Psychocandy
04-24-2006, 06:07 AM
Just got back from the Dead By Dawn horror film fest in Edinburgh and as always it was a treat from start to (almost) finish. From Midnight Thursday through until midnight this evening the Edinburgh Fimhouse has been host to more downright nasty unpleasantness than your average schmoe could shake a severed limb at.
Hard Candy
The festival opened on Thursday at midnight with the entirely remarkable Hard Candy. Here is a movie unafraid to court controversy and via two stunning (and brave) performances succeeded in cranking the tension up to an almost unbearable degree before letting loose with a nerve shredding set piece that probably had every guy in the audience crossing his legs and seriously thinking about legging it for the nearest exit.
Movies about pedophilia have a tendency to simplify the issue and merely demonise the perpertrators of this most unforgivable crime and in so doing run the risk of simplifiying the entire issue to a single didactic statement instead of just presenting the various facts and asking the sort of uncomfortable questions that would require an audience to actually think rather than just react on a visceral level. I've always felt that it's important to humanise the monsters in society because only then can we arrive at some sort of understanding as to what makes them the abberations they most surely are. This is a movie unafraid of asking difficult questions and constantly has the audience questioning to what degree their sympathies are divided between the potential victim or the potential perpetrator of whether indeed either of the main protaginists are in any way worthy of sympathy. Saying anything more would perhaps spoil the various surprises in store. I give this movie my highest recommendation.
Rating - 5 out of 5
Cigarette Burns
Cigarette Burns was the first of two episodes of the Showtime Masters Of Horror series to be screened during the course of the festival (the other being Lucky McKee's excellent Sick Girl). John Carpenter (for whom this represents something of a return to form) is a director with an impeccable history in the field of horror. That is providing you don't look forward beyond his last semi-masterpiece In The Mouth Of Madness (itself a pale reflection of his earlier triumphs).
Cigrette Burns is an exercise in mounting dread that expertly cranks up the tension as events spiral out of control and succeeds in being more Argentoesque than Argento's Masters Of Horror episode Jennifer. The main protaginist, through his pursuit of a rare movie that prompted viewers at it's film festival premier to riot murderously, finds himself sucked into a whirlpool that once entered slowly pulls him to his inevitable doom.
There are shocks aplenty including one of the best onscreen beheadings i've ever seen. Definitely one of the best episodes of Masters Of Horror and seeing it on the big screen was a rare treat. Here's hoping they get Carpenter back to helm another episode in the second season.
TBC
Hard Candy
The festival opened on Thursday at midnight with the entirely remarkable Hard Candy. Here is a movie unafraid to court controversy and via two stunning (and brave) performances succeeded in cranking the tension up to an almost unbearable degree before letting loose with a nerve shredding set piece that probably had every guy in the audience crossing his legs and seriously thinking about legging it for the nearest exit.
Movies about pedophilia have a tendency to simplify the issue and merely demonise the perpertrators of this most unforgivable crime and in so doing run the risk of simplifiying the entire issue to a single didactic statement instead of just presenting the various facts and asking the sort of uncomfortable questions that would require an audience to actually think rather than just react on a visceral level. I've always felt that it's important to humanise the monsters in society because only then can we arrive at some sort of understanding as to what makes them the abberations they most surely are. This is a movie unafraid of asking difficult questions and constantly has the audience questioning to what degree their sympathies are divided between the potential victim or the potential perpetrator of whether indeed either of the main protaginists are in any way worthy of sympathy. Saying anything more would perhaps spoil the various surprises in store. I give this movie my highest recommendation.
Rating - 5 out of 5
Cigarette Burns
Cigarette Burns was the first of two episodes of the Showtime Masters Of Horror series to be screened during the course of the festival (the other being Lucky McKee's excellent Sick Girl). John Carpenter (for whom this represents something of a return to form) is a director with an impeccable history in the field of horror. That is providing you don't look forward beyond his last semi-masterpiece In The Mouth Of Madness (itself a pale reflection of his earlier triumphs).
Cigrette Burns is an exercise in mounting dread that expertly cranks up the tension as events spiral out of control and succeeds in being more Argentoesque than Argento's Masters Of Horror episode Jennifer. The main protaginist, through his pursuit of a rare movie that prompted viewers at it's film festival premier to riot murderously, finds himself sucked into a whirlpool that once entered slowly pulls him to his inevitable doom.
There are shocks aplenty including one of the best onscreen beheadings i've ever seen. Definitely one of the best episodes of Masters Of Horror and seeing it on the big screen was a rare treat. Here's hoping they get Carpenter back to helm another episode in the second season.
TBC