Tag: psycho

2LDK

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★★★★
“Sharing an apartment with the wrong person can be murder…”

This inspired film came about as the result of a bet at the Berlin Film Festival between Tsutsumi and Azumi director Ryuhei Kitamura (who is also doing the next Godzilla movie): make a film about a duel to the death, with just one setting, two characters, and seven days shooting. Kitamura made Aragami about two samurai in a temple; Tsutsumi, however, came up with this, about two warring flatmates (the title is Japanese shorthand for an apartment with 2 bedrooms, a living-room, a dining-room and a kitchen – luxurious by the cramped standards of their cities). Specifically, two actresses who, over the course of an evening, discover they are not only the final contenders for the same part, they also want the same man…

The first half is an edgy comedy about the perils of sharing accommodation: one girl (Koike) is a country girl, new to the profession, but is the sort who puts her name on her food in the fridge, right down to individual eggs; the other (Nonami) is a seasoned pro, with few moral scruples, least of all about possessions. You just know it’s going to go horribly bad, and the girls’ true thoughts are conveyed by voiceovers, as they maintain a thin veneer of politeness, at least for the first 40 minutes. Then the gloves finally come off, and the pair brawl throughout the apartment, using every weapon at their disposal – samurai swords, bleach, straw mats, you name it. Though I do have to wonder, why the hell is there a chainsaw among all the elegant furnishings?

It does probably count as mean-spirited, but this is outweighed by surprising wit, and credit is due for being a very rare example of a film where you never see a man (you hear them on the phone, or in photos, that’s all). Tsutsumi does tend to push the camera in too close for the violence, when a more detached approach would perhaps be both better, and less confusing. At barely 70 minutes, it’s almost a throwaway, yet still remains largely entertaining, and is certainly unique.

Dir: Yukihiko Tsutsumi
Star: Maho Nonami, Eiko Koike

The Killing Club

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★★★½
“Girl-power, through accidental death and penguins.”

When Jamie (Bowen) accidentally kills her unpleasant boyfriend, it seems her life is over. Luckily, the first person on the scene is Laura (Lords), a latent psychopath who seizes the chance to fulfill her lifelong ambition: killing men who treat women badly. As she says, “Ridding the world of irredeemable men is what I was born to do.” Neither Jamie nor the third initiate into their little secret, Arlene (Maxey), are quite as enthusiastic, but despite this, Laura sets to work with a vengeance, and things start spiralling out of control.

As a black comedy, this works pretty well, even if it’s more a mid-grey than true black; it tries to have its cake and still keep Jamie sympathetic. The necessary convolutions weaken things substantially, and you can’t go at the genre anything less than full-throttle. There is one glorious moment, involving penguins, which reaches the necessary level of dark absurdity; otherwise, Lords is the only one to grab onto her part and go for it with the necessary gusto. She delivers even the most banal lines, such as ordering food in a diner, with remarkable zest, though I leave readers to consider the irony inherent in a former underage porn starlet playing someone out to kill abusive men…

And, make no mistake: the men here are shallow and loathsome. I think writer Amy Kiehl (who cameos as a waitress) must have had some very bad experiences with the male sex; one character goes from his introduction, to us yelling, “Die! Die!” at the TV, to his demise in under five minutes. If why Jamie hasn’t genuinely murdered her boyfriend is never explained, a certain amount of comedic exaggeration is par for the course in this kind of film. It’s a pleasant diversion, rather than anything more or less satisfactory.

Dir: Antoni Stutz
Star: Julie Bowen, Traci Lords, Dawn Maxey, Neal McDonough
a.k.a. You’re Killing Me

Monster (2003)

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★★★½
“Powerful portrayal by Theron, but tells us little we didn’t know already.”

monsterGot to give Theron the credit she deserves here, especially since the biggest previous impression she made was probably her 2 Days in the Valley catfight with Teri Hatcher. Safe to say her performance here will lend that scene an extra chill, as she plays Aileen Wuornos, America’s best-known female serial killer, a roadside hooker who killed seven men before being caught and executed. The film depicts her life, from when she meets lesbian-wannabe Selby (Ricci), with both women looking desperately for affection of any kind. The two fall into a downward spiral; initially, Wuornos kills to escape a brutal client, but by the end, she’s doing it simply to get money and a car.

