity look densely plotted by comparison.

Like a ridiculously fast rollercoaster, the point with the Guinea Pig films isn't in the journey but rather the ride itself - it's a test of endurance; not something you watch because you like plot, or acting, or purpose. Which is good, because it doesn't have any of those things.

IT CAME FROM POUNDLAND II: Saw

Director: James Wan (2004)

Starring: Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter

Find it: IMDB

Our semi-regular feature returns with Saw, a movie I didn't really like but couldn't turn down for £1. I've never watched it since buying the film, and probably never will. Still, at a quid, I maintain that it is a legitimate investment. Update: I sold it on eBay for £3.25. That's a lot of profit, given that I always deliberately overcharge for postage and packaging.

Se7en II: Saw stars Cary Elwes as Doctor Lawrence Gordon, a man kidnapped by the mysterious and elusive Jigsaw Killer. Together with a man who can't act and a corpse who can, Gordon is locked in a smelly bathroom and told to hack his foot off if he wants to survive. Meanwhile, other things are happening in the outside world. Wronged copper Danny Glover is on the hunt for Jigsaw, Gordon's wife (Monica Potter) and child (child) have been kidnapped and several unsavoury types fall victim to Jigsaw's little games. Despite the fact that nobody owns any lightbulbs and Cary Elwes sucks in this movie, Saw is a servicable enough little horror thriller type thing.

... and it stars Ben from off've LOST as a man called Zep.

Depending on your view of the movies, Saw has pretty much become tainted by its own sequels at this point - a byword for cheap schlock, seasonal moneygrabbing, lazy plot devices and an insistance on crowbarring Tobin Bell into flashbacks just for the sake of it. 

... and Miles from off've LOST as a man with a fat face

So Saw is a hard one for me to like now. I love (most of) its casting - Danny Glover, Monica Potter and the LOST alumni are good in everything - and the traps are admittedly quite inspired. It is what it is really; a passable Se7en rip-off with a few good twists and a neat concept. But like Freddy Kreuger and those damn cartoony sequels, it's become diluted by its own overexposure. And it's so self-serious that it's almost impossible to like. Whereas you want to see Freddy, Jason, Michael and Leatherface hack up the teens, Jigsaw is an irritating egoist with an overinflated sense of self-importance and whiny disposition. This is a man whose first thought after diagnosis with cancer is to build a bunch of silly traps with which he can torture crackheads and cheating doctors.

To be fair, if my doctor was as annoying as Cary Elwes is in this movie, I'd probably be tempted to lock him up in a toilet too. The lead performances in Saw are really pretty bad, all snot and overacting. Elwes and the crying photographer bloke are both outperformed by the supposedly (SPOILER) dead body with whom they share their lavatory. Good as Danny Glover is, even he doesn't seem to give much of a rat's ass about the film. Well, he is getting too old for this shit. Next up: Saw In A House with the Wahlberg that's not Marky Mark.

Hostel: Part III

Director: Scott Spiegel (2011)

Starring: Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper, Kip Pardue, Brian Hallisay

Find it: IMDB

Men on a stag party in Las Vegas run into trouble when one of their number goes missing. They attempt to retrace the previous evening's footsteps in the hope of recovering their disappeared compatriot. By the end of it, a punch in the chops from Mike Tyson is going to be the least of their worries. "Not much of a party," says an observant hooker of the group's crappy stag do. Not much of a party indeed. In relocating the Hostel Hostel to Las Vegas, this threequel loses a lot of the franchise's Eastern European creepiness and just feels like an episode of CSI.

Instead of the torture being a private affair between torturer and tortured, Hostel 3 turns it into a group exercise in which rich bastards bet upon the variables of violence. One game has the participants attempting to guess how long it will take for a character to give the "I have a wife and kids" speech. It's an interesting concept, but beyond that one game, it's barely touched on again. Another game sees the rich bitches guessing how many arrows a character will take to the body before he dies. It's hardly a game of chance though, since the killer then goes and shoots him in the face. The bad guys in Hostel III are essentially John Cleese in Rat Race, taken to the extreme.

There is some amusement to be found in the movie's first half, which playfully and continuously toys with the audience's expectations. Some of the red herrings there are strikingly predictable (the opening, for example) but others work well. But the problem with all of the Hostel films is that once the action reaches the torture basements, there's nowhere left to go. Like part 1 and 2, Hostel III blows its load three quarters of the way through, and has to make with a predictable and passionless escape sequence, just for convention's sake.

It helps not a jot that the characters are mostly terrible. The lead character (Hallisay) is a blank slate; supposed to be sympathetic and relateable because he treats prostitutes like people and won't cheat on his fiancée (again). Best man Carter (Pardue) is just as much a nonentity. John Hensley looks like Ant or Dec from off've Ant or Dec and hits a man with his crutch. To be fair, he's the least punchable person in the film. But there's little schadenfreude to seeing them die, since the torture scenes are dull too.

