19. The Night Train Murders

It's your Horror Review Advent Calendar.

25 Christmas themed movies.

Ho, ho, ho.

Director: Aldo Lado (1975)

Starring: Flavio Bucci, Irene Miracle
Find it: IMDB, Amazon

The most miserable entry in our advent calendar, The Night Train Murders posits a terrible hypothesis: "imagine if the plot of The Last House on the Left happened to you... on Christmas Eve." True story: you can make any horror movie 40% more depressing by having it happen on Christmas Eve. Nothing is more depressing than being murdered on  Christmas Eve. Not even burnt turkey.

Of all the Last House On The Left rip-offs I've ever seen, The Night Train Murders is the rip-offest. That it was acquired by the 'Shameless' DVD label is apt, since shameless is the only word to describe its constant thieving. It basically is Last House On The Left. Only the murders happen on a train, which makes it okay. Even the tagline (YOU CAN TELL YOURSELF IT'S ONLY A MOVIE*) is stolen from Wes Craven's infamous video nasty. Most of the time, it doesn't even try. Which is understandable. Because making a movie is hard enough without having to think up an original story too.

To repeat the plot is pointless, since it's Last House On The Left. I suppose this movie being set during Christmas is different. But a Friday the 13th ripoff entitled Saturday the 15th would still be a Friday the 13th ripoff. My point being, I've seen The Last House On The Left, so I could have done without seeing this.

The preamble to the atrocities is boring and goes on for too long. Well, unless you like watching people do boring Christmas shopping and have boring Christmas parties. And then the atrocities themselves are boring and go on for too long. The parents' revenge is boring but doesn't go on for nearly long enough. There's not even a chainsaw, David Hess nor a microwave. The train toss is passable enough, with the lovely young things running afoul of two junkies and their evil ho friend. As you knew was going to happen from the very start of the thing, the girls are raped and murdered. A random commuter joins in for some of the rape.

One of the girls is then violated with a knife, which is icky but fairly original. She dies, as you do, from blood loss/shock. Her friend jumps from the moving train. It's entirely inappropriate, but I did laugh when the second body was thrown out of the window. And Poirot thought that The Orient Express was bad. I'll stick with The Polar Express, thanks. The rest of the movie is no laughing matter. Firstly because the subject matter is so horrible, secondly because it's a dull film, and thirdly because it's shit. The highlight being that one of the actors has a fascinatingly ugly face.

I'm not a fan of rape/revenge movies even when done well. And The Night Train Murders certainly isn't done well.

*You'll know it's ONLY A MOVIE. Because you've seen THE MOVIE before. Back when it was called you-know-what.

The Woman

Director: Lucky McKee (2011)

Starring: Sean Bridgers, Pollyanna McIntosh, Carlee Baker, Angela Bettis

Find it: IMDB

I'm already a moviegoer in the minority that I didn't hate Andrew van den Houten's Offspring. It wasn't particularly good, but I was able to overlook the film's faults and enjoy it for the silly, gory bit of cannibal torture guff that it is.

More people are going to enjoy The Woman than they did Offspring, for The Woman is technically a good film. The story is a lot more original and more memorable, the acting is all around better and the film's villains don't look stupid. That said, those who don't like The Woman are going to be a lot more vocal about why they don't like The Woman than those who don't like Offspring. Case in point: this review and that one guy you saw on Youtube who got angry at a screening.

A sequel to Offspring (although you don't need to have seen that film to understand what's going on), The Woman sees the lone survivor (McIntosh) of a cannibalistic clan captured by Chris Cleek (Bridgers), an apparently normal lawyer intent on 'civilising' her. Except the men of the Cleek household turn out to be far more savage than the actual savage. See, this is one of those horror movies with a message.

The cinematic equivalent of Marmite (and by that, I don't mean that it's banned in Sweden), you're either going to love or hate this one. I thought that it was very good, but can definitely understand the viewpoint of those in the opposite camp. Its well-intentioned sexual politics may seem outwardly misogynistic to those inclined towards sensationalism; especially given that every woman in the film undergoes either a beating, rape or death. McKee and Ketchum are trying to drive the point home that men are bastards, and this unfortunately comes at the detriment of the female characters' well-being. I do not think that The Woman is a misogynistic movie.

As an adaptation of the novel, it's as straight as you can get. I really enjoyed the book too, and was disappointed that the short story/epilogue The Cow wasn't included. The Cow is the best bit in the book. Anyway, this adaptation adds things like cheesy music, really gross visuals and Angela Bettis. Reviews I've read (well, reviews longer than "go fuck yourself") criticise The Woman for its naff soundtrack. I liked the naff soundtrack. It fits in with the blackly comic tone and lightens things up a bit, making for a (slightly) less depressing experience.