Despite Theron’s remarkable transformation – both psychological and physical – the movie seems hollow at its heart, not least because Ricci seems wildly miscast, stumbling around behind Wuornos like a bumbling puppy. Oddly, Wuornos’ real lesbian lover was a strawberry-redhead called Tyria Moore, so the film is clearly well off complete accuracy. This is perhaps for legal reasons: the dead can’t sue; the living can, and frequently do. While the film effectively ends with her capture, Nick Broomfield’s jaw-dropping documentary covers the later period of the case perfectly well.

The two central characters operate in a vacuum; there’s hardly anyone with more than one scene. As a result, the movie makes Wuornos out to be the victim of an incredibly hard life, yet an unexplained gulf still remains between that, her general hatred of humanity, and her multiple murders. While Theron’s performance is certainly worthy of praise, for a better look into the abyss, watch Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

Dir: Patty Jenkins
Star: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci

Confessions of a Psycho Cat

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★★★½
“The Most Dangerous Game: distaff version.”

psychocatThis 1968 film is totally loony, but none the less entertaining – the subsequent addition of (extremely subdued) sex-party footage to spice it up and increase the running time, is really the film’s weakest ingredient. For the plot is intriguing enough as is: a rich but loopy socialite (Lord) offers three men $100,000 each, if they can survive her hunting them through New York for 24 hours. Easy enough to do, you’d think, but the neat thing is the way the villainess/heroine (it’s hard to say which, really!) uses her targets’ weaknesses to lure them into her sights. For example, one is a former championship wrestler and she taunts him with accusations of cowardice until he charges into her apartment. That victim is played by Jake La Motta, who was the real-life inspiration for Raging Bull, and his demise is entirely fitting, if amazingly surreal.

The acting on view is pretty basic, but does the job, and it lures the viewer in nicely. Lord chews the scenery with extreme prejudice, and there’s a fabulous flashback where we discover the origins of her character’s madness. These help tide you over the frequent and tedious nudity, though amusement can be had by seeing how crudely these scenes have been inserted. It all ends grimly, as you’d hope, and for a cheap exploitation flick, it’s really quite memorable. The DVD from Something Weird also offers other delights, including trailers for Ride the Wild Pink Horse and Olga’s House of Shame, plus an entire second-feature, Hot Blooded Woman, which is so awful as to be unwatchable. In comparison, Psycho Cat is a fine idea, ripe for a Hollywood remake – perhaps starring Liz Hurley or Angelina Jolie…

Dir: Herb Stanley
Star: Eileen Lord, Ed Brandt, Frank Grace, Jake La Motta

Pep Squad

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★★★½
“High school rivalries turn murderous; one fabulous character makes this worth a rent.”

This predates both Jawbreaker and Teaching Mrs. Tingle, and thanks to being a cheap, indie film, manages to out-do them both. No studio to enforce post-Columbine political correctness here: the fight is on to be declared Prom Queen at Oak Hill High, located in the heart of Kansas. And when I say “fight”, I mean it – going head to head are Terra (Kelly) and Cherry (Balderson), but running interference is a sideplot involving the kidnap and murder of the principal. Though since his idea of fun involves molesting his students, he largely deserves it. This all builds to a murderous finale at Prom Night, at which bullets fly and flags burn.

Seeing Balderson in the credits, and realising she was a relative of the director – sister, actually – had us fearing Godfather III-style nepotism. But Balderson (bottom left) is actually the best thing in the film, lifting every scene in which she appears with venom, attitude and lines like, “I’m not insane – I’m an artist!”, as she chews up the opposition and spits them out in her wake. The rest of the cast aren’t even close to being in the same league, the most startling thing being Dreiling’s resemblance to Juliette Lewis. Without Cherry the film positively drags its feet, and the whole ‘principal’ subplot never catches light.

