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Adam Wingard’s acclaimed serial killer road movie,
A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE, is set for a DVD & Blu-ray release in the UK, Mar 19, 2012
Most horror movies exist to offer some kind of thrilling roller ride into the unknown, be it a supernatural world where reality is turned on its head or a dingy trip into the kind of violent depravity you thankfully don’t have to experience in day to day life, horror cinema offers grisly escapism from a harsh world and most horror films reflect this, allowing the viewer a get out in the final reel as whatever demon or mad man that rampaged through the picture is dispatched… It might take a few goes for the monster to finally lie down and die, but generally, scary movies are a break from the mundane and don’t require much thought as the titles roll.
But some movies take a more artful approach to the fear, death and bloodshed. Some horror films ask questions. Some movies could be termed “thinking persons horror”. Certainly, A Horrible Way To Die fits into this arthouse shock sub-genre.
It’s a world where the ugliness and violence of rape-revenge exploitation movies is turned on its head in Irreversible and the audience is confronted with the real horror of sexual violence. These films attempt to get into the minds of the viewers and the killers that are paraded for their entertainment. In Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the audience isn’t presented with a crimson torrent of slasher kills, just the grim aftermath of obsessive murder and the spiraling mental atrophy of a deranged man. Â Cannibal Holocaust isn’t simply a collection of mondo-excessive scenes, strung together to satisfy a sleazy producers check list of female dismemberment, mud caked nudity and colonial racism, it’s a brave attempt to fuse the shock doc with grindhouse film making in a way that explicitly forces the audience to think about the vile acts it is witnessing. Other Cannibal films give you the worst of our imaginations, Holocaust injects an intelligent voice into the proceedings which stays with the viewer long after the film is done.
A Horrible Way To Die absorbs elements of the serial killer genre and torture horror but the end results don’t take us to the usual dank basements and masked sadists, they take us instead into the workaday life of an escaped psychopath and the people that his actions effect. In a cruel twist of irony, the cold fear that his escape inspires in his ex-partner is enough to cloud her judgement, sending her into the arms of someone equally damaged. That the film can comment intelligently on the hidden self-destructive urges of the movies ‘final girl’ and present a 360 degree portrait of genuine insanity is a fine achievement, just don’t expect a sludgy mall-metal soundtrack, a cast of tender fleshed Hollywood hotties or a predictable conclusion that provides all the answers.
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