The concept is interesting, the set-up fun, and Hostel III does have its moments - there are more ball gags than you could fill a ball gag ball bag with - but mostly it's silly, needless and plays like a rip-off of itself. The build-up is well done, but the action within the Hostel is boring and graceless. It's the least gruesome entry so far. You may be better off staying on the hotel roof instead.

The Bunny Game

Director: Adam Rehmeier (2010)

Starring: Rodleen Getsic, Jeff Renfro, Norwood Fisher

Find it: IMDB

This is the film that The Human Centipede 2 wishes it was. Hearing that it was denied a UK release by the BBFC immediately put it on my radar. Like that other infamous film, August Underground, I wish I hadn't bothered. When the film opened with a sloppy blowjob scene, I knew it wouldn't be my cup of tea. I prefer my tea without spermatozoon, thanks.

Like The Human Centipede 2, the film is entirely black and white and features characters performing bizarre sexual acts on one another. There's shit in The Bunny Game that they'd even balk at on Fetlife. Prostitute Bunny (the aptly named Rodleen Getsic) accepts a lift from a deranged trucker. You don't need to be Jeremy Clarkson to know that this is a bad idea, but hey, Bunny is desperate. The trucker spends the next few days torturing Bunny and making her play his sick, depraved games. He's a terrible antagonist, crying and screaming, huffing plastic bags like a low-rent Dennis Hopper. She meanwhile, gets by far the worse end of the bargain, all ball gags, crappy haircuts and ridiculous masks. To criticise is unfair though: don't hate the playa, as they say, hate the game.

As I watch more and more of this nonsense, it becomes increasingly difficult to review films like The Bunny Game. I mean, there are only so many ways to write "she gets tied up and tortured". Occasionally I have to say things like "newborn porn" or "the centipede goes up his arse" or "he puts a stupid rabbit gimp mask on her head" but mostly it's like reviewing the same film over and over again. It's a sad state of affairs when the edgiest thing a horror movie can do these days is have a happy ending. Just for once, I'd like to be able to write something along the lines of "and then the bad man realised that he was acting like a bit of a dickhead. He let the nice prostitute go and sought psychiatric help. Then he apologised to the S&M community for perpetuating negative stereotypes."

Like so many other controversial slash banned movies, The Bunny Game is perfectly competent. It's well acted, looks good (in a surrealist sort of way) and has a properly unsettling vibe. Had it the bravery to tell a story about something other than rape, I would probably have enjoyed it. It's a great film wasted on a shitty story. There are only so many stories one can tell about perverted men acting out their fantasies upon unwilling victims. And I don't want to see any of them. Dude, she's a prostitute. If you were to just pay her, I'm sure she'd let you tie her up and do whatever anyway.

It's easy to see why the BBFC wanted none of this. Since almost every moment of the film features some variety of sexual violence or other, there's literally nothing that could have been cut, save for ten seconds in the middle where our dirty trucker leans against a wall for a bit. There's a time and a place for pieces like The Bunny Game. Maybe an art gallery or Chris Brown's dressing room. These aren't films to be enjoyed; they're here to be endured. I have a friend who loves rollercoasters but hates horror movies. I hate rollercoasters but love horror movies. She asked me how I can bear to watch the gory bollocks I do. To me, horror movies are like mental rollercoasters. You have nice log flume rollercoasters (like Scream or A Nightmare On Elm Street), fast rollercoasters (Saw, Hostel) and then you have the fucking horrible ones (The Bunny Game, August Underground). Just as you don't ride a mental rollercoaster to look at the scenery, you don't watch The Bunny Game if you like films. I watch this shit to see if I can. And The Bunny Game beats Hostel in horror Top Trumps any day.

I doubt The Bunny Game is going to corrupt anyone. It won't damage anyone's mind (unless you happen to be epileptic. There's some pretty crazy flashing imagery) nor will it inspire any copycat killings. It sure damaged my liver though, for all the drinking I had to do to make it less boring. The only interesting part of the film was The Bunny Game itself, whereupon both characters wear stupid gimp masks and run around in the desert like it's a really gross episode of Star Trek.

As games go, The Bunny Game is not a particularly fun one. It's like playing Twister with the smelly weird guy who invited himself to the party. This is an intelligent, thoroughly artistic movie with far more attitude than your average torture flick. But fuck it, if this is the game, I don't want to play anymore.

Captivity

Director: Roland Joffe (2007)

Starring: Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gillies, Pruitt Taylor Vince

Find it: IMDB

The movie that made a lot of people realise just what a tiresome subgenre torture guff was. Until Craptivity, we'd gone along with the likes of Hostel, pretending that we were being clever and arty by watching films in which kids wear ball gags and find themselves carved up by weird foreigners. For myself and many others, it was a case of the emperor wearing no clothes: Hostel was shit and its imitators are shit too.

