Troll Hunter (2010)

A group of school student filmmakers are making a film about a series of brutal killing at the hands of wildlife in more rural areas of Norway, they soon however get to hear about Hans, a transient hunter who is hunting in the areas of the killings, much to the annoyance of the local hunters. The students try to get to talk to Hans on a number of occasions, but are dismissed by the man. One night however they follow him, and make a startling discovery, Hans is a troll hunter, hired by the government to control the very real presence of trolls in Norway.

Troll Hunter is a great movie, a nice mix of comedy and the more serious stuff, which was without a doubt a hit for the 1000 strong audience that rolled in to see it.

Read more: http://cinemaroll.com/horror/frightfest-troll-hunter-2010/#ixzz1Zpxz0CJe

The Innkeepers (2011)

The Yankee Peddler Inn is closing, a one time majestic hotel has been so unpopular in recent years, and its rooms lay empty almost every single night. Claire (Sarah Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are the hotels last staff, and managing the final weekend between them. Obsessed with the fact that they believe the hotel to be haunted the duo decide to spend the weekend loading images and sound onto a website that proves the hotel is haunted, and not just something they personally believe. This weekend, they are about to be proven right, or are they?

Read more: http://cinemaroll.com/horror/frightfest-the-innkeepers-2011/#ixzz1ZemOC9um

Trader Hornee

Back in 1931 Harry Carey starred as Aloysius “Trader” Horn in the movie Trader Horn, this epic African adventure (which later partially inspired the Indiana Jones movies) saw Horn encounter a group of African tribesmen ruled over by a white goddess; who just so happened to be an wealthy American heiress stranded there some years prior. Trader Horn went on to not just inspire the birth of one of modern cinemas greatest heroes, but also struck a chord with adult movie makers Jonathan Lucas and David P. Freidman, so much show that they created Trader Hornee a carbon copy of the movie, but with added humour and of course a little bit of sex.

 

Made in 1970, as an adult movie Trader Hornee (Hornee pronounced Horn the E’s are silent) is a really bizarre offering. For a sex comedy, and one made by adult filmmakers, there is very little “sex” to offend most people. Bridging a gap between the works of the late Russ Meyer and Laurel and Hardy, I’m sure you might already be able to form an image in your mind as to what this movie is like. Featuring Russ Meyers wobbly, disjointed, and often poorly cut filmmaking and the sort of slapstick comedy of Laurel and Hardy, Trader Hornee is an oddball movie that is difficult to compare to any other style I have ever seen.

 

You might well have an image of a mucky, dirty movie; but Trader Hornee is far from this, yes there is nudity, yes there is plenty of sexual reference but what there is little sex. The hero of the movie Hamilton Hornee (Buddy Pantasari) gets plenty of sex, but none you have to see. The movie is incredibly tame and not deserving of the reputation it has, despite being released uncut the movie looks no worse than any Carry On movie, in fact you might find more to offend in those. When it comes to sex the act is quickly breezed over, characters strip down to their underwear before flicking to another scene, upon return to the couple having sex the act is over and they are very much in relaxation time. Even language is tamed down, as soon as a swear word is incoming the actual word is replaced by the sound of a horn or whistle blowing.

 

Watching Trader Hornee I’m reminded of my youth, there is lots of cute stock footage of animals designed to create the impression that the cast and crew are in Africa. Whereas now in nature shows you see the harsh realities of two different breeds of animal meeting, often resulting in death; here you get the impression that all African animals get on like a house on fire, and as if to prove a point a piece of footage shows a chimpanzee and a tiger (both very young) playing happily together, the chimp slaps the tiger on the head before laughing at it. There are lots of lovely moments like this, shot on slightly grainy often orange tinged film stock, it really is delightful to watch, and for older movie lovers like myself it’s a wonderful look back at the past.

 

The term “Random” is one so often heard nowadays and is probably the best term I could ever think of to describe this movie. There are scores of scenes that literally look like they are just done for the hell of it. Often the picture shoots off into a red, purple, orange or blue lens; occasionally it shakes about like the cameraman is at a disco. When the African’s and a group of explorers led by Hornee first encounter each other they all start dancing together even though the explorers believe they are going to end up in the giant stock pot.  And when you think things have got odd enough, how about a man in a white monkey suit stealing gold which is actually a Nazi officer who loves gold.

 

I don’t really think it’s fair to comment on acting, because the movie is obviously all done in the name of fun, characters say things like “Leaping Lizards” with big cheesy grins on their faces, nothing is played straight in this movie. Worth pointing out though is the presence of John Alderman an actor who was once tipped to be the new Clark Gable, had it not been for his addiction with alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes often smoking as many as 100 cigarettes in one day. Instead the actor ended up in B-Movies, and exploitation pictures because of his difficult nature.

 

If you like to sit and watch what is effectively a bad movie, and have a really good laugh in the process then Trader Hornee is a very worthwhile movie to watch, you’ll laugh, and you’ll sit open jawed at the absolute ridiculousness of the whole thing.

 

Bloodbath At The House Of Death

It was a little seen movie 24 years ago when it was released, but since then has been equally elusive. Thankfully film historian Marc Morris and filmmaker Jake West have finally bought Bloodbath At The House Of Death to DVD for the first time anyway (Legally) in the world, courtesy of their niche market DVD label Nucleus.

 

Taking a nod from the often ludicrously titled horror movies of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s; this 1984 movie takes a series of good hard stabs at the horror movie in this off the wall spoof that later inspired a dozen horror spoof movies. Unusually based in the UK and penned by Ray Cameron and Barry Cryer, Bloodbath At The House Of Death will ultimately be most favoured by fans of the 70’s and 80’s sitcom; and as if to solidify this fact gathers some of the best known comedy names of that period to carry the movie forward. Headlining the picture is Kenny Everett of all people, as Doctor Lucas Mandeville a rather wacky boffin who has gathered a team of the best phenomenon experts in the world to Headstone Manor the site of 18 possibly 19 gruesome deaths on one night somewhere back then; date never clearly revealed.

 

As the movie unfolds you discover that the events all circle around a strange cult led by character credited as “Sinister Man” but best placed as the devil’s right hand I guess; this character is played by none other than horror legend Vincent Price in yet another suitably bizarre role (if you have not seen the actors horror comedy movies check out Theatre Of Blood, and the Doctor Phibes movies).

 

Like a football match, Bloodbath is a game of two halves the first half being ultimately superior to the second. Starting with a lot of genuinely funny gags including Vincent Price’s “You Pi** Off!” statement, Kenny Everett ridicule and subsequent intestine flinging, and the crazed mother complete with built on pope style booth; probably best not asking too many questions.  But after some really good laughs it turns into a down on its luck sitcom, with apparent jokes that just are not funny and a bizarre woodland encounter straight out of a bad Monty Python sketch. Towards the end of Price’s role the sort of lines initially funny just start to annoy “Good job I wore my old robe” he shouts as he gets a little inflamed. Although I did have one last giggle near the end as the teddy with a flick knife made an appearance.

 

Bloodbath spoofs a large chunk of popular horror movies of the time Carrie, Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, and The Entity being prime targets, but unlike the less subtle Scary Movie movies it does allow a certain amount of subtlety, yes if you look at them deeply they are direct spoofs, but given that there is a little unique British humour chucked in, the rip offs are far less obvious.

 

The movie is like a who’s who of British comedy culture of the 70’s and 80’s Everett is joined by Pamela Stephenson, Don Warrington, Cleo Rocos, John Fortune, Gareth Hunt, Sheila Steafal and Pat Ashton; all of whom revel in their big movie offering being actors who were mainly found on television.

Everett really hams it up for the movie, but then what can we expect from the comedian who’s ridiculously funny TV (in a variety of form) ran from 1970 to the late 1980’s; there are lots of preposterous dialogue scenes where Everett clearly knows what he is gabbling on around while the rest of us are without a clue, as well as the usual Everett confusion as he argues in the local pub about the amount dead in the past massacre. Yes he was silly, but when you watch Bloodbath you realise that now a generation have been deprived of his unique sense of humour.

 

The movie is rather unfairly in my opinion given a 15 certificate in the UK, there is little here to justify the certificate, with a brief scene of sexual pleasure courtesy of a supernatural entity that shows nothing, and a few minor swear words I have heard and seen far worse in lower certificated movies. Don’t let the movies horror aspects put you off; there are far more scary things in your own home.

 

On the special features front things are a little thin on the ground, Running The Bloodbath is a great little documentary that looks at aspects of the movies making with interviews by producers Laurence Myers and Stuart Donaldson, there are some wonderful moments of old footage featuring Everett included which make this a really great to watch feature. The theatrical trailer pays an important part, so much so there are two versions. And for those that have a DVD player in your PC (pretty much everyone really) an additional gift of the movies script for you to peruse at your convenience.  Not being on the Nucleus list of preview disc recipients I had to borrow the DVD to view it, so sadly my review does not grant it the attention it deserves.

 

You can purchase Bloodbath At The House Of Death on DVD now.

 

The Love Guru

Although he has been incredibly popular over the past five years other than voice overs Mike Myers has been away from physical acting since the Cat In The Hat. His much anticipated movie The Love Guru is just around the corner, while in the US the movie was slated quite drastically, will it fare any better when it arrives on UK shores?

 

Although he was born in America, Pika as a child was left with Guru’s to learn about life. As an adult he has become somewhat an Icon, known as the Guru of Love, Guru Pitka (Myers) has fans across the world who will travel from any distance to spend some time with the wisest man on the earth. One such woman is Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) a woman who has travelled from the US with intentions to get a couple back together in order to save a legendary hockey players career (Romany Malco) Darren Ranoake.

 

Personally I believe that the Love Guru will fare better in the UK, its a much more honed sense of humour that the British tend to love while the US audiences just regard as silly. Think about the humour of The Young Ones, Red Dwarf, Peepshow and the IT Crowd and you just might start to get a mental vision of the sort of humour of the movie, a bit silly and incredibly rude; but the rudeness is rather clever for the most part because its very much tongue in cheek , “nudge nudge, you know what I mean? Wink Wink” style of humour; the sort that made the Carry On Movies so successful. This will help to keep the certification of the movie low once it arrives here, and allow those younger viewers the feeling that they are in on a very big joke, one that possibly a lot of their friends might not.

 

I found the movie at times a little bit too silly, sometimes slipping out of the subtle humour and into the all out stupid, one particular line that sticks in my mind “you might be able to get Jack off the elephant, but would you jack off an elephant?” Myers Pitju asks as he laughs behind his hand. There is an awful lot of the sort of humour we last saw in Waynes World, but much more up front and brash.

 

Ben Kingsley enjoys his transition in acting to who knows where, I last saw Kingsley fighting with dolls in a rubbish truck in the movie War Inc. and now here he plays Guru Tugginmypudha (Get it?) a boss eyed Guru who excels in the wonders of life, but with a mouth like a sewer and the social habits of a wild dog; in one scene he stains tea by pouring it up his nostril so it pours out the other side.

 

Thrust into the mix is Justin Timberlake, who is almost unrecognisable as the ladies man Jaques Grande. Obviously having some humour with his “Trouser snake” real life nickname Timberlakes character is a well endowed man of extremely undesirable proportions. Spending much of the first half of the movie in a pair of skimpy underpants Timberlake half charms/half grosses out both the people he tries to impress and the audience. It’s the arrival of Jaques on the scene that has Roanoke’s career in tatters having stolen his girlfriend.

 

Even though the humour is very much a more English style of gross out, this is still one of those movies that will dramatically divide the audience, while some will admire Myers quick humour and even quicker tongue, others will find this appalling. While there is that other group that will enjoy the movie, but not have the courage to confess.

