British director Simon Rumley’s fourth film "The Living and the Dead" (TLA) isn't your typical horror movie. There are no zombies, ghosts, psychopathic killers or aliens, yet it's more horrific and hard to watch than anything George Romero or Rob Zombie ever conceived.
The film focuses on a family run by bankrupt aristocrat Donald Brocklebank (Roger Lloyd-Pack) whose wife Nancy (Kate Fahy) is dying of cancer and whose twenty-something son James (Leo Bill) is suffering from severe schizophrenia. In the beginning of the movie, Donald makes plans to travel to London to sell his mansion and sort out his finances. Before he goes, he hires a nanny to care for his family in his absence, however he leaves before she arrives -- bad move.
Convinced he can care for his ailing mom, James locks the nanny out and carries out a series of appalling and atrocious acts unaware of the damage he's causing. Impaired by his condition, which is worsened by his inability to take his medication by himself, the boy accidentally tortures his mother, at one point leaving her to crap the bed, at another, force feeding her a pile of pills because, in his warped mind, he thinks if some is good, more must be better. Eventually, James becomes completely unhinged and starts hallucinating and hurting himself. Then, he pulls out a butcher’s knife.
Shot on film for about a million dollars, “The Living and the Dead” is stark, graphic and surreal, bringing to mind elements of “Requiem For a Dream” and “Spider,” while maintaining its own disturbing aesthetic. In short, “The Living and the Dead” reveals the real life terrors of mental illness and the wake of violence and misery that can plague patients unable to cope with their condition. Chilling even without the carnage, nightmarish sequences involving needles, a bathtub and a gravesite will stay with you forever.
Them (Dark Sky) – In this French thriller, a young couple living in the countryside of Bucharest, Romania are plagued by figures that invade their home. Before long they’re surrounded by beings that taunt and terrify, banging on the door, shutting off the power, driving them from the home and chasing them into the dark woods. Fearing for their lives, the couple attempts to fight back with no idea of what they’re up against. What makes the movie so tense and suspenseful is that the audience doesn’t know who the antagonists are either, let alone what they want and what they’re capable of. “Them” begins tamely enough by setting a domestic scene between the two main characters, then spirals into a full hour of chase sequences and torture scenes intended to terrify the characters rather than kill them. But as the pace escalates, the story rapidly spirals out of control.
There Will Be Blood (Paramount) – When we first heard this movie title -- long before its release and the ensuing tidal wave of press coverage – we thought it was a torture porn homage to “Saw II” (which used the slogan, "Oh, yes, there will be blood"). Actually, there’s not a ton of blood spilled in this production, but if you can overlook the lack of gore there’s a fine story here about greed, corruption, power, loyalty and family. In a nutshell, "There Will Be Blood" is about a man's quest for power and wealth, and how the more successful he becomes, the more unstable and unhappy it makes him until he finally spins into an abyss of murder and insanity. For slasher fans, there are a few good kills – one dude gets crushed by a piece of an oil drill, another is clubbed to death with a bowling pin and someone else is shot in the head point-blank. Come to think of it, that's about as many brutal, creative deaths as there are in some giallos.
The Mist (Genius) – After directing one of the best movies of the past quarter-century, “The Shawshank Redemption,” which was based on a story by Stephen King, Frank Darabont tackled his second King production, “The Green Mile.” But “The Mist” is his first bona fide King horror story, and he handles it with astonishing skill. The plot involves a fog that washes over a town in Maine and the deadly creepy-crawlies that lurk inside the mist. Surely, there are monsters waiting in there to kill and consume, but there are also monsters trapped inside the store where our protagonist, Thomas Jane (David Drayton) is trying to lead a batch of survivors to safety. Amongst them are a bunch of rednecks that are vying for power and a scary religious zealot named Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Hardon), who tries to convince the crowd that the apocalypse is upon them. Scarier still, she might be right. “The Mist” is an edge-of-your-seat horror story for sure, but it’s also a character study about the way desperate people act in hopeless situations. And, ultimately, that’s what makes it more terrifying than similar stories like “The Fog” and “Right at Your Door.”
Mulberry Street, The Deaths of Ian Stone (Lionsgate) – Two of the better features from this year’s Horrorfest, the former is scarier, the latter is more original and features the sexy and sinister Jaime Murray, who played Lila in the Showtime series “Dexter.” In “Mulberry Street,” New York City rats are infected with a disease that makes them attack people. Those victims gradually turn into zombie rats and scurry around looking for others to kill and eat. The movie works on several levels and keeps the focus on a group of tenants in a broken down apartment complex. These people actually interact with one another in a believable fashion even before the outbreak and the audience cares about the characters before they begin their struggle for survival. “The Deaths of Ian Stone” is a more sci-fi oriented story that’s like a cross between “Groundhog Day” and “Hellraiser.” Ian Stone is a tragic character, who wakes up to find he’s being chased by something mean and deadly. And each time it kills him, he comes back to lead a different life (as a cab driver, college hockey player, junkie, office worker, etc.). Along the way, Stone finds that, not only is he incapable of being killed, but he may have once been the merciless leader of the creatures that keep temporarily snuffing him out. The acting in “The Deaths of Ian Stone” is strong, but what drives the plot is its rapid pace and unpredictability. Score one for director Dario Piana for unraveling a story that’s constantly challenging but never too perplexing and features enough good kill scenes to satisfy the heartiest bloodlust.
The Lost (Anchor Bay)
Based on a novel by Jack Ketchum, “The Lost” is about 19-year-old psychopath Ray Pye (Marc Senter) who kills two young women at a campground just for kicks, and the aftermath of the senseless tragedy. The night of the killings, Pye’s accomplices Jen (Shay Astar) and Tim (Alex Frost) help cover up the crimes, and Pye is never caught. But the local detective, Charlie Schilling (Michael Bowen), is convinced of Ray’s guilt, and, four years after the murders, searches for the smoking gun to put Pye away. The stress of the investigation and Pye's crumbling relationships with Jen and his new girlfriend Katherine Wallace (Robin Sydney) push the nutbag over the edge, driving him to commit acts far more brutal than the campground murders. Packed with tension, drama and explosive action, “The Lost” is a terrifying portrait of poisoned love, sheer insanity and unmitigated revenge.
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