6/4/15: All Good Children Fear the Woods

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Alice Englert, Allen Leech, backwoods folk, British films, British horror, cinema, couples on vacation, Daniel Pemberton, David Katznelson, endless roads, film reviews, films, horror, horror movies, Iain De Caestecker, In Fear, isolation, Jeremy Lovering, lost in the woods, masked killers, Movies, psychopaths, Roly Porter, secluded hotel, set in Ireland, UK films, writer-director

While some might disagree, I firmly believe that there’s one, universal fear: being lost in an unfamiliar place. Not everyone is terrified of spiders, dogs, heights, the dark or rutabagas but I’d be more than willing to wager that it’s impossible to find a person who isn’t afraid of being lost somewhere. Sure, you’ll always have the adventurous folks who say that getting lost in a new place is half the fun but I’m pretty sure there are qualifiers: said folks might enjoy being lost in a bustling, vibrant, overseas food market but how would they feel about suddenly finding themselves wandering some anonymous country road, alone, in the middle of night with nothing but a matchbook for illumination?

Getting lost in this big world of ours used to be a much easier task: anyone who remembers the acute joy of unfolding the equivalent of thirteen miles of intricately folded paper in order to find their current location “on the fly” knows this all too well. With the introduction of smart phones and GPS, however, the world has become notably smaller and it’s become decidedly more difficult to become truly lost. After all: how often do we actually come upon a location that doesn’t show up on the all-seeing eye of the Global Positioning System? According to writer-director Jeremy Lovering’s In Fear (2013), it does happen. The results, as you might guess, aren’t pretty.

Tom (Iain De Caestecker) and Lucy (Alice Englert) are a young couple who’ve been dating for a couple of weeks and decide to meet a bunch of friends at a big music festival in Ireland. In order to celebrate their fledgling relationship, Tom (without Lucy’s knowledge) has booked them a stay at an isolated inn that happens to be on the way, all the better to get a little “alone time” before they meet up with the rest of the crew.

After some unpleasant run-ins with the locals that we hear about (but don’t see), Tom and Lucy find themselves driving down a seemingly endless country road, following what seems to be an absurd amounts of signs that purport to lead the way to their inn, the Kilairney House Hotel. On the way, they pass a sinister-looking, decrepit house with a prominent “Do Not Enter” sign affixed to the front gate. Lucy also begins to get the creeping suspicion that someone (or something?) is watching them from the shadows, as the day quickly transitions into the even shadowier evening.

As the couple continues to drive in circles, their relationship begins to fray at the edges. Things really get interesting, however, when the couple accidentally plows into a mysterious stranger who just appears in the center of the road. The bloodied Max (Allen Leech) claims that he was attacked by a group of local hunters, folks who he has some sort of undisclosed beef with. Finagling a ride from Tom and Lucy, Max seems like a harmless enough, if rather odd, fellow. As the couple will discover, however, you can’t always judge a book by its cover. What are Max’s real intentions? Does he have anything to do with their current predicament or is it just coincidence that they happened upon him? Who is watching the group from the woods? What happened with the locals in the pub? Is there a logical explanation for what’s happening or have the couple managed to slip through the cracks of our comfortable, well-lit existence into something decidedly more shadowy and evil? Will they ever make it to the inn? If so, what will they find there?

At first glance, In Fear seems to be yet the latest in a long line of “backwoods brutality” pictures, those delightful little gems that feature citified folks heading into rural areas (usually in foreign countries), running afoul of the (usually) debauched locals and being pursued/tortured/eaten/etc. In a nice change of pace, however, Lovering doesn’t make this notion the main course, even though he keeps it simmering on the back burner for much of the film’s relatively short running time. Instead, In Fear ends up being something decidedly more eerie, supernatural and difficult to describe, with the closest parallel that I can handily recall being something like the highly under-rated Dead End (2003), where Ray Wise and Lin Shaye found themselves trapped on an endlessly repeating stretch of country road.

In fact, one of the film’s greatest strengths is its steadfast refusal to over-explain anything or hold the audience’s hand. While some viewers might be turned off by the strange, open-ended nature of the film, that aspect actually elevated the proceedings, as far as I’m concerned. Lovering doles out little details, here and there, but we’re never quite sure what’s going on or why: at one point, Max tells Tom and Lucy that they must have provoked “them” but we have absolutely no idea who he means…the locals? The mysterious hunters who’ve strung strange pelts across the road? The woods, itself? Ghosts? Sasquatch? We never find out and the film is all the stronger for it.

