Movie Review: The Ladies of the House (2014)

 

Big thanks from The Girl Who Loves Horror to filmmaker John Wildman for contacting me about his film, The Ladies of the House. I wished I would have gotten to it sooner to help support its VOD release on May 1, but this is definitely a case of better late than never! TLOTH is a thoughtful, yet entertaining film that calls itself a "feminist grindhouse-thriller," but even that intriguing premise is selling the film too short because it is a really great movie experience.

Two brothers, Jacob and Kai, go out with their friend Derek to a strip club to celebrate Kai's birthday. They're all trying to have a good time, when the boys make the grave mistake of following one of the strippers - Ginger - home to party. When the party goes sour, they make an even worse mistake, and find themselves trapped in the house with Ginger's three roommates. And these girls have a taste for revenge... and male flesh!

Okay, maybe that description made the movie sound kind of hokey, and I apologize for that because it is not at all. I was actually expecting the film to be a lot more comedic, and therefore I really appreciated the (mostly) serious approach it took to the topics it was trying to explore. TLOTH is very close to being, but not quite, a rape-revenge film and it definitely has some grindhouse and/or exploitation influences. But the film is also able to find its own path within the subgenre and create something unique for itself.

After the stuff at the strip club at the beginning of the film, everything else takes place at Ginger's house, which she shares with fellow strippers Crystal, Lin, and Getty. There's a constant feeling that something sinister is going to happen while Ginger is reluctantly boozing and smoking with the guys, and it's a bit of a surprise just who ends up being involved. The location, coloring, and costumes will also throw you off a bit. The house is a normal, nondescript one that could be located anywhere in the country. Inside, the set design is very lively and colorful in some places, like the kitchen and Crystal's room. The 40s costuming is interesting and beautiful, with Getty looking very much like Rosie the Riveter and therefore taking on the more masculine and tough role, and Lin looking like a typical, poised, midcentury housewife. Crystal and her pigtails therefore make her the child of these two. Their family is a bit dysfunctional - probably because they kill and eat men for food - but there is also genuine care and concern among them all.

There are some really great characters here, even if all of them have something about them that makes them really unlikable to the audience. Kai is a bit slow in the head, and becomes very creepy and grotesque during one scene, so we're happy to see him go. The filmmakers really seem to want to point out Derek as being the worst of the bunch, giving him lines like "A stripper will go home with anyone if you ask her right!" Yeah, he better not last long. Jacob is supposed to be that one nice guy, but I couldn't fully sympathize with him either. When Ginger is shot, he is the one voice of reason, but that's as far as he gets. He never actually does anything to try to help her, and doesn't really seem to believe that she was defending herself from Kai's rape attempt. And though this is a feminist film where we are supposed to be rooting for the women, they are each also given flaws in their characters (aside from the cannibalization) so that the movie is never completely on the side of either gender.

One thing I especially appreciated was the portrayal of the lesbian relationship between Lin and Getty. I'm not a lesbian myself, but I still get angry for them when their relationships are treated as novelties in films. Though these two women are very beautiful, and they do have a short, naked sex scene and a shower scene, it never felt exploitative. Their relationship is very real, natural, and tender and was never just about seeing two hot chicks kissing each other.

The blood and gore is really impressive, and I only wish there had been more of it. I wasn't too sold on the effects at the beginning when the gunshot wounds that two characters receive just look like some red corn syrup on the actors' shirts. I immediately took those feelings back during a scene of Lin making dinner out of Kai. The literal guts in this scene are beautiful and had me completely falling in love with this movie. There is actually a nice balance in the movie with the odd and horrific stuff that happens, and the really touching and loving stuff.

Thank you once again to Mr. Wildman for sending me his film to watch! Male and female viewers alike should enjoy this flick though there is a definite woman power tone and idea behind it. The Ladies of the House has an exploitation-type story and setup, and delivers far beyond any expectations you may have about it. The actors are brilliant and committed to each role, and the gore and action is fantastic. Definitely recommend this one for sure!

Movie Review: Evil Feed (2013)

 

I have to give my biggest thanks to Maven Publicity for giving me the opportunity to screen this movie! The gory and ridiculously awesome Evil Feed is quite simply a bloody good time from start to finish. It has a real sense of fun with itself and with the genre to satisfy any and all horror fans.

Join me for a crazy night at The Long Pig restaurant where all the delicacies of the human body are available for your pleasure! As the premiere place for cannibalistic cuisine, The Long Pig is now under new ownership and boss Steven has added his own brand of "Tendertainment" to the mix by hosting live fights where guests can watch their meals get tenderized before being served. But it seems like Steven might have bitten off more than he can chew when he kidnaps the wrong group of fighters for his restaurant!

