I had heard quite a bit of good things about this festival so I decided to check it out this year. Unfortunately I arrived a bit late so I missed the first movie Amphibious (2010), but to be honest I didn't really mind missing it as it didn't sound too promising, but as always who knows it might have surprised me. Anyway here's my reviews from the ones I did see in mids of drinking the cheap beer when ever I could.
Subconscious Cruelty (2000)
I chose this one because I hadn't seen it before, though the Norwegian movie running at the same time, Dark Souls (2010), did sound promising also. But as this has somewhat of a cult status already I decided to patch a hole in my general knowledge. Well turned out I shouldn't have done that. This movie is just boring self indulgent garbage with nothing but shock and gore effects to offer. It tries to be an art horror film, but really didn't see any art in it. It's just gorno with annoying audio-visual effects that make your eyes and ears hurt. It has four stories of quite macabre nature which are supposed to be sort of an insight to the human mind, but really they made absolutely no sense to me. Fans of surrealistic shock effects and maybe some perverts might get something out of this, but I just found it complete waste of time.
5%
Red White & Blue (2010)
I knew absolutely nothing about this movie before I went to watch it, hadn't even seen a poster, just a name in the catalog. So I had no idea what to expect, except horror as this was a horror festival after all. Well half way to the movie I hadn't seen a bit of horror, not even a hint of a thriller. Only a gritty dirty drama about a woman whose life spins around bars, bad jobs and having sex with pretty much every man he comes across. Then it moves to tell a story of a struggling musician whose mother is fighting cancer and whose band is looking for a break. But after an hour or so the movie takes a drastic turn into a very brutal revenge thriller that reminded me of The Last House on the Left (1972), but with different motives of course. Actually I quite liked the story as it's not as black and white on who are the bad guys and who are innocent victims. Kind of like all of them are bad in their own way and yet you tend to feel sorry for all of them as well. So it's definitely a tragic story and surely enough it doesn't hold back anything. It's made quite cheap and there are some mistakes in it, but it also kind of adds to the gritty feel of it as well. Amanda Fuller does a great job as Erica, the troubled woman and Noah Taylor is quite brilliant also. Rest of the cast are not exactly great and there are some awkward moments of bad acting, but they manage to get the point through. The way the movie is made with three parts might not have been the best idea as you tend to lose interest on trying to figure out what's the point and even though you surely get it towards the end, maybe a bit of better pacing should have been used. Despite it's flaws I liked the story and how diverse the characters and their motives were so it was well worth watching.
74%
The Pack (2010)
Had already seen this before so I didn't watch it at the festival, but I'll put the review here as I haven't done it before. This was quite an uneven French horror movie. It started out very well as a weird somewhat comic horror movie, but ended up being just another meaningless horror movie with very little to offer. It felt like the makers of this just piled up all the crap from other horror movies and made a sort of a left over soup of them. I mean I constantly had a feeling I've seen all this before somewhere and as there was nothing new added to it I got quite bored. Even though it's only 90 minutes it still felt too long for the thin story it had. Sure the movie looked ok and the cast was somewhat ok, but still not enough to keep the interest up. The biggest problem in addition to the idea recycling was the character development, or the lack of it. I just didn't feel anything for the characters and thus it failed to be scary at any point. Bit more originality and stronger characters and this would have worked somewhat ok, but now it just doesn't.
34%
Julia's Eyes (2010)
This was another movie I was looking forward to as it looked quite stunning on the trailer I saw. And sure enough it did look stunning, but despite the looks it did have many flaws. Julia (Belen Rueda) is losing her sight and awaiting for surgery that might save her eyes. Her sister is found dead and while everyone else thinks it was a suicide, Julia is convinced that she was murdered. She starts investigating what happened to her sister and soon finds herself being stalked by the same person she thinks killed her sister. The first hour or so of the movie is actually very good, the mood is great and the look of it supports it brilliantly. There's even some proper tension building and it's truly scary at parts. Also the giallo references surely didn't hurt it. But unfortunately towards the end it turns into a bad movie where I just kept thinking how stupid can the woman be? The dialog at the start which was quite good turns into pretty much idiotic babble and you just sit there hoping for it to end. Too bad it drags on and on way too long and waters down all the brilliant stuff in the beginning. With a less idiotic script this would have been a good movie, but now it's just barely average, despite the good start.
50%
Next one was Beyond the Black Rainbow (2011) which looked quite great in it's 80's style but unfortunately I fell asleep after the start. Not that the movie was especially boring, it actually looked quite interesting, but I guess I'm getting old for these fests. I mean the movie didn't make much sense at the start and the pace was slow but I kind of liked it as far as I saw it none the less so I'll just blame me getting old. I'll make sure to watch it when ever I get another chance.