There is still a bunch of stuff to like: the cheerleaders practicing obscene chants; Terra’s inability to walk in heels; the Xena-like swoosh every time Cherry turns her head; spats over yearbook photos, etc. and if the film had stayed focused on the hell of high-school, it might have been more effective. As is, you’ve got one fabulous character and performance, and the rest is variably effective satire.

[The UK title is I’ve Been Watching You 2: Prom Night. Which is strange, since I’ve Been Watching You itself retitled the David DeCoteau vampire-frat-boys-in-underwear romp, The Brotherhood. The two movies have absolutely nothing in common.]

Dir: Steve Balderson
Star: Jennifer Dreiling, Brooke Balderson, Amy Kelly, Summer Makovkin

Fallen Angel

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★★½
“Workmanlike but largely uninspired serial killer thriller.”

Paul plays Philadelphia detective Laura Underwood; while investigating a string of deaths in which men have fallen from buildings, she discovers they are all her high-school classmates. Someone is clearly delivering payback for old misdemeanours. That someone would be Vicky (Johnson); the film is upfront about this, and indeed, there’s very little that isn’t out in the open. We know the who and the why, which leaves the film short on suspense. Paul is hardly credible playing a cop either, and Hall as her ex-fiance Brian is simply irritating.

Fortunately, the script is better than you might expect, with some thought going into the actual detective work – a phrase used by the killer during one of her taunting calls, eventually leads to the discovery of her identity. Brian gets his just reward, and the obvious cliches we expected, never quite materialised, though it teetered precariously close on occasion. There’s also a nice circularity; the opening scene, in which Underwood disarms an abused wife, who is threatening her husband with a gun, is more significant than you’d think.

The film still plays too much like an ABC movie of the week, or perhaps a discarded pilot, and there’s no reason to feel anything at all for the victims. If this one has a moral, it’s likely less the oft-stated, “Never trust a man after midnight,” and more “Don’t climb over railings to have sex with suspiciously-blonde women on the edge of seven-storey drops.”

Dir: Marc S. Grenier
Star: Alexandra Paul, Vlasta Vrana, Michelle Johnson, Anthony Michael Hall

Freeway

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★★★★
“Little Red Riding Hood: the crack whore years…”

Right from the opening credits, a debt to the Brothers Grimm is clear. In this modern-day version, Red’s stepfather is a sleazebag crackhead, and her mother a street hooker; when both get carted off to jail, Vanessa Lutz (Witherspoon) heads, with basket, up Interstate 5 towards Grandma’s house. Except that on the way, she meets Bob Wolverton (Sutherland), the notorious I-5 killer. And what big teeth he has!

From there, the tale diverges a bit: I don’t remember a prison catfight in the original, and recall Red relying more on a woodsman with a large axe than her own handguns, but it has been a while since I read it. This is, however, unashamedly grim with a small G. Er, and one m. :-) The Lutzs take “dysfunctional” to new levels, and it’s frankly astonishing that Vanessa has retained any sense of morality, albeit a severely skewed one. I wasn’t surprised when her only decent relationship was terminated by a drive-by.

The cast is a mixture of has-beens (Sutherland, before resurrection in 24, and Shields) and will-bes (Witherspoon and also Brittany Murphy), but all deliver fine performances. The weakest point is a script more concerned with satire than logic – would they really let a convicted arsonist carry a lighter in jail? No wonder Oliver Stone is a producer, given the undeniable echoes of Natural Born Killers. As a benchmark, at one point, when Vanessa shows Bob a photo of her “real” father, it’s actually serial killer Richard Speck. If that amuses – and must confess, it did us – this film is probably for you.

Dir: Matthew Bright
Star: Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Brooke Shields, Bokeem Woodbine

Perdita Durango

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★★★½
“The two greatest pleasures in life are fucking and killing.”

perdita_durangoDespite flaws, this merits your attention simply because of the title character, even if describing her as a “heroine” would necessitate a wholesale redefinition of the term – the quote above is entirely typical of her attitude. When she teams up with bank-robber Romeo Dolorosa to traffic a truckload of foetuses to Las Vegas (as you do…), it’s like putting a lit match to fuel. You just know there’s trouble ahead.