The best comparison I have for what you can expect with Evil Feed is probably Kill Bill - lots of fight scenes, lots of kooky acting and dialogue, lots of crazy gore. With a quick and easy-to-follow pace and storyline, and a wit to match, Evil Feed's quality is top notch all around. The look of the film is sometimes dark but with wonderful touches of vibrant color to the costuming and set design. Everything is lit and filmed beautifully, giving it all a richness and vitality, and there is a very talented eye behind that camera lens. Certain scenes and shots are done in the perfect way to get the right reactions out of the audience. Sadly, there are only a couple of cute camera tricks like zooms and one wonderful use of split screen. A bit more of stuff like this would have really given the film more personality, even though it already has a lot of it.

The story follows two groups of people - those running The Long Pig and those trying to save their friends from being eaten. There is not really a main character, but you won't really find yourself caring that much because all of these crazy people are a joy to watch. The real standout among the actors is of course Alyson Bath as Yuki. Part adorable little sexpot, part insane psycho bitch - Yuki steals every single scene that she is in, and Bath acts her heart out  with this girl. They also give her a wonderful look with the extreme eye makeup and dark lips that really match the character's dementedness.

Other people of interest are the tophat-wearing, cane-wielding Steven, rival restaurant owner Madam Dragonfly, and the crazy Chinese fighting man whose name I didn't catch. The crazy Chinese fighting man thing is a bit of a cliché but this guy totally embraced that and rolled with it all the way home. Jenna is also a pretty great female character, simply because she is the daughter of a martial arts master. Every time someone tries to attack her in the film, she gets to go against the grain and just beat the snot out of them instead of screaming and running like other female victims in horror movies.

Another great element to the movie is the amazing choice of music. Many scenes and characters are introduced with the most perfect musical cues - all upbeat and fun, full of the same quirky personality as the movie itself. The gore is also delightfully over exaggerated with all kinds of fun gags - probably the best being when a crazy, beefy fighter rips off his opponent's face and then eats it. Instead of going for a huge body count, the movie chooses to make its few kills really worth it for the audience. There's a great decapitation and some characters who lose other appendages... but I'll leave that for you to see on your own. The numerous and hilarious fight scenes are impressively well-choreographed, filmed in such a way that they were both believable enough to be real, but crazy enough to be entertaining as well.

Sadly, the movie ends on way too serious a note for my liking. The story itself comes to a great conclusion but the tone in the last five minutes or so is all wrong and so different from the rest of the film. It really needed that one last great musical cue to give the ending a real punch and keep the audience in high spirits. And actually, I found out that they did do this ending, but they added it as a "credit cookie" - so be sure to keep watching after they roll. There's also a pretty funny original theme song to listen to during the end credits, as well.

Evil Feed is by far one of my favorite films I've watched in a long time. It gets everything right in terms of the acting and characters, the pacing, and most importantly, the gore and the sense of humor. Do yourself a favor and get your hands on this film as soon as possible. I'd be surprised if you didn't love it!

Also, I loved the sweet packaging for the film. The DVD was folded inside a menu for The Long Pig, with hilarious menu item descriptions and blurbs about the movie. So cute.

Movie Review: Omnivores (2013)

 

Though all types of murderers are disgusting and repulsive, there will probably always be an extra feeling of revulsion toward the cannibal. Filmmakers have of course dealt with this subject many times in the past, and yet not since 1999's Ravenous have I enjoyed the treatment of the subject so much. This Spanish film Omnivores is very subtle in its approach of cannibalism and makes it work for itself very well.

Food critic Marcos Vela is hired to investigate and write about certain "clandestine restaurants" that have begun popping up around Spain - restaurants with very strict rules, serving all types of delicacies out of people's homes. A fellow clandestine restaurant attendee tells Marcos of a place that supposedly serves human flesh, and once he gains exclusive access to the party, he learns the horrible truth of the place and how it is run.

The film opens with probably the most gruesome part of the whole film. A young boy, Dimas, is left alone with his sick mother in a cabin. When they have run out of food and the mother dies - the horrifying inevitability happens. Dimas grows up to be the host of the cannibal clandestine restaurant, with the help of his butcher Matarife. At the first restaurant Marcos goes to, he meets Eva, who offers to help him maneuver through this secret world and with whom he has a bit of a tryst. There is no hint of a backstory for any character other than Dimas, so the movie becomes entirely plot-driven and situational. Which is totally fine with me. But I was so curious about Matarife (though I had to do some research on what his name was because they never said it as far as I could tell) and what his story was and how he hooked up with Dimas, etc. With everyone else you can make inferences about their characters, and you'd probably be right.

For a film about cannibals, Omnivores is surprisingly not overly gory or bloody. This has bothered me before in other cannibal movies (We Are What We Are) and I have to admit that I would have liked to see some more action, but Omnivores seemed to have a different feeling to it that perhaps didn't warrant anything too gory. The tone is not exactly humorous but neither is it fully horrifying. You know that eventually all these cannibals that Marcos meets are going to get their comeuppance, and that is what the movie is about. The scenes where Matarife is preparing the victims for dinner only have two really squirmy moments - he pours some kind of burning liquid on one guy and scrapes his skin off, and then later the same guy gets a really well done jab in the neck with a knife, with some excellent blood spurtage. Those parts still can't beat the makeup work on the mother's body at the beginning, though, because that was pretty righteous.

The most confusing and somewhat frustrating part of the plot to me was the people's acceptance of Marcos into their circle at all. At the first dinner party he attends, people know that he is a writer and he actually tells him that he is going to write about these clandestine restaurants. Dimas also had to have known who he was and yet he actually shows Marcos the butcher room where the next meal is hanging from the ceiling. The flimsy explanation that Eva gives Marcos is that he has to eat the flesh so that he will technically be just as guilty as the rest of them. Ehhhhhh, maybe... but I think the police could overlook that small detail in favor of arresting the person or people who, you know, kidnapped, murdered, and butchered an untold amount of people, don't you think?

The ending is nothing short of delightful. Truth be told, I was expecting a fairly bloody mess as Marcos had to kill his way out of Dimas's home or something, but I was actually quite happy that the filmmakers chose to make the conclusion much more subtle, while still immensely satisfying. It quickly becomes obvious just which direction the conclusion is heading, and it only made me more giddy to find out I was right.

Omnivores is an interesting movie that many people will probably see as boring. To me it had the quirkiness of a Tales from the Crypt episode, where you may not be into it the rest of the episode but the climax makes up for all of it. I thought this movie was a nice, quick, new way to look at and deal with cannibalism and I enjoyed it for the moment.

Movie Review: We Are What We Are (2013)

Just three years after the original Mexican film We Are What We Are was released, we already have an American remake. I don't mean that in a haughty, OMG-all-remakes-suck way either (because they don't). I'm really just surprised that it was remade at all because as far as I can tell, the 2010 version didn't get all that much buzz in the horror world. Maybe you shouldn't believe me when I say that because I'm not really that in tune with the horror world, truth be told. Anywho, I found the original and reviewed it here. To sum up, I appreciated the movie's aesthetic but overall found it to not be as exciting as the premise promised. This 2013 remake, however, is not that at all. I guess someone else found the same potential in this gruesome tale that I did and decided to work on it.

During a terrible rainstorm in their small town, the matriarch of the quiet Parker family suddenly dies. The grief-stricken family is now forced to deal with just what that means for them as their father forces the two daughters, Iris and Rose, to continue on with the family's traditions in place of their mother. And as the flooding of the town starts to wash up things long though buried, a local doctor gets suspicious of the Parkers, and what they might have to do with several missing people in the area.

To be honest, cannibals are still boring here. The movie is still somewhat tedious, more like a drama than a horror film, and a bit of a slow burn but there are other aspects at play that make it superior to the original. The only thing I will complain about is that I was not particularly fond of the historical reason given for why the members of the family were cannibals. Even after it was explained, it still doesn't really make a whole lot of sense for really why they would have continued the "tradition" for so long, especially considering what we find out it does to the family physically. They always talk about God, but it is really Him they are worshipping or their ancestors and what they created? Still a little confused on this part.

The two things that play in the movie's favor is the acting and the story (other than the confusing part). The story is improved upon mostly because of the addition of the doctor with a personal connection to the Parkers' actions. They only partake in the cannibalism once a year on Lambs Day so while they have obviously managed to elude capture, there are a lot of open missing persons cases around them, including the daughter of Doctor Burrow, played by Michael Parks. That side plot brought a wonderful human element to the story that the original was missingAnother interesting tidbit is just how the doctor found out about the cannibalism - the mother died of some rare disease (that is actually real) that is caused by eating human flesh. The switching of the genders of the family members was also a wonderful idea because it brought up so many other issues like the roles of women in religion, and a father ruling a family with fear and the children looking for a maternal substitute.

The acting is pretty superb especially by the girls playing Iris and Rose, Ambyr Childers and Julia Garner. Both girls are able to carry the look of children with a very serious and heavy weight on their shoulders, almost as if they are war-torn. While watching the film, I was almost begging them to smile just once because that constant shell-shock face they give was really depressing me. Michael Parks was another favorite as the doctor and his scene where he confronts the father was one of the best and the most suspenseful. Bill Sage plays Frank the father, and is equally good at portraying true sorrow and inflicting fear and obedience from his children. It was also very cool to see Kelly McGillis in a smallish role here as the Parkers' neighbor who keeps a constant watchful eye on the family.