Along with the simple, compact script and structure, In Fear also benefits from a trio of exceptionally capable performances: when your film only features three actors, they better all be able to hold their own and Lovering’s cast acquit themselves quite nicely. De Caestecker (excellent in the recent Filth (2013)) and Englert (star of the recent Beautiful Creatures (2013)) make a good couple and have genuine chemistry together, which is something that you see all too infrequently in indie horror films like this. In most cases, you’re left wondering why people this miserable would ever want to spend time together: here, we buy their new relationship from the get-go, which makes the eventual collapse more impactful. More importantly, Tom and Lucy are both sympathetic characters (barring the odd moment where Tom sneaks up on Lucy and scares her for no reason, whatsoever), which makes what happens to them more powerful.

The third point of the triangle, Allen Leech, is probably the most high-profile, especially following his excellent turn in last year’s Oscar-nominated The Imitation Game (2014) and his recurring role on the hugely popular Downton Abbey. It’s also important to remember, however, that Leech was equally fantastic as John Cusack’s creepy assistant in the stellar Grand Piano (2014) and it’s this particular well that he dips into for In Fear. Leech’s Max is a highly enigmatic character, swinging wildly from absolute insanity to cheerful “laddish” behavior, often within the same scene. We never do really find out who Max is or what he wants but, as with the rest of the film’s open-ended nature, this feels less like an omission and more like a very conscious choice. Regardless of where he ends up fitting in the overall scheme of things, Leech’s Max is a really great, endlessly creepy character and another unforgettable performance from one of the 2000’s most interesting actors.

Ultimately, In Fear is the very definition of a sleeper: the film defies all expectations and, in its own way, is one of the more successful horror films I’ve seen recently. Rather than holding it back, the film’s small-scale and modest scope allow it a focus missing in many similar indie films: unlike other low-budget genre filmmakers who swing for the stars and miss miserably, Lovering and company focus on telling a small story in a tight, focused manner and succeed quite handily. When the film is creepy, it really burrows under your skin and takes up residence: just the hazy lighting quality of the dusk scenes, alone, is enough to light up the reptilian fear parts of the brain. With David Katznelson’s evocative cinematography and Daniel Pemberton and Roly Porter’s constantly ominous score, In Fear is a quality piece of work, from start to finish.

If getting lost in the middle of nowhere is one of your big fears, In Fear might just give you a case of the old cold sweats. Even if you’re one of those weekend warriors who relishes getting lost in the great outdoors, however, I’m willing to wager that you’ll still find something to unsettle you. At the very least, can’t we all agree that picking up mysterious, bloody strangers, in the middle of a deserted country road, at night, is just not a good idea?

5/6/15: Blurring the Lines

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Alexandria Fierz, backwoods folk, based on a true story, Bert Wall, cinema, David Z. Roberts, dead father, Devil's Backbone, Devil's Backbone Tavern, Devil's Backbone Texas, directorial debut, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, found-footage films, ghosts, Haley Buckner, haunted houses, horror, horror films, isolated estates, Jake Wade Wall, James Carrington, Jodi Bianca Wise, mockumentary, Movies, screenwriter, supernatural, twist ending, Unsolved Mysteries, writer-director-producer-actor

If the whole point of mockumentary/found-footage horror films is to obscure the dividing line between truth and fiction, freely mixing the “real” with the “fake” until audiences are too dizzy to know the difference, then Jake Wade Wall’s debut, Devil’s Backbone, Texas (2015), just might be one of the most successful yet. By interweaving the actual story of his horror writer father’s experiences on the titular patch of land with the kind of traditional found-footage aspects that we’re used to seeing (the Blair Witch Project (1999) is an obvious inspiration), Wall is able to come up with a virtually textbook example of the subgenre. If Devil’s Backbone, Texas is less successful as an actual film, well…let’s chalk that up to growing pains: there’s enough good ideas here to make Wall someone to keep an eye on in the future.

The concept of the film, as mentioned above, cleverly blends the real-life story of Bert Wall, a writer/rancher who lived in the area of Texas known as Devil’s Backbone, with the usual “running through the woods with a camera” found-footage schtick. Wall’s ranch came to fame via a mid-’90s segment on Unsolved Mysteries that detailed the massive amount of ghostly activity that he claimed to witness on the land, including everything from ghostly monks to ghostly Native Americans. Wall’s real-life son, Jake (the film’s writer/director/producer/lead), uses this as the basic setup and then jumps us 20 years into the present. After his father has died, Jake’s mom asks him to take his ashes to his old homestead and perform the “ash ceremony” that Bert always wanted.