 

I’m sitting on the fence on this one, the reason to be honest is because while at times I found it incredibly funny, the story was practically nonexistent; skimming over subject matter in favour of laughs. Old jokes about chastity belts, knocks to Austin Powers’ Mini Me (Verne Troyer) height and lack of sexual activity kind of get a bit stale after 30 minutes. There is a lot of new humour though, so it’s not like the movie is just a rehash of Waynes World. Yes I laughed, and at times quite a lot, but I was not so taken with the movie that I’d consider it one of the funniest movies of the year, and the overlying feeling I experienced throughout viewing was that I really did not know for the most part what really was going on, it was often like a lot of knitted together scenes in the sake of humour.

 

The Love Guru is in UK cinemas from the 1^st of August

You Don't Mess With The Zohan

If you enjoyed Ben Stiller in Zoolander then You Don't Mess With The Zohan is bound to be right up your street, and I have to confess it's the first Adam Sandler movie I have enjoyed for a great amount of time.

Zohan (Sandler) is a Mossad agent whose life is spent carrying out assignments for his government, there is no one like, neither has there ever been anyone like Zohan, he is the ultimate killing machine. Sadly for Zohan this is not the life he chooses for himself, he dreams of being a hairdresser feeling he has the special touch. So when an opportunity arises for him to fake his own death and head for America, where he plans to make it as "the" hairdresser. But great popularity causes great attention and it's not long before agents from Zohan's past come searching for him in the present.

Zohan is hardly a movie to cause you to laugh out loud; however what it does do is give you chance to double take a number of times. A little game of keepie ups providing the biggest double take, and the thing that awoke me from my partial slumber, hang on a minute that's not a football they are kicking, it's a cat! Even realising that this is clearly a computer generated effect it's a scene that you cannot help to look at open jawed, and in reflection it's the most memorable image from the whole movie.

Whereas most of Sandlers movies are fairly family friendly this one most certainly is not, it's incredibly crude at times with phenomenal amounts of sexual reference with Zohan's libido being out of control, literally having to have sex with more or less everything with a pulse. There are lots of penis references throughout the movie so much so that you reach a certain level where it becomes well beyond a joke. It's rather like a child that has learnt his/her new vulgar expression, repeatedly ramming it down your throat until you cannot stand anymore.

What I did like about the movie was the fact that a lot of the humour was fairly unique, so many movies just rehash the old humour time and time again the team of Dennis Dugan, Adam Sandler and Robert Smigel have all clearly put their heads together to deliver some new laughs, and to be honest it's most definitely about time.

If you like your humour a little sick this will definitely please you, Zohan can catch fish in his anus, jealous huh? Pubic hair jokes, impotence jokes, lots of vomiting, and some compelling piranha action all are thrown into the mixing pot providing you with the "ugh!" factor, nowfor some that's not a good thing, but for me I love a good laugh at something sick. That being said I can't claim I laughed a great deal, though I did smile. But then again there were so many people around laughing at the bits I never found funny, I kind of felt a bit smothered like I shouldn't laugh; as a rank outsider in the review writing world I already feel the pressure and certainly frowned upon, the truth that I'm a sicko could end my career before it starts. . This is definitely a movie I need to watch on DVD so I can really gauge the humour aspect.

The supporting cast are pretty much non-entities John Tuturro stars as The Phantom, Zohan's arch enemy and to be honest I feel like the actor has sold himself out cheap. Zohan has been adraw to the famous with Mariah Carey, John McEnroe, George Takei, Bruce Vilanch, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock and Kevin Nealon all fighting for a little bit of attention. George Takei's cameo being the most amusing especially if you have followed the Star Trek actor's recent personal life.

You Don't Mess With The Zohan over compensates with the comedy, and lets the actual plot sit on the back burner there really is very little to the movie, but if you compare it to Sandler's output over the past five years it is by far the best movie in that time. An added bonus of the movie is that it does not go over the top on the love angle either, while Zohan has a woman in his sights it's a very small part of the movie.

I look forward to seeing the DVD of this over the next couple of months so I can assess the movie properly having had time to give it my full attention, but for now one thing is for sure it's bound to be a hit.