Romeo is into Santeria, and Perdita convinces him to perform a human sacrifice; to this end, they kidnap a slumming young WASP couple (Cross and Graham – and yes, it is Heather’s sister, though notably less well-endowed), and the film goes into nightmare mode. You get the horrible feeling that absolutely anything could happen, and de la Iglesia shows that he has no problems pouring on both sex and violence. [I should mention at this point that you should track down the German DVD, which is the only uncut version currently available, AFAIK] It’s difficult viewing – and Rosie Perez always seemed so nice. You certainly won’t sustain that view afterwards.

The film does run out of steam when this extremely menacing section is completed, and ends up petering out somewhat, as the focus moves off the couple and more onto Romeo – Perdita is pushed into the sidelights, and she deserves a much better fate. If there’s also a sense of deja vu, it’s because the story comes from the same writer as Wild at Heart, and both depict a twisted love-story/chase. Despite this, there’s enough perverted nastiness here to satisfy the most jaded palate.

Dir: Alex de la Iglesia
Star: Rosie Perez, Javier Bardem, Harley Cross, Aimee Graham

Killers 2

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★★★★
“Heather is sick and twisted…”

Director Latt and star (and wife) Little came to our attention through a highly-amusing comedy about TV, Jane White is Sick and Twisted. This is radically different, but still effective, thanks to Little’s performance as Heather. The sole survivor of a warehouse massacre, she is taken, catatonic, to a mental hospital. The bad news is, associates of the gangsters she killed want her dead – try convincing a doctor his staff have been bribed to off you. [They skip the potential ambivalence as to whether Heather actually is imagining everything.] The good news is, she has developed ‘hunter craze’, and is capable of enormous strength and savagery when threatened; hence her nickname, ‘The Beast’.

The detailing is poor: Heather’s hair changes length at random; crop-tops & make-up are apparently easily available; she dislocates her shoulder to escape a straitjacket, but five seconds later, she’s 100% well. Yet there is a lot to admire, especially a final battle where the gangsters give up trying to make Heather’s death ‘accidental’, and storm the hospital – it’s an excellent sequence, albeit underlit, like much of the film. We also liked co-incarceree Emma (Martin), in for clinical depression, and not the best hostage for the villains, since she wants to die. There’s something of Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted about her. We haven’t seen Killers, yet happily recommend the sequel, though it ain’t One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Refreshingly free of romantic interest, this is a straightforward story, vigorously told and largely avoiding low-budget pitfalls.

Dir: David Michael Latt
Star: Kim Little, D.C.Douglas, Mellisa Martin, Nick Stellate

Freeze Me

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★★★½
“A chilly tale of rape, revenge and household appliances.”

Five years after a vicious gang-rape, Chihiro has somewhat recovered, with a new apartment, job and boyfriend. But one of the attackers turns up on her doorstep, with a video of the assault, and threatens to destroy her new life. He moves in. Worse yet, his colleagues are on their way. What’s a girl to do? If you answered “kill the bastard, stuff him in her freezer, then wait for the other two rapists”… you’ve clearly seen this before.

This film is often difficult to watch, on several levels. On the down side, Chihiro is such a passive victim, it’s hard to feel much initial sympathy for her – letting the guy who raped you stay in your flat with barely a whimper of protest, is so damn… wussy as possibly to turn you off her character. It might have made more plot sense to have her kill the first one, then she’d have good reason not to seek help when the second moved in. Though when you see the attack, it’s so brutal, nasty and vicious (exactly how rape should be depicted), that her post-traumatic shock is more explicable.

The change that comes over her as a result makes for intriguing viewing – the title is entirely apt, since she gradually transforms into something every bit as cold as her enemies, and is finally so blase as to order another fridge while the intended occupant is playing video-games in the same room. By the end, it’s hard to say who is more dangerous to know; at least the rapists know they’re doing wrong. Credit to Inoue – better known as a model in Japan – for a creepy performance, and to Ishii for pulling no punches, an approach which rescues the film after a wobbly start.

Dir: Takashi Ishii
Star: Harumi Inoue, Shingo Tsurumi, Shunsuke Matsuoka, Kazuki Kitamura