Seeing this as a great opportunity to explore stories of the area, Jake takes the ashes and a small passel of his best friends, a group which features the usual mixture of believers and non-believers. As Jake interviews the locals, in order to get a better picture of his estranged father, he also begins to uncover hints of the strange doings in the area: there’s even stories about a mysterious German POW camp on the ranch, providing yet another possible source for the region’s “hauntings.” As things gradually become stranger, Jake’s friends want to pack up and leave, especially after they keep bumping into a strange pickup truck that, for all intents and purposes, shouldn’t be there. Jake has become obsessed with getting to the bottom of his father’s death, however, as well as the legends of Devil’s Backbone and he has no intention of backing out. Will Jake’s stubbornness lead to the ultimate revelation of the Devil’s Backbone’s secrets or will his poking around spell the doom for everyone he holds dear?

One of Devil Backbone, Texas’ greatest strengths (perhaps its single greatest one) is the way in which it ingeniously melds fiction and reality within the framework of the film. To be honest, I wasn’t actually aware that there really was a Bert Wall: I assumed that the Unsolved Mysteries segment was a clever mock-up and that the whole film was an entirely fictionalized account of a real area/phenomenon. Imagine my surprise, then, when a little research revealed that not only does Bert Wall actually exist (along with that illuminating Unsolved Mysteries segment from 1996) but that Jake is his son. This sort of (gently) blew my mind, as it managed to recontextualize much of what I had just seen, especially considering the familial angle. Any film that can actually fool me gets big props, in my book, and Wall definitely deserves props.

The main problem with the film doesn’t really have much to do with the story, although it does end up feeling a bit musty, in places: in general, Wall throws plenty of good ideas around and many of them end up sticking, even if nothing is explored in as much depth as it should be (in particular, the German POW bit is so under-developed as to be mystifying). The big problems with the film, unfortunately, all stack up on the actual production side of things: while Wall has plenty of intriguing ideas, the film that contains them is, at best, rather average.

As the lead, Wall has a tendency to swing between an effective, upbeat kind of understatement and a much more ineffective hyper-emotionalism: when Jake really gets wound up, his character tends to come across as whiny,  shouty and altogether unpleasant. Found-footage films have a history of leads like this, of course (think back to Blair Witch’s insufferable Heather), but that doesn’t make it any more tolerable here. If anything, I found myself constantly wishing that Wall had stayed behind the camera: while his character definitely has moments, I found my suspension of disbelief shattered a few times too many for comfort.

The rest of the cast does decent work, although I’ll admit that the only one who actually left any kind of impression on me was the fella who looked sort of like Hugh Jackman: he had an easy-going delivery and charisma that was quite effective. Other than that, however, the group seemed like the usual crew of interchangeable types. As with similar mockumentary films, Devil’s Backbone, Texas, also features various interviews with academics, experts and towns’ folk: this all help with the film’s verisimilitude immensely, even when the acting from the cast becomes just rough enough to notice.

Ultimately, Devil’s Backbone, Texas is a decent debut, albeit one hampered by a shaky lead, slight lack of focus and a rather dreadful twist ending (not to put too fine a point on it but the lazy “surprise” finale is easily the dumbest part of the film, hands down). That being said, there’s something about the film that still got to me: perhaps it was that initial blurring of real and fiction or Wall’s very obvious enthusiasm for the film and subject. Perhaps it was the genuinely creepy location or the standout bit of atmosphere where we see teeming masses of spiders all over the walls of Bert’s abandoned home (as a lifelong arachnophobe, this practically had me crawling out of my skin). Whatever the reason, I walked away from Wall’s debut entertained, which is quite a bit more than I can say for many micro-budget indies. As such, I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

1/3/15 (Part Four): His Name is Mud

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Aaron Embry, As I Lay Dying, backwoods folk, based on a book, Child of God, Christina Voros, cinema, co-writers, Cormac McCarthy, dark comedies, degradation, dehumanization, film reviews, films, gallows' humor, homeless, horror, insanity, isolation, James Franco, Jim Parrack, Lester Ballard, literary adaptation, Movies, necrophilia, Scott Haze, serial killer, Tim Blake Nelson, Vince Jolivette, voice-over narration, writer-director

For a time, it’s incredibly easy to sympathize with Lester Ballard (Scott Haze): his parents are dead, he’s just been kicked off his family homestead, watched it auctioned away to his neighbors and been soundly whupped after trying to intervene. In one fell swoop, everything he has is taken away and he’s forced to live on the margins of society, homeless, jobless, no real identity and some pretty obvious mental problems. The only thing he has left in the entire world is his rifle, a nasty mattress that he drags around everywhere and some stuffed animals he won at a carnival sharpshooting game. Faced with odds like this, any reasonable person might just give up but Lester keeps chugging along, careening from one misunderstanding to another. You feel awful for the guy, this “child of God” that no one wants and no one cares about: this, you think, could happen to any of us. And then the murder and necrophilia starts and it gets just a little harder to sympathize with ol’ Lester.