The House of the Devil (2009)
I had already seen this one before on DVD, but as the movie looks brilliant I didn't want to miss a chance to see it on the big screen. Stayed wide awake through this one without any problems. This is an homage to the 80's and late 70's horror movies and sure enough it actually looks like a long lost 80's horror classic. Everything in the movie looks brilliant, the settings, the props, the costumes and the style are all spot on perfect. It's shot on 16mm film so even the picture is oozing with that 80's wibe. Add to that the 80's soundtrack and it's style is complete. The storytelling is also straight from those slow burning horror movies which take their time but will surely scare the shit out of you. It's a story about a young woman who answers to a babysitter wanted ad and ends up in a creepy old house sitting an old lady. The first hour of this movie is absolutely brilliant with pretty much perfect tension building and some truly scary scenes. But unfortunately it falls apart quite badly towards the end and takes too many common routes to keep it interesting. Even the brilliant suspension is replaced with shock effects and the ending leaves a bit too hollow feeling. That being said this is still a good movie, at times it's actually brilliant, but the rushed ending leaves a bit of a bad taste of it.
72%
At this point I saw The Troll Hunter (2010) again and I'm glad to say it worked very well on the second viewing also. Next one would have been Stake Land (2010), but I decided to skip it and went to see the town a bit and grab some fresh air.
Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)
Well this movie was the movie for which I went to Estonia in the first place. Didn't want to miss the chance of seeing it on the big screen, even though I had my doubts wether it would actually be any good. Well it was good, but not brilliant. This is an homage to the over the top vigilante movies of the 80's and I bet the fans of those will get the most out of this one. Rutger Hauer plays a hobo who arrives to a city over run by pretty much the scum of the earth. Soon he has to ditch his dreams of bying a lawn mower and he decides to buy a shotgun instead to clean up the streets. Silly story but so is the movie. Well silly is not the right word, even over the top is kind of an under statement, this movie is ridiculously insane. It's fast paced and filled with action so you certainly won't get bored, but actually I was hoping a bit more originality to it. Sure there are tons of great stuff in it and some of them seem quite fresh but I just had that feeling that I've already seen this before. But then again as it's brainless violent entertainment with a take no prisoners attitude, it didn't matter that much in the end. Rutger Hauer is the show here and it's really nice to see him doing a big performance again, not that it would be the best of his career but still a good one. Rest of the cast is barely ok, mostly over acting which somewhat fits the story, but nothing to rave about. This was probably the bloodiest of the movies on the festival, so I guess that's somewhat of a merit also. Anyway I quite enjoyed this one, even though it didn't leave much to go home with.
79%
Hatchet II (2010)
Haven't seen the first part so I was a bit worried about going to check this out. I mean even though some sequels can work better if you don't have the expectations set by the first part, but still I believe movies should be watched in the order they were intended. Never the less I went to see this as there wasn't anything else running at the time. At start I was a bit worried as the movie seemed to continue right where the first part left off, but luckily the situation was explained and I caught on to the story quite fast. Then again I can imagine if you'd already seen the first one this explaining would seem quite stupid to you. Won't go into the story that much as it's quite thin and every bit of it is borrowed from other slasher movies, they return to the swamp to find Marybeth's friends and of course everyone gets killed again. But the story here is not the point, it's the absolutely ridiculous amount of gore and the hilarious way it's portrayed. This is a dark comedy and fans of the slasher movies will surely get the most out of it. And I'm sure happy it turned out to be a comedy as I really couldn't stop laughing at the makeup of Marybeth (Danielle Harris) at the beginning. She has a cut on the top of left side of her face which keeps her left eyebrow up all the time, so she has this wacky look on all the time that reminded me of the eyebrow joke in Just Go with It (2011). If it was intentional, that's just brilliant and if not, well that's even better. The kills are so brilliantly over the top that I had a blast watching this one. I think this movie will hold the record of longest hand weilded chainsaw in the movie history and one of the funniest usages of it. This movie is for horror fans that aren't too up tight about their genre and can have a laugh at it also. So I liked it and I will surely be checking out Hatchet (2006) as well.
70%
Norwegian Ninja (2010)
Even though I already have this on DVD I didn't watch it and waited to see it on the big screen. I loved the trailer and the movie sounded so crazy that it really can't be that bad. Well I have to say I was a bit disappointed, guess I was expecting a bit too much. It seemed like a fun made to be b-movie that kicks ass, but it wasn't that fun and it didn't really kick ass, but a b-movie it was for sure. Most of the comedy came from how goofy the tricks were and sure as a movie geek I liked them a lot, but not really enough to keep me entertained through the whole movie. The story itself also had some comedy of course, some of the times so bad it was actually funny, but to be honest most of the time it was just bad. Also there was surprisingly little action, you pretty much see all the fight scenes in the trailer and even most of those were a bit disappointing. Sure the alternate history of Norway's most famous traitor was suiting plot line for a crazy movie like this, but to someone not that familiar with the real subject I guess I missed quite a few of the points the story might have had. It's a shame it failed to deliver as I liked the concept of it, i loved the crazy ninja movies back in the 80's. So in the end it's a well made bad movie with very little comedy and action.
47%
There were still two movies after that, Atrocious (2010) and The Catechism Cataclysm (2011), but as my ride was leaving I had to skip them. Anyway, this was a very nice festival and I'll surely be participating next year as well.
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