A Fist full of AGGRESSION

THE AGGRESSION SCALE (2012)
D. STEVEN C. MILLER
ANCHOR BAY ENT. 
2.35 - 1

This tightly wound little thriller literally hits the ground running when hit-man Lloyd (Dana Ashbrook from TWIN  PEAKS) enters a suburban home and calmly blows the person out the front door with as shotgun in front of their kids. After a couple more equally bloody and unsettling murders we come to find out he is working for local mob boss Mr. Bellevance (Ray Wise). Seems someone has absconded with $500,000 of his money and he is none to happy about it. If Lloyd doesn't get the money in 48 hours, he gets put under the ground.

Then we meet slowly fracturing, newly thrown together family. Bill (Boyd Kestner)and Maggie (Lisa Rotondi) have just gotten married and are moving their two teen aged children up to a new house to start over. The kids are not happy about it. The daughter Lauren (Fabianne Therese) is a typical spoiled bitch who is complaining about everything. But their son Owen (Ryan Hartwig) is a different sort of child, clearly autistic and introverted, he never utters a word throughout the film. But we get wind early on that something is brewing inside of him when he kills a spider with a makeshift blowgun...

Before long Lloyd and his brutal gang of thugs (Including Derek Meyers from the FRIDAY THE 13th remake and THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake) are there killing their way through the supporting cast, but what they didn't count on was the Owen is actually the concern of the title.

What transpires id that this young boy with extreme autism, is actually as dangerous, if not more so, than these thugs and killers. That he has been training himself for survival strategies and this whole situation becomes an extremely bloody game for him.

It would be easy to dismiss THE AGGRESSION SCALE as HOME ALONE for adults. That is the easiest short hand for it. But that also cheapens what is one of the freshest, most exciting thrillers I have watched since HANNA (2011). Constantly exciting, lean and to the point, viciously brutal and uncompromising, it is edge of your seat stuff. Sure there are missteps along the way. Owen's actions are sometimes way too exacting, with him having the forethought to do things that ONLY make sense if he were to know the script itself. The daughter, Lauren, gets really annoying with her teenage angst early on, but thankfully the films spends very little time with that before getting to the action. 

The movie is getting really bad reviews on the IMDB, which just furthers my opinion that the people who leave comments and reviews there are trolls. Check this one out, it is well worth your time.  Review © Andrew Copp


 

Halloween Horror Challenge Oct 13: RED STATE

RED STATE (2011)
D. KEVIN SMITH
LIONSGATE
1.85

Kevin Smith's controversial thriller is by no means a horror film, no matter how much he or his fans try to tell you it is. But much to my surprise is actually IS a fine little film. Mostly sure handed, offering no easy answers, exciting when it should be, brutal and ugly when it needs to be, and forces a lot of thoughtful ideas into the laps o an audience that probably would never give any of those ideas a chance had Smith's name not been attached. The movie only falls down in the last reel when it seems that Smith himself seemingly just couldn't handle not throwing in his typical smarmy smartass humor,and a final walk off image that simply doesn't work. But 90% of the movie that leads up to it is challenging stuff.

The movie begins with a small scene in a high school class room where a very liberal teacher goes over the first and second amendment briefly and how it applies to the FIVE POINTS CHURCH and their leader ABIN COOPER (in a galvanizing performance by Michael Parks). This church are basically a version of the Fred Phelps clan protesting any and everything to do with Homosexuals. That they are agents of Satan. In the High School class are three teen boys Jared (Kyle Gallner), Travis (Michael Angarano)

and Billy Ray (Nicholas Braun) have been talking to a middle aged woman online about meeting her for group sex. On the way to meet this woman they run into a parked car, inside of which a gay couple are having sex. Which turns out to be the town Sheriff and his secret gay lover, This is a key point of interest later in the story. The kids meet the woman (Melissa Leo) at a trailer park and she drugs them and takes them hostage for the FIVE POINTS CHURCH and Abin Cooper who intends to slaughter them during one of his sermons as a sacrifice to the lord to show he is cleansing the Earth of the filth and sodomites. The Sheriff has sent his Deputy out to find who hit his car, more to see who might have found out his secret than anything. The Deputy finds something amiss at the Church and gets shot for his trouble, Leading the Sheriff to call in the BATF lead by John Goodman who have been trying to find solid evidence that the church have been hiding guns on the premises. But when the BATF get on the site and their commands go south once the shooting starts, the government's involvement is as questionable as the church's.

The movie is a clear acid in the face of the WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH and their evil protesting of Gay rights issues, soldier's funerals and everything else they do. RED STATE could be easily summed up as THE WESTBORO CHURCH discovers the second Amendment and becomes THE BRANCH DAVIDIANS. But what makes it so unique is that for the most part Smith is careful to not lay too much of the blame at one one particular door step. The fanatical church is clearly shown as misguided people, blinded by their religion. But when the government is called in the decisions made by them are really no less fanatical or humane. Once again no easy answers are given, and no chance at true living or presented. Just as much faceless slaughter is there.

Kevin Smith loses his focus in two sections of the movie. In the last ten minutes of the movie he slips back int his normal smart ass, snarky writing with several new major characters making useless sexual/ comedic banter that is very out of place. Also the plotting ends up turning on a very loose bit of very lucky plot devices that feel like he had painted himself into a corner and needed something o get out quick. Also the handling of the gay Sheriff character is fumbled pretty badly, making him a drunk, insecure character, which would be fine, but with him being the only openly gay character in the film to make him a laughing stock and a loser it sends a bad vibe to the audience. Also killing him of violently sends a nasty message to the audience. But my theory is the Sheriff is the stand in for Kevin Smith himself, the very in the closet gay guy who can't come out at all under in circumstances, that it would ruin his life if he did. So it is ok to make that character a bit of a laughing stock. At least in Smith's own eyes.