The Woman isn't as clever as other arthouse torture guffers Martyrs and A Serbian Film, but it does have more to say for itself than The Human Centipede (and likely that film's sequel too). I really don't agree with rape as a plot device (ew, Deadgirl) but this does try to back it up with some sort of empowerment, even if the message leaves room to be misconstrued via the unpleasant content. The catharsis, when it comes, feels genuine and is a real adrenaline blast.

The Woman is a highly divisive movie, but one you need to see for yourself before you condemn it. For me, it's one of the best horror movies of the year.

House On The Edge Of The Park

Director: Ruggero Deodato (1980)

Starring: David Hess, Annie Belle, Giovanni Lombardo Ravice

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Made more than the sum of its parts by a powerhouse performance from David Hess and his incredible permfro, The House On The Edge Of The Park is essentially an Italian remake of Last House On The Left, only nastier and with a more consistent tone. Alex (Hess) is a serial rapist, bored at the weekend. So he calls up his stupid friend Ricky (Radice) and sets out for a night of rape and pillaging. In his sights, a bourgeois house party full of dickheads and ugly people. Whilst it all starts out civil enough, it's not long before Alex and Ricky are terrorising the friends and beating their faces in with tables. Beware, the final paragraph is very spoilery.

House On The Edge Of The Park certainly earns its 'nasty' label. David Hess is at once magnetic and repellent. He pretty much owns the movie and everyone in it. As you'd expect, it's difficult to watch at times and some of the more sexual scenes (which are most of them) are be harrowing and uncomfortable. Which is as it should be. Last House On The Left, whilst being the more original movie, was tonally awkward and slow. House On The Edge Of The Park is consistently gruesome and cruel. There's no place for comedy cops here.

It's the sort of movie in which people get raped but seem to be sort of compliant. There are a number of sex scenes here, none of them looking or feeling like a 'traditional' rape scene. Take the greenhouse sex scene between Ricky and Gloria (De Selle); it's neither consentual nor rape. She instigates it; he seems more afraid of her; but she's hardly doing it of her own free will. When Alex rapes Lisa (Belle), it's definitely rape, but Deodato doesn't have the actors play it as such.

Hess takes centre stage as lead performer, but Lombardo Ravice deserves equal attention as the more conflicted, childlike of the two. The terrorised victims fare less well, having little to do but... well, look mildly consternated. For the most part, everyone just stands around letting Hess do as he wants. A woman is assaulted as her husband stands around looking only slightly annoyed. To be fair, when they do fight back, Hess hands them their buttocks back on a plate. He even goes potty on one poor chap's head.

Unfortunately, the whole thing is all but ruined by its twist. A gun is produced seemingly out of nowhere (only an hour and a half or so into their ordeal, one character decides to reach for his piece) and then its's revealed that the whole thing was massively planned in advance. By the victims. It's an irresponsible, idiotic and horrible idea. So you planned to let David Hess into your home so's he could rape and assault you and your friends, just so's you had an excuse to shoot him? As plans go, Hannibal Smith you ain't. Still, Hess's demise is suitably horrible.

House On The Edge Of The Park is a better made movie than the likes of I Spit On Your Grave, and even Last House On The Left. It's a powerful, ugly, controversial piece that only barely survives its own twist. If it does one thing though, it's that it thoroughly puts the 'nasty' in video nasty.

I Spit On Your Grave (2010)

Director: Steven R. Monroe (2010)

Starring: Sarah Butler, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard

Find it: No, really, don't.

So good a story they told it twice. Now with better acting and inappropriately competent direction. But still irredeemably shit and possibly more morally bankrupt than the original. Where Mier Zarchi's 1978 original was, well, original and saw itself as a feminist piece, this remake just looks and feels like an exercise in moneyspinning unoriginality. Zarchi was trying to make a statement about rape (not very well, I should say). This hunk of horseshit is motivated entirely by "you know what'll make us some money? Let's remake I Spit On Your Grave."

If you don't know the plot, I recommend you go away now. It'll leave your mind an infitely better place. I wish I didn't know either version of this movie existed. I resent having the plot of I Spit On Your Grave stuck in my memory. Jennifer Hills (Sarah Butler) is a writer who heads out to an isolated cabin to get some work done. Instead, she runs into a gang of Hillbilly rapists determined to do what they do best. But because Zarchi's brand of 'rape, rinse, repeat' just won't cut it nowadays, we have to have torture too. Physical and psychological and with a baseball bat and a bottle and then a gun. Once all the rape is done with, revenge commences (reluctantly, I might add. Much like the original, Spit '10 is far less interested in Jennifer's revenge than it is her rape). There are 60 minutes of torture/rape and about 40 minutes of revenge. Revenge which is just more torture, really. Day Of The Woman my arse.

There's a scene 10 minutes in where Jennifer is spied upon whilst dressed only in her underwear. But the way it's framed isn't creepy or scary; it's like a scene cut from The Unborn. The camera makes us complicit with the rapists without even realising that it's doing so. It letches gleefully off've Jennifer, unironically and like any other silly horror movie would. But I Spit On Your Grave isn't supposed to be any other silly horror movie. By sleazing on her thusly - and inviting us to do so too - director Steven Monroe is as complicit in her rape as the rapists themselves. For all of its faults (and it has a fucking lot) Spit '78 is a remarkably unsexy movie. This version should have starred Megan Fox or Odette Yustman. It's designed to titillate as much as it is terrify. Which misses the point entirely.

The Hollywood sheen, rather than improving the story, more highlights its faults. With all the money and talent at hand, they chose to make this lump of shit? They chose this as a story which needed telling again? There are jump scares, twists and a creepy horror movie soundtrack. Which miss the point even more. The first forty minutes are all buildup to the rape itself. That's 40 minutes waiting to watch someone get raped and then there are about 15 minutes of the act itself. Day Of The Woman? Fuck off. Never before has that alternate moniker seemed so condescending. "Oh we just spent 50 minutes raping and torturing the girl: but it's okay, she chops his willy off at the end. BTW, she gets naked."

Admittedly, the revenge is better done than before. It'd be satisfying if you didn't just hate the film itself so much. Plus Jennifer talks a lot and her dialogue really isn't very interesting. She wisecracks far too much.

RAPIST: Fuck you.

JENNIFER: I already did that. I didn't like it very much.

[Hold for applause]

JENNIFER shoves shotgun up RAPIST'S arse.

RAPIST: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh

JENNIFER: I thought you were an ass man.

[Applause]

She's a regular comedian and nowhere near as scary as Camille Keaton, who actually seemed pissed off. Sarah Butler is a good actress, but fails to really nail anything other than kooky emo.

It's nihilistic and stupid and horrible and unpleasant (which, I suppose, it's supposed to be) and boring and offensive and literally a punch in the face to every real horror fan out there. Much as it did during the video nasty era, I Spit On Your Grave makes us all look bad in the process. It'll be called sick and depraved and people will want it banned. And fans of horror will get the blame. I expect to be on some sort of register now, simply for having watched it.

I Spit On Your Grave 1978 is a legitimate piece of horror cinema history. I Spit On Your Grave 2010 isn't. It achieves precisely one thing, which I thought no movie ever could: it makes me hate the original flick ever so (very) slightly less.

I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

Director: Mier Zarchi (1978)

Starring: Camille Keaton, Eron Tabor, Richard Pace

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

The greatest romantic comedy of all time, and a dramatic tonal departure by director Woody Al- Oh, wait, Camille Keaton. Silly me, I was thinking of Diane. Along with a certain house on the left, I Spit on Your Grave (Day of the Woman) is amongst the most famous of all the rape/revenge subgenre movies made in the seventies. It follows writer Jennifer Hills (Keaton) as she takes a quiet holiday in small-town America. Only the local neanderthals don't take too kindly to Jennifer and her sophistications, and decide to bring her down a notch or two. Systematic, repeated gang-rape follows. The movie sort of justifies its alternate title by having Jennifer wreak bloody revenge afterwards, but not really as much as you'd like.

See, the trick to good revenge drama is having the revenge be worse than the initial crime. And whilst Jennifer's various vengeances are fairly nasty, there's not much Zarchi can have her do that even nearly approximates the level of evil levelled at her in the movie's first half. She's repeatedly gang-raped by these fellas, and the best she can do is run one of them over with a fucking boat? Sure, she lops off her fair share of manhood, but it's in a climax that comes far too early and doesn't have anything like enough emotional clout.

Like a great many of the infamous video nasties, I Spit on Your Grave is horrible but largely undeserving of its UK ban. Until you start banning movies for being shit, this is one that should be left alone. Claims that it glorifies violence against women are unfounded - needless to say, the violence and rapings are appalling, and Zarchi actually seems to view himself as some sort of feminist messiah - I can even see how one might see it as a 'feminist' horror movie. Day of the Woman though? Any afternoon in which some poor lady gets raped for an hour's screentime is hardly liable to be a 'day of the woman'. It's like declaring Hostel 2 a feminist masterpiece because Lauren German gets out at the end. I generally despise rape/revenge movies anyway, but I Spit on Your Grave is just a terrible, shoddy piece of filmmaking, redeemed in my eyes only because it managed to piss Mary Whitehouse and The Daily Mail off quite so much.