That’s part of the beauty of James Franco’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God (2014): we spend so much time with the amazing wreck that is Lester Ballard that we get to witness his dehumanization first hand, step by step. Whenever people watch newscasts and wonder what drives people to do the terrible things they do…well, ladies and gentlemen: here you go. Working from his own screenplay (co-wrote with Vince Jolivette), Franco digs deep into McCarthy’s disturbing character study and gets himself incredibly dirty in the process: full of all the shit, blood, mud and misery that powered the novel, Child of God also manages to be bitterly humorous, another integral facet of McCarthy’s oeuvre. There’s genuine power to the film, along with a streak of self-assurance that proves Franco deserves to be taken seriously. Powering the whole film, however, like the sun at the center of a solar system, is the astounding, feral and unforgettable Lester Ballard and the actor behind him, Scott Haze.

Structure-wise, Child of God is separated into chapters and unified by a voice-over narration that constantly fills us in on Lester’s backstory via recollections of his various neighbors, townsfolk, etc. After Lester is kicked off his land, we basically follow him around as he experiences one degrading situation after another, culminating in the disturbing moment where he comes upon a dead couple in a car and makes off with the woman’s body. From this point on, Lester attempts to fit into society, albeit on his own terms, and the results are just about as successful as you’d expect. After accidentally burning down the barn he was squatting in, Lester is forced to move into a cave, like an animal. As he becomes more and more marginalized and insane, Lester’s actions swerve from crazy but harmless into criminally deranged territory. It all builds to a violent confrontation with the sheriff (Tim Blake Nelson) and the townsfolk, as Lester is made to answer for his crimes.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect from Franco’s adaptation of Child of God, especially after being a bit lukewarm on his previous version of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (2013). While I thought the film looked great and had a handful of memorable scenes and setpieces, it was also rather jumbled and the climax sent the whole thing off the rails. Turns out I didn’t need to worry, however: Franco’s version of McCarthy’s novel gets pretty much everything right, from the streamlined narrative to the excellent use of voice-over narration and the amazing portrayal of central figure Lester Ballard. The film looks just as lush and gorgeous as As I Lay Dying, thanks to the return of cinematographer Christina Voros and the blue-grassy score is quite effective in setting the mood.

Without a doubt, though, Scott Haze’s central performance is what makes the film. There’s something so unhinged and feral about his portrayal of Lester that it transcends acting and becomes something closer to performance art. Thick ropes of snot hanging from his face, (literally) shitting in the woods, ranting, raving, barely intelligible as he keeps up a near constant flood of stream-of-conscious rambling…Haze is absolutely magnificent and never anything less than freakishly authentic. No lie: it’s one of the most amazing performances of the year and one that should have been an absolute shoe-in for multiple nominations (and wins) at any number of awards opportunities. Haze has a way of always allowing us to see at least a little humanity in Lester, right up to the point where that humanity is completely extinguished. It’s a stunning performance and one that I’m shocked hasn’t been part of the conversation regarding film in 2014.

I would, of course, be remiss is I didn’t point out that Child of God is a pretty rough ride, at least as far as content goes. The aforementioned moment where Haze actually squats and craps, in full view of the camera, is something I never hope to see again and the numerous necrophilia scenes are fairly graphic and intensely disturbing. There’s also something about the bracing way that Franco uses humor, such as the genuinely funny bit where Lester tries to wrestle the limp corpse back to his barn abode, that will probably turn quite a few folks off like a faucet. I happen to love dark humor in films, so really appreciated the effect, but can definitely concede that most of this won’t be the average person’s cup of tea.