But those are the few small complaints. For the most par I still say this is Smith's most mature film, even with the small slip ups, and if he intends to keep making movies in the this vein I will be glad to see what he is up to in the future.

Review © Andrew Copp

You thought local cops were hardcore: LIVE LIKE A COP DIE LIKE A MAN

LIVE LIKE A COP DIE LIKE A MAN (1976)
D. RUGGERO DEODATO
RARO VIDEOLTBX ANAMORPHIC DVD

Ruggero's Deodato's sophomore film after the softcore sex film WAVE OF LUST was this hard as nails, almost fascist, Italian Police action film that holds the place card for being one of, if not THE most violent of that sub-genre. The Italian "Polizia" film was a popular sub-genre of the thriller that ran through the 70's with certain directors excelling at them. Writer Fernando Di Leo often wrote many of the era's crime pictures, and his name is on the screenplay for this one as well. Themes of corruption, street violence, and the Police having to be as bad as the criminals run through these films. LIVE LIKE A COP DIE LIKE A MAN takes these themes to such a hyper violent, almost absurd level that it almost has to be parody. But anyone familiar with the violent excesses of Ruggero Deodato's other films will quickly realize it probably isn't. He is just a director that likes to go over the top. He may very well have his political themes and concerns, but at the end of the day, he feels everything has to be turned up to eleven.

Ray Lovelock and Marc Porel star as Ray and Tony two off the cuff Italian cops who make up the "special forces" for the Rome police. Seems being the "special forces" in Rome equates to having a license to kill, beat up and maim whomever you may need to for any case at any time. The movie opens with a seriously impressive motorcycle chase when two scum bags snatch a lady's purse and drag her a half block, smashing her into a fire hydrant in the process. Our heroes see it happen and go after the thugs. It is important to mention the two of them seem to just cruise around together on a motorcycle with no where really to go irregardless if they are on duty or off. They may not be portrayed as gay, but bunked up on the motorcycle together holding each other tight, they certainly look that way more than once. The chase ends shockingly with the thugs wrecking into an open truck, one of them impaled on the handlebars and the other once bleeding internally. To which Ray viciously snaps his neck. When our dudes are walking away from the scene one asks the other "Did yours die on his own? I had to help mine along!"

From here they set out to find a local gangster and to do so they decide to flush him out by setting fire to all the fancy cars in the lot of one of his clubs. So they burn all the Rolls Royce and other big shot cars, as well as the night watchmen working there! Later in the movie Ray is shocked to find out the cars were not insured and feels a pang of remorse for burning the automobiles!!! They slap around the Mafia guys big tit sister and take turns fucking her since she is a nymphomaniac (In real life this actress was the sister of Ruggero's wife, so there is a little bit of weirdness there. Ruggero's wife plays the sexy Secretary the guys keep trying to seduce with no success because she is too smart and liberated to fall for their horseshit!).

The duo also break up a hostage situation,and stop a robbery, both by sneaking in and literally cold blooded shooting everyone involved, one by loading up silencers and sneaking onto the scene and wiping everyone out. Their boss constantly treats them like they are overzealous kids, not the murderous psychopaths they clearly are.

The movie walks a fine line between being a straight out action film, a piece of right wing propaganda, and some sort of weird violent parody/ fantasy. It works best when looked at in the last category as a berserk parody of Italian action and cop films where things are never what they should be. Instead they are way more violent and insane. The only movie in this realm that compares is LUCIO FULCI's equally over the top CONTRABAND (1981).But that film plays it straight as a gangster picture. This thing is like a hyper violent cartoon satirizing the cop genre.

Interestingly enough this is one of the best looking productions I have seen from Deodato. Slickly directed with great actions scenes and just great, knock about moments. While his horror films are well regarded sometimes his stuff can feel cheap (THE BARBARIANS, DIAL HELP, THE WASHING MACHINE) but this consistently feels like a top notch production and is well worth checking out.

The new RARO DVD has trailers and a 42 minute documentary about the making of the film with interviews with most of the surviving key players in which they all reminisce about the making of the film, the apparently made up on set controversy between the lead actors, and yes, how it was supposed to be a serious action film.

Review © Andrew Copp

Day #15, It saturates the screen with TERROR!

Day #15 I spent in the Hotel in Strongville, Ohio for the ACM conference for my work. Ironically enough it is the exact same hotel that the Cinema Wasteland convention was held at two weeks earlier that I could not afford to attend for the first time in over five years! talk about irony hitting you in the balls. But I was not about to let my Halloween Horror Challenge slip past, so I took my buddy Bryan's portable DVD player with me and watched a couple of movies while I was there. First off was this Sergio Martino giallo classic.


TORSO (1971)
D. SERGIO MARTINO
BLUE UNDERGROUND
2.35

Incredibly stylish Giallo thriller that was clearly inspired by the world wide smash of Dario Argento's BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE just a little over a year previous. But where Argento's movie is very mechanical in its presentation (though artful in it's beauty) Martino sets out from the get go to infuse his film with as much sex and titillation as humanly possible. When the opening credits are running over shots of two teen lesbians lovingly groping each other as the shots shift in and out of focus, there is very little question about were the director's intentions lie. In the next ten minutes the viewer is blessed with more nipples through silk shirts, hookers doffing their tops, and bursting cleavage than most censorship boards would allow. By the time the first kill scene happens to a teen couple getting busy in the back of their car (eagle eyed viewers will notice this scