HARPOON – Twisty indie black comedy set on a boat, where a sexually tense trio with Polanskian affinities (as in, tendencies to reference ‘Knife in the Water’) have fun with not-a-harpoon. If you like sassy headplay, then this might be up your alley because it does strive for that kind of thing at the start, although for me it worked better after it ditched the stabs at cynicism and went for the gore, which is present to a surprising degree later on.
SLAUGHTER HIGH – Dick Randall. He was all over cheapshit exploitation movies in the seventies and eighties, though for many fans the ‘holy trinity’ of Randall productions would be ‘Pieces’, ‘Don’t Open Till Christmas’ and this. Tad disappointed when I resaw it the other week, as its memorable bits seemed diluted by too much messing around. Plenty of silliness to lap up though, and I liked how it all went dreamy and mental at the end. An Alice Cooperish theme whose lyrics are all film-related is always a plus – why does no-one do that nowadays?
READY OR NOT – Bride who marries into an old money family discovers that the rich are a bunch of murderous tossers who play meaningless games that end in violent death! How’s that for a revelation? So, it’s a kind of hide-and-seek set-up in a plush mansion with various contrived kills. In that, it has a vague whiff of the far better ‘You’re Next’ about it, although some may disagree on both those points. I mean, it’s OK and entertaining enough I suppose, but I remember thinking “this is just a conventional film, really,” at one point, and thence felt a bit tired.
COME TO DADDY – Elijah Wood stars as a slightly feeble hipster meeting his estranged dad in an isolated house. If Elijah’s wondering why everything seems so shady and how come his dad’s such a mind gamey arsehole, it’s cos he’s stuck in the atmospheric first thirty minutes of a modern neon type thriller that later on goes out of its way to seem over the top and twisty. It mostly works, being very slick, well put together and entertaining. I was expecting something more warped from a guy who had a big hand in ‘The Greasy Strangler’, but, good.
THE GIRL ON THE THIRD FLOOR – Mmm, slight surprise, I was thinking I’d get something that was just a bit Netflixy. But TGOTTF is a strange one, bit of straight brute gore in places, bit of Cronenbergy slime time in others. It features that ex-wrestler who here is a bit of a fake ‘modern dad’ type (in that he tries to be right on but is still at base a philandering cro-mag) in the middle of renovating his new house, which so happens to have once been a very shadowy brothel. Spirits of former establishment have not yet been ‘laid’ to rest, and take Punk down with some grotty moves of their own. The gender politics seem a bit opportunistic, but the unexpected gloopiness (in places) is impressive and the spook-house atmospherics work out well. How can you knock a film with BB’s ‘Bad Penny’ on the end credits? Think Albini did some of the soundtrack, too. Whatever, I’d say that it’s definitely worth seeing.
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