Tom Leins goes straight to DVD
Words by Tom Leins
After years in the wilderness, British horror movies have surged back to prominence over the last year, with inventive titles such as Eden Lake and Donkey Punch leading the charge. The latest movie to slide off the Brit-horror conveyor belt is Hush (Optimum), a tense low-budget thriller produced by Warp Films. The film follows a young couple -Zakes and Beth - who find themselves sucked into an increasingly disturbing cat and mouse game by a sadistic trucker with a penchant for human prey. After a sluggish start, first time director Mark Tonderai stomps on the accelerator and drags you into his shadowy Northern netherworld for all manner of nastiness. Rain-lashed Northern motorways, bleak service stations and deserted haulage yards are all exploited for their nerve-shredding potential, and the tightly-cranked tension is handled with grisly flair.
Inspired by Joel Rose’s edgy, uncompromising cult novel, Kill Kill Faster Faster (Kaleidoscope) is a bleak, stylish drama about Joey One-Way, a tormented convict-turned-literary-sensation whose tentative post-prison existence is thrown into chaos when he falls for the sultry wife of his new movie producer employer. First time director Gareth Maxwell Roberts tweaks the story into a stark, minimalist neo-noir, and this aesthetic suits the bleak subject matter perfectly. The slick editing artfully disguises the film’s modest budget, and the (relatively) obscure cast bring the story vividly to life. Newcomers may wonder what all of the fuss is about, but fans of the book will be thrilled by this faithfully rendered adaptation. Cool and twisted, with enough jolts of nastiness to keep you squirming. Interesting stuff.
His trademark ponytail may have been snipped off, but porky powerhouse Steven Seagal is still in fighting form! Driven To Kill (Optimum) is the latest in a long line of straight-to-DVD products from the washed-up hard-man. Seagal plays an ex-Russian mobster who abandoned a life of crime and started churning out exploitative crime novels instead. When some vicious ex-associates wage war on his estranged family Seagal returns to the life he left behind for some viscera-streaked carnage! The snake-hipped agility of his early movies may be a dim and distant memory, but his swollen tough guy routine is effortlessly watchable. There are some particularly savage fight scenes, and Seagal’s new ‘brute force’ approach means that his (skinny) much-maligned ‘fight double’ gets to spend the movie on the sidelines! After the lazy dross produced during his Sony years, Driven To Kill is surprisingly palatable straight-to-DVD entertainment. All in all: sweaty, undemanding nonsense with some enjoyably violent interludes.
Bringing up the rear this week is Three Kingdoms (Icon) – an intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying historical epic. Based on a 700 year old Chinese novel, the storyline concerns a trio of warring factions, who are at loggerheads with one another over the murky fate of the country. The impressive cast includes Andy Lau, Sammo Hung and Maggie Q, but not even their collective star power can to inject any kind of urgency into the plodding movie. Unfortunately, too often it stumbles when it should soar… After recent movies like 300 and Apocalypto, Three Kingdoms feels dangerously bland, and would have benefited from some of the insanity that that made those two movies so memorable. True, there are some engaging flashes of battleground savagery, but the interesting scenes get bogged down by the ponderous narrative. What’s worse, considering its ‘epic’ intentions, the brisk run-time seems bizarrely ill-judged. Fans should save their money for John Woo’s forthcoming Red Cliff, which devotes 4 ½ hours to the same story!
Posted Wed, July 22, 2009