From where I sit, however, Franco’s adaptation of Child of God is a miniature marvel. The film is consistently well-made and is never anything less than enthralling, even when it becomes increasingly unpleasant. Most importantly, however, Haze’s performance is so perfect that it would be practically criminal for anyone who considers themselves a fan of good acting to pass it up. People have been talking about adapting McCarthy’s Blood Meridian for decades, yet no one filmmaker has ever seemed up to that task. After watching what Franco is capable of here, however, it seems like a no-brainer: this is the director that can actually make it happen. Although I never thought I would say it, James Franco may have, quietly, developed into one of our most promising new directors. Who knew?

10/21/14 (Part Two): Diggin’ in the Muck

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31 Days of Halloween, Alex Chandon, backwoods folk, black comedies, British films, Chris Waller, cinema, city vs country, co-writers, Damien Lloyd-Davies, Deliverance, Derek Melling, Dominic Brunt, dysfunctional family, film reviews, films, gallows' humor, George Newton, horror, horror films, horror-comedies, Inbred, isolated communities, James Burrows, James Doherty, Jo Hartley, Movies, Nadine Mulkerrin, Neil Leiper, Paul Shrimpton, Peter Jackson, politically-incorrect humor, pubs, Seamus O'Neill, set in England, Terry Haywood, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, UK films, writer-director, youth group, youth in trouble

As a lifelong movie lover, I’ve seen plenty of films over the years that would seem to have universal appeal to just about anyone: I can’t, for example, understand how anyone wouldn’t love The Godfather (1972), 2001 (1968) or The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)…the thought pretty much boggles my mind. As a horror fanatic, I’ve also seen plenty of films that would seem to be perfect for horror fans, even if more “discerning” film-goers might turn their noses (or stomachs) up at the fare: Dawn of the Dead (1978), The Descent (2005), Halloween (1978) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) should be part of any horror fan’s DNA, as far as I’m concerned, along with a host of others.

Sometimes, as I said, a film just seems to have universal appeal. On the other hand, there are those films that will really only ever appeal to a select group of folks: films that are too “out there,” violent, offensive or transgressive for the masses to ever fully digest. In some cases, these films can appeal to particularly narrow, niche markets: extreme torture films, mumble-core, splatter-core, art films, etc… Sometimes, however, a film just seems to want to push as many buttons as possible, using a scattergun approach to raising eyebrows: Peter Jackson’s ludicrously offensive Meet the Feebles (1989) is one such epic, as is Lucky McKee’s towering ode to the evils of misogyny, The Woman (2011). To this select group of offensive films, feel free to add Alex Chandon’s ugly-as-sin Inbred (2011), a film that promises to do for the backwoods of Great Britain the same thing that Deliverance (1972) did for the Ozarks. In case the name didn’t tip you off, Inbred knows no sacred cows: suffice to say, this is one film that absolutely will not appeal to everyone.

At the start, Inbred is framed as one of those films where well-meaning youth counselors take a group of troubled teens into the woods and try to get them to see the error of their ways. In this case, are troubled youth are motor-mouthed, shithead Dwight (Chris Waller), shy firebug Tim (James Burrows), jovial prankster Zeb (Terry Haywood) and token girl Sam (Nadine Mulkerrin). The well-meaning counselors take the form of stick-in-the-mud Jeff (James Doherty) and laid-back Kate (Jo Hartley), who sees compassion and friendship as the key to reaching the wayward kids.

The group ends up staying at some sort of (seemingly) abandoned structure and set about fixing the place up for their stay. As a reward for their hard work, Kate convinces Jeff to take them all into the nearby town so that they can visit the pub. As soon as the city-folk step into the dark environs of the pub, however, they realize just how out-of-place they are: not only do every one of the (decidedly) scuzzy patrons give them the stink eye, upon their entrance, but many of the drinkers appear to share pretty similar facial features…there are isolated, backwoods towns…and then, there’s this place. The barkeep, Jeff (Seamus O’Neill), seems normal and is very friendly, yet he acts strange when he finds out the group is staying at the dilapidated Ravenwood estate. As Jeff points out, the people in the town are all very friendly and nice…provided that you leave them alone and don’t bother them in the slightest, that is.

The trouble is, of course, that the group are true fish-out-of-water and have no idea about the locals very strange customs: as luck would have it, they end up disturbing a strange ritual that seems to involve burning animals and appear to incur the wrath of the locals. At this point, Jim’s formerly genial personality changes into something approaching terrifying insanity and the film becomes a siege picture, as the kids and their adult guardians do everything they can to stay alive. As the group will find out, however, there are much worse things than a quick death, especially when there’s a town full of inbred yokels to entertain. While the others make a desperate stand, Jim and his vicious son, Gris (Neil Leiper), prepare for one helluva performance, a show that will feature their new “guests” as star attractions.

We’ll just get this out of the way right off the bat: Inbred is an extremely unpleasant, graphic and all-around nasty piece of work. The townspeople, to a tee, are a filthy, strange and nearly animalistic lot and Jim is a truly terrifying figure of awe-inspiring bat-shittery: he spends most of the film parading around in blackface (the entire town is casually racist, as if it were the most natural thing in the world) and looks truly demonic by the finale, as his makeup runs in black streaks down his face. The “performances” are truly disturbing displays of inventive torture and, in at least one instance, are almost impossible to look at: I very rarely look away during horror films (this ain’t snuff, after all) but I was genuinely revolted by one particular scene and had very little interest in seeing it play to its logical conclusion. The violence and gore is sudden, extreme and very well-done: there are no punches pulled, especially during the climax, and there’s a visceral intensity to everything that makes it all seem that much more vivid.

But here’s the thing: Inbred works. It actually works spectacularly well, to be honest, finding a perfect synthesis between the humor and horror elements. The atmosphere in the film is thick and claustrophobic, making good use of some truly gorgeous cinematography, particularly during the film’s many wide shots of the beautiful countryside. The script is a good one, if very strange, with no concessions towards mass consumption whatsoever. Once the film switches from “creepy, sinister locals” to “full-on insane, blood-thirsty mob of locals,” the film ratchets the intensity up and never lets go.

Even better, however, is the fact that the filmmakers never take the obvious approach to anything: time and time again, hoary old genre clichés will pop up only to be bent, folded and manipulated into entirely new forms. One of my favorite moments in the movie comes when one character’s moment of triumph (so cliché but so prevalent in similar films) is completely deflated, turning him from kickass distributor of death to sitting duck in no time flat. Another brilliant, if thoroughly unpleasant, scene comes when Jim and some of the locals wager on one of the outsiders making it safely through a booby-trapped field: when the victim winds up caught in a trap, Jim has one of his guys go free her, so that they can continue their bet. It’s a nasty bit of work but it’s also a genius bit of characterization and makes Jim all that more memorable.

And memorable he is: Jim and his perverted ringmaster outfit has to be one of the most indelible images I’ve seen in some time. O’Neill is masterful as the friendly sociopath: he gets plenty of great speeches and is always a complex character, despite his obvious insanity. The kids are pretty generic, to be honest, but that’s also pretty expected in films like this. I did think there was some really nice work being done by Doherty and Hartley as the supposed authority figures: Hartley turns into a fairly effective hero, while Doherty gets some nicely emotional beats and has the benefit of perishing in one of the most genuinely surprising jump scares I’ve ever seen.

Ultimately, however, individual mileage with Inbred will vary: if you tend to be a sensitive viewer, this is absolutely not the film for you. Whether it’s a rampaging yokel with a hairlip and a chainsaw, torture involving vegetables jammed up noses or a literal shit explosion, Inbred has a real way of upping the ante and keeping it there. I feel fairly safe in stating that there should be something here to offend just about everyone. In a way, however, this becomes one of the film’s greatest strengths: it’s exceptionally well-made and acted but it’s also completely fearless, which is an intoxicating trait for a horror film to possess. In an era where many horror films have begun to seem too similar and too safe, Inbred is that rare beast: a truly transgressive, nasty, mean-spirited film with a coal-black heart and no desire to coddle viewers. I’m not ashamed to say that I had a blast with Inbred, even if I’m not eager to revisit it any time soon. Here’s to hoping that Chandon and company have another nasty little treat like this up their sleeves: sometimes, you just gotta walk on the wild side.

 

6/1/14 (Part Two): Friends, Zombies, Fellow Men in the Country…

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actor-director, actor-writer, B-movies, backwoods folk, Billy Ray, Buck WIld, chupacabra, cinema, co-writers, Dru Lockwood, dude ranch, dumb films, Edgar Wright, film reviews, films, guys' weekend, horror, horror films, horror movies, horror-comedies, hunting, Isaac Harrison, isolated communities, Jerrod Pistilli, Joe Stevens, Mark Ford, Matthew Albrecht, Meg Cionni, Movies, rednecks, Shaun of the Dead, Tom and Jerry, Tyler Glodt, white trash, writer-director, zombie films, zombie movies, zombies

By this point in world history, plain ol’ “vanilla” zombie films don’t really have much effect anymore. Sure, they may be one of the easiest low-budget productions for fledgling filmmakers to get involved in (Got some friends, a camera and a location? Guess what, Jack: you just got yourself the beginnings of a zombie film!) but that also means that we’ve been drowning in this kind of direct-to-video filler for a good thirty years, at this point. Once the “prosumer” camera revolution occurred, it was even easier for filmmakers to pump out this kind of product and it seems that zombie films have been multiplying like Tribbles within the last decade or so. In order to inject a bit of life into the subgenre, filmmakers have turned to various ways to “spruce” up the ol’ gut-munchers, the most popular of which involves slamming comedy and the zombie film together, chocolate and peanut butter-style, to create an entirely new (well, kind of new) sub-subgenre: the zom-com.

While Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004) definitely wasn’t the first zom-com (I’d give that title to Dan O’Bannon’s outrageous 1985 yuk/yuck-fest The Return of the Living Dead), it’s probably (still) the most popular one, as well as the first to take the “zom-com” tag and run with it. In the decade since Simon Pegg and the lads tried to forestall a zombie invasion of the UK, there have been several fistfuls of zom-coms, ranging in quality from “drop-dead hilarious” to “just drop dead, already.” In a fairly glutted field, I’m managed to see several worthy successors to Shaun of the Dead: Fido (2006) was an ingenious melding of zom-coms with candy-colored 1950’s nostalgia, while Cockneys vs Zombies (2012) managed to overcome a terribly generic title with solidly-paced jokes and thrills. And, of course, who could forget Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg trading quips in Zombieland (2009)? Mixing zombie chills with chuckles isn’t the easiest task but, when done well, the results can be lots of fun. Unfortunately, Buck Wild (2013), the newest feature from the team of Tyler Glodt and Matthew Albrecht, isn’t so much a “big, dumb blast” as a “really dumb film,” only slightly less stupid than the head-smackingly awful ’80s Troma film Redneck Zombies (1989).

Buck Wild starts promisingly, if crudely, with a fairly funny segment involving beleaguered father Clyde (Joe Stevens), his perpetually horny daughter, Candy (Meg Cionni) and her stupid boyfriend. After decking the boyfriend with a wrench (humping his daughter in the garden is one thing, stepping all over the flowers is a whole other bucket of manure), Clyde ends up getting attacked by a chupacabra. Yes, a chucacabra, ladies and gentlemen. We that, we seem to be off to the races, establishing a crude, fun and extremely tongue-in-cheek attitude.

Unfortunately, the good will begins to fade as the movie proper begins, mostly because we get saddled with a pretty obnoxious group of protagonists. Our “hero” is Craig (co-writer Matthew Albrecht), one of those perpetually put-upon, straight-arrow types that exists solely to become irritated by various indignities. His “best friend,” Lance (Isaac Harrison) is a ridiculously metrosexual “ladies’ man” who happens to be boinking Craig’s girlfriend, Carla (Amerlia Meyers), unbeknownst to our “hero.” The little group is rounded out by Tom (Dru Lockwood) and Jerry (Jarrod Pistilli), who seem to serve as a perpetually at-odds odd couple: you know, cuz they’re named Tom and Jerry? Like the cartoons? The ones with the mouse and cat? Yeah, it just ain’t funny no matter how you slice it, is it? Tom is the typical mealy-mouthed, glasses-wearing dork: we’ve seen at least a million iterations of this character in just the last couple years, nevermind the last couple decades. Jerry, however, is the real prize in this Cracker Jack box: bedecked in a ridiculous fedora, given to smoking cigars in small cars and practicing his nunchuks in the nude, Jerry is supposed to be the epitome of the batshit crazy outsider, that one guy who just…does not…give a FUCK, bro! Except he’s a colossal weenie, sort of a gene-splice between Crispin Glover and Bobcat Goldthwait’s award-winning performance in the Police Academy movies. As such, not only is it impossible to buy the scene where he puts the cigar out on his own hand (cuz this guy totally looks like he would start bawling) but it’s almost offensive to believe that this nitwit occupies the “badass” role in the film. When your bar is that low, no good can come of it, mark my words.

