Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop  RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE – A cartoonist – sorry, graphic novelist – hits the road in hope of finding a conclusion to his ailing serial killer comic book. He finds… pretty much what you no doubt expect. An odd film of many colours, filters and ‘eighties inspired’ synth noodles, ‘Random Acts of Violence’ seems to slip from moral posturing to celebratory gore with disconcerting ease; be that as it may, the director ain’t no Haneke. ROAV’s inconsistencies give way to a genuinely strong, dreamlike final half hour which seethes with atmosphere and makes good on some of the film’s promise.
BLACK CANDLES – I wouldn’t call this top tier Larraz, but the director’s hallmark atmosphere is present in abundance, a sense of an imaginary back-roads England somehow cut off from the real world by a veil of shadows, mist and drizzle. ‘Black Candles’ concerns the internal life of a rambling country house, which of course is riven with Satanic conspiracies and feuds in the wake of an inheritance claim. Larraz sleazes it up with pretty much wall to wall softcore; I’m only ever really interested in that kind of thing if it’s particularly weird, and it sort of is in places, a bit – there’s no guarantee that goat was having a good time. But, although watching one aimless bout of nookie give way to the next can get a little yawnsome, the tone wins out… just that candlelit aura of creeping dread, amplified by swirling soundtrack electronics and the grim, mildewy feel of 1982’s rainy season in the air.
WARRIORS OF THE YEAR 2072 – Fulci’s vision of the future is a TV dictatorship where things are a bit like ‘The Running Man’, still three or four years away when this came out; one thing they don’t mention about Italian rip-off cinema is actually how pre-emptive some of it was. Whatever, WOTY2072 won’t disappoint those searching beyond ‘The Beyond’ for the fuller range of that early eighties Fulci / Salvati feeling – lots of diffusion and weird camera work, and just a plethora of odd moments – a strange senselessness pervades all. It does go on a bit, but you know what you’re getting.
THE BLACK STRING – Slacker guy has a one-night stand and worries that he might have ended up with an STD. What could be worse? An STD that happens to be the cornerstone of an occult conspiracy, that’s what! ‘The Black String’ does well in its portrayal of the claustrophobic collapse of a hapless dude’s life, but it misses a few tricks along the way – its failure to push some promising imagery and a slightly bland style don’t stack up well. That said, it’s entertaining and involving enough. It’s bolstered by the starey blue eyes of ex-Malcolm himself Frankie Muniz, now all grown up and available for hire in Prime-destined genre product.
THE NEST – One of the few cheap horror films to ponder the non-genre specific question of separation anxiety, ‘The Nest’ presents to us the world of a small child and her favourite teddy. This quaint image is immediately sullied by said teddy’s bulging, bug like eyes and the fact that its stomach tends to pulsate and transform into a gaping, slimy maw. ‘The Nest’ is a truly odd little film. Its central theme of ‘family as emotional prison’ is dealt with by recourse to the metaphor of ‘mind control by insects that look like long, repulsive cockroaches’. That’s an impressive creative decision. Other such decisions don’t fair so well. It’s way overlong and really plods in places. The acting is off and / or stiff, not that that’s really a problem for me. It veers from drab to dreamlike in its overall tone, all the while looking kinda cheap. I liked it, but I just wish they’d shaved twenty or thirty minutes off and unleashed the potential cheapo semi-classic within. As it stands, ‘The Nest’ is an interesting fail, a curate’s egg that tantalises and frustrates with visions of what it might’ve been. Still definitely worth a watch if you have Prime or money to fling around and not to be confused with the good eighties B-movie of the same name, nor the similarly monikered new Jude Law film (which excellent btw, best of the three). |