So along came Craptivity and outraged everyone by putting its silly posters up even after the MPAA said not to. People began to realise "actually, films about torture and ball gags are a bit wank, aren't they?" But worse than shitting in its own bed, Craptivity tried to ruin it for the rest of us too. It gave horror a bad name. It made people say things like "won't somebody please think of the children" and made us horror fans seem sick in the head, the sort of people who enjoy putting gruesome posters opposite schools (which is admittedly quite funny). And that's partly why I hate torture movies and I hate the phrase "torture porn". But mostly it's because torture movies are boring, stupid self-serious nonsense.

24 star Elisha Cuthbert plays celebrity model Jennifer; object of a crazed stalker's affections. I didn't recognise Cuthbert at first, since every time I saw her on 24 she had a piece of duct tape or a hand over her mouth. It takes about ten minutes before somebody covers her mouth with anything in Craptivity (in this case a leather glove, Giallo style) but it's still her most kidnappy movie so far.

She wakes up in a gloomy basement and is repeatedly set upon by a shadow-dwelling figure, who gasses, chloroforms, buries and forcefeeds her face over and over again. Eventually, Jennifer realises that she is not alone - enter Gary (Gillies) who claims also to have been kidnapped. If you believe that for so much as an instant, you're even stupider than Jennifer. Before I'd ever watched Craptivity, I was reading a Fangoria story on the film. "I bet this Gary bloke is in on it," I thought. The Gary bloke is indeed in on it, using the torture dungeon like his own private Plenty Of Fish.

An actual screencap from Plenty Of Fish's 'success stories' page.

There's nothing to Craptivity but suspenseless torture scenes and Elisha Cuthbert looking hot. For a girl who endures days and days of violent torture, she comes out of it all as fresh as a daisy. After half an hour on the bus I look like a wreck, let alone a week in a torture dungeon. What I wouldn't give for Elisha Cuthbert's T-zone.

After drinking a smoothie made up of body parts and being forced to shoot her own dog, poor Jennifer is trapped in a little box that rapidly fills up with sand. She needn't worry though - like a Brazil nut in a bag of museli, she just rises straight to the top. Earlier, there's a scene where she communicates with Gary by scratching messages into her side of the glass. Bless her, she fails to realise that she needs to be writing backwards (as you would to read something in a mirror) in order for Gary to read it properly. It's a movie that hopes to distract the viewer with gruesome tortures and sexy Elisha Cuthberts.

It doesn't have the unintentional brilliance of I Know Who Killed Me, nor the intelligence of the few torture movies I happen to like (an exception to the 'all torture movies are terrible' rule; look under subsection 'hypocrite'). Other than the fact that I like Elisha Cuthbert and it has Pruitt Taylor Vince in it, Craptivity has few redeeming features. It's anything but Captivating.

Neighbor

Director: Robert A. Masciantonio (2009)

Starring: America Olivo, Christian Campbell, Lauren Rooney

Find it: IMDB

The title is something of a misnomer, since The Girl (Olivo) is nobody's neighbour; she wanders from street to street massacring whole households seemingly without cause. One fateful day she arrives on Don Carpenter's (Campbell) doorstep, ties the poor chump up and sets about violently torturing the guy. That's almost as far as Neighbor goes with plot, spending the rest of its time torturing Don and murdering his friends. There's a brief interlude in the middle that shoots forward in time - although it wasn't until afterwards that I realised this - I'd assumed that Neighbor had gone all avant-garde and just run off in a different direction.

At times the movie veers towards comedy horror, with the filthy script ("go eat a bowl of dicks") and madcap performance from America Olivo preventing it from being too serious. Even victim Don doesn't seem to be taking his situation too seriously. The torture scenes however, are anything but funny. While not all of the effects work (Don's plastic feet are terrible) enough of them do to make one think twice about bringing a mid-movie snack into Neighbor.

Thankfully, the decent effects are backed up by a funny script, a likeable set of characters and a mean performance from Olivo; channeling Freddy Krueger by way of Penny from off've Big Bang Theory. Young foul-mouthed male characters are usually the worst kind of characters, but Don and his friends are affable enough for their camaraderie to shine through. You really want to see them survive the onslaught of The Girl and her craziness. It's good that they're so nice. After all, everybody needs good neighbours.

Alas, Neighbor does drag towards the end, and never quite recovers from its own confusing midsection. The ending is predictable. Like every annoying neighbour, this one can't help but outstay its welcome.