There seems to be a little more blood in this remake than I remember from the original, but still not as much as you would expect. And for the most part, I was still a little disappointed in the regard that though We Are What We Are is still a dark and disturbing story, it's not as ballsy as it could be. But then I got to the last scene. Oh my gravy, that last scene. I suddenly felt very bad for all my misgivings and was praising this movie to the highest mountain. I don't want to talk about it specifically because it would be a terrible spoiler, but trust me, it's worth waiting for. Iris and Rose are so apprehensive and fearful of their father and what he makes them do all throughout the movie, yet they never really present themselves as actually being able to stop him and all the cannibal madness. I was wrong. These chicks are fucking hardcore.

Honestly though, what I saw more than anything was a tale about family, and what a family can survive and whether or not it can stay together. There are many examples of the loss of certain family members in We Are What We Are and how it affects the rest of the family. Of course, the mother dying deeply upsets everyone, but Frank is the one seen as the most emotionally affected by it, driven to uncontrollable crying and barely being able to move sometimes. Little daughter Rose, now without a mother, is devastated at the thought of losing her older sister Iris to a boy and being left in the family alone. Burrow lost his daughter years ago yet you can see on his face that it has never been forgotten. The Parkers have a secret and a way of life that keeps them bonded, but how long will that ruse work and how quick can a family be torn apart? We Are What We Are explores all this and more.

Whether you've seen the Mexican version or not, We Are What We Are should be on your watchlist. It has masterful direction and acting, and a story that appeals to both regular film lovers and horror lovers alike. And here's an interesting tidbit - the mother is played by Kassie DePaiva, whom I now know also played Bobbie Jo in Evil Dead II. Nice!

Movie Review: We Are What We Are (2010)

Wow. I didn't know cannibals could be so boring. I had such high hopes for this Mexican horror-drama-thing after reading about it but it turned out to be quite slow and uninspiring, something that has all the potential in the world but somewhere makes a giant misstep.

After their patriarch dies suddenly, a poor family of cannibals try to figure out who will lead them in their rituals of kidnapping and eating people. Meanwhile, two city police officers are hot on the family's trail.

So again, yeah, We Are What We Are should have had it all. It should have been dark, gritty, and deeply disturbing with the gruesome subject matter that it promises. Instead it is way too tame and safe. The movie never takes the story by the balls and tries to go for it. It takes baby steps to the edge of the chasm instead of jumping into it, and if it it had, the movie could have been so much better.

Even the title promises more than the movie actually delivers. The family consists of the mother and father (who dies in the first scene of the movie in a mall after puking up some black stuff... ew) and three teenage children - Alfredo, Julian, and Sabina. The father is a watchmaker and fixer and is the sole provider for the family. "We Are What We Are" implies that this family has had to resort to cannibalism in a desperate attempt to survive (why the three able-bodied children can't go out and work is never explained but whatever) and also implies that they perhaps have no shame about what they do. Is any of this explored? Nope. Not a bit.

The actors are good enough in their roles and certainly could have handled darker and more outlandish material. The girl playing Sabina is best of them all, as her eyes convey so much intensity even when she's not saying anything at all. That final shot of her at the end is just fantastic and she milks the moment for all it's worth. The boy playing the eldest son, Alfredo, is also good as the one who reluctantly tries to take his father's place to the dismay of the other, more violent and capable son, Julian. This sibling rivalry takes over many of the scenes when this part wasn't really all that interesting and just became more boring as time went on.

What also brings the movie down a lot is the story of the two cops hunting the family down. They first show up when the coroner presents them with a human finger found in the dead father's stomach (which eerily doesn't shock them or anyone else in the least) and then they spend the rest of the movie acting like the most incompetent bunch of nitwits I've ever seen. They sleep in their cars, stumble across a crime scene without calling for help, and of course, allow themselves to get killed in the most embarrassing ways - well, embarrassing for them because they're cops and they should have freaking known better.

Now comes the horror part of this horror movie - the all-important gore factor. Survey says that We Are What We Are is also fairly tame in this aspect which is another sad disappointment. These people are cannibals, so we should be treated to some awesome scenes of them butchering and eating people, yeah? Again, no, not really. There's only one butchering scene and though it is done well, there's not really much to see. The blood looks good and the scene has a very dingy, realistic feel which sets the mood wonderfully. However, I wanted more. I wanted more action and more gore and they just did not give it to me.

So though the look of We Are What We Are is decent and is well shot, edited, and acted, the viewer can't help but feel like there's something missing here. Maybe the filmmakers were going for a more dramatic, quieter tale of cannibalism and family strife but had they gone further and really shown us the disturbing and gross side of this family's story, it would have been so much more effective. I liked it to a point and it's a beautiful movie but it just wasn't as great as I expected.