The plot, such as it is, involves one of those “guys-only weekends,” this one ostensibly set-up to allow for not only some male bonding but some animal-shooting, as well. The “gang” heads to the Buck Wild Ranch (Hey! That’s the name of the film! Clever!), which just happens to be run by Clyde. Clyde’s not looking too good and if you’ve seen any zombie films besides this one, you’ll know why. Besides being infected by a chupacabra, Clyde’s also kind of a dick: he calls the guys “punks” and “pissants” (put up your dukes!) and tells them to make sure to stay within the borders of the ranch. Turns out that Clyde’s next-door neighbor is a self-proclaimed “badass” named Billy Ray (Mark Ford) and he doesn’t take kindly to trespassers. The guys end up running afoul of Billy Ray (an absolutely, astoundingly terrible creation that seems to be part frat-boy, part John Waters, part lame-ass rockabilly clothes horse and completely, totally unbelievable) and a completely awful park ranger, Officer Shipley (director/co-writer Tyler Glodt), which don’t really expand the narrative so much as pad it out. Ultimately, they also run afoul of zombies: turns out Clyde has been infecting other locals and, soon, our city slickers are up to their haircuts in the redneck dead. Revelations are had, truths are learned, friends turn into the walking dead, Jerry acts like a badass, yadda yadda yadda. If the ultimate destination of this one-legged mule isn’t readily apparent by the end of the first act…I’m guessing you might actually enjoy this. Hmm…

Look, I’m not gonna sugarcoat this at all: Buck Wild is a stupid film. Aggressively stupid. Worse yet, it’s a hyperactive, self-aware, tone-deaf kind of stupidity that reminds me more of films like Scary Movie (2000) than Shaun of the Dead. Let me give you a good example of the “humor” on display here. After Officer Shipley pulls the guys over because he’s heard “enough gunshots for Baghdad,” he proceeds to stand outside his car and give them a speech about how if you smell shit, you’re probably standing in it. Officer Shipley, it turns out, smells shit: guess what, he asks them. You’re standing in shit, the others point out. And he is…he really is standing in a big pile of shit. Now, if anything about that was humorous (keep in mind that the “delivery” of said “joke” doesn’t help things), Buck Wild just may be right up your alley. Lest we think that the writers only have one kind of joke up their sleeve, they also show us how hilarious and timely their references are: Tom ends up a captive at Billy Ray’s compound and Jerry goes to save him, in a scene that features an ultra-sleazy brass song, Tom bent over a table wearing only his underwear and Jerry wielding a samurai sword. Yeah, that’s right: it’s a fucking Pulp Fiction reference. Not only that, but it’s a “humorous” reference to the rape scene: now that’s comedy!

Lest it sound like Buck Wild is completely worthless, there are actually three elements of the film that really work. The first element is the cinematography, which is consistently well-done and clear: in low-budget films like this, you’re usually lucky if you get something that looks half-way decent, let alone good. The second element that works (spectacularly well, I might add) are the fake TV shows that we occasionally see. One of them, a public access show called “Fucking Hunting” that features Billy Ray and his motley crew, is an absolute scream, miles away the funniest thing in the film. Hot on its heels, however, is another gem of a fake show, this one called “Living Through the Gray,” a self-help show about dealing with color-blindness. The TV shows are not only the funniest moments in the film, hands down, but they’re actually two of the funniest moments I’ve seen in any film recently: it’s a shame that they’re left to die amid the humorless wasteland that is the rest of the film.

The third element that actually works in Buck Wild is an extremely smart and subversive little commentary on the casual female nudity that inundates most low-mid budget horror films. Unlike similar films that might feature a terrified young starlet running around topless, Buck Wild chooses to make Tom the object of the “male gaze.” For the majority of the film, due to one incident or another, Tom rarely wears more than his underwear and socks: at one point, he fashions a toga out of a garbage bag, only to have a zombie rip it to shreds. Later, he gets to take a shower and emerges, clad in a bathrobe, only to have a passing zombie yank it off, exposing him once again. I’ll be honest: this particular running gag never got old and displayed the kind of invention and thought that I wish the rest of the film possessed. I don’t actually recall any female nudity at all, to be honest, although we get plenty of Tom. In some ways, this seems to be a callback to the Pee Wee character in Porkys (1982), who likewise spends the majority of that film in a constant state of embarrassment, harassment and undress. While the film often seems to be exceptionally mean to Tom, it ends up paying off big dividends, especially during a nicely emotional final setpiece.

Ultimately, however, a few worthy elements don’t a worthy film make. If Buck Wild were just a little less inane and stupid, it would be mighty easy to recommend it as the kind of low-budget romp that it thinks it is. Unfortunately, the film mostly ends up being a showcase of missed opportunities and foul balls, with nary a true home run in the batch (unless we count the TV shows, which really only amount to 2-3 minutes of screen-time, max). While I’m more than willing to give Glodt and Albrecht another chance, there’s no way I would put these guys on my radar: Fool me once, fool me twice and all that jazz.