The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence

Director: Tom Six (2011)

Starring: Laurence R. Harvey, Ashlynn Yennie, Centipede

Find it: IMDB

Of all the unintentionally hilarious ideas at play in The Human Centipede 2, the very funniest is the central conceit that someone could actually become obsessed with the first movie. Like almost every single other person who watched The Human Centipede, I found myself underwhelmed. It's a great idea, but not one that can carry a whole film. It works best as a trailer. Preferably one with Rick Astley singing 'Together Forever' over it.

Gone is the magnificent Doctor Heiter (Dieter Laser), replaced with a more realistic and terrifying villain. The actor behind Walter (Laurence R. Harvey) doesn't have a name like Dieter Laser, but he does have a terrifying face and looks (and sounds) like a man I used to work with. Martin works as a security guard in a car park, which is a standard career for this sort of movie psychopath. Clearly a man with problems mental and physical (he's frequently described as 'a midget' and 'a retard'), Martin is obsessed with the film The Human Centipede. Director Tom Six pre-empted the BBFC suggesting idiots could be influenced by the Human Centipede 2 by making a film in which an idiot is obsessed with The Human Centipede. How very meta, Tom Six.

When he's not re-watching The Human Centipede or scrapbooking The Human Centipede, Martin is in the process of building his own human centipede; kidnapping people and locking them up in his rented warehouse. The sequel is actually set in England, which is maybe why I found it a lot funnier than I should have. My favourite scene comes where one victim realises what Martin has planned. "It's a film!" He yells, "he's gonna stitch us up arse to mouth!" Cue gagged screams from the rest of Martin's captives. The word 'arse' should never be used seriously in a serious movie. 'Arse' may be a very British word, but it is not one that us British use on serious occasions. (True story, if you watch an American movie with English subtitles, a lot of Region 2 releases tend to swap the word 'ass' for 'arse' as if us Brits are going to assume you mean donkey). "He's gonna stitch us up arse to mouth!" Even if I had been one of those fellow victims, I still would have laughed. Arse. There's another occasion where a character says "stop those tears. You're just making daddy's willy harder." Even more so than arse, no English person has ever used the word 'willy' whilst trying to be menacing. Well done on doing your research, Human Centipede 2, but it's all about context.

The Human Centipede 2 is a hilarious movie. Even more so than its predecessor. A lot of it is unintentional, but some of it, Tom Six is doing with a wink. Look, he wears a stetson. You don't wear a stetson if you're the sort of person who takes yourself seriously. For all the furore, outrage and thinking of the children, The Human Centipede 2 is ultimately a piece about twelve people being forced to do ass-to-mouth. It's more seriously done here, but it is still not really a serious film. And when it does try to be serious, it fails in almost every way.

The only thing it does do effectively is the gore. It's a black and white feature (except for one use of the colour brown...), which might fool some into thinking it more arthouse than your average bit of torture guff. It is certainly not. A Serbian Film and Martyrs are titles thrown around in some reviews. But those films had a depth that The Human Centipede 2 does not. Fuck though, the gore. The Human Centipede 2 features the most repulsive tooth removal scene I have ever seen. The last half an hour sees less of the humour (intentional or otherwise) and a turn towards some truly horrible surgery scenes. Those scat-lovers disappointed by the lack of poo in the original will go away happy this time.

And this was only the cut version. Whilst I disagree with censorship of any sort, I don't feel I'm missing all that much by not seeing a man rape a human centipede with barbed wire wrapped around his bell-end. The cut version goes far further in terms of grue and bodily fluids than I was prepared to see. That said, I will be seeking out an uncut version. Not because I want to see it, but because the BBFC told me not to.

The BBFC posits that by presenting the film from Martin's perspective, his victims are objectified, his Centipede an aspirational figure. I would beg to differ. The things that happen in The Human Centipede 2 are impossible not to sympathise with. I don't need to know a character's life story - or even their name - in order to feel bad for him/her. On a similar note, I'm not going to start feeling sorry for Martin just because he's the main character. BBFC, stop talking out of your arse.

Many will hate The Human Centipede 2, lots will be outraged by it, some might even watch it. But nobody will like it. At least, nobody will admit to liking it. I found it amusing, disgusting (forego the mid-movie snacks during this one) and not at all inspirational or arousing. Maybe I have the BBFC's cuts to thank for that, but I like to think that it's because I'm just a nice guy who doesn't like rape or centipedes. Past the first hour, it makes for truly horrible viewing. Without the humour it becomes a tiresome slew of witless violence, bodily fluids and fart noises. It's not scary, nor is there any tension, thrills or intelligence. But nor was I outraged either.

"Well," I thought, "that was pretty nasty." Where the original Human Centipede should have been left as a trailer, The Human Centipede 2 should be left as a series of descriptions in horrified reviews and on the BBFC's website. Because that does The Human Centipede 2 more favours than the film itself. The Human Centipede 2 literally throws shit at the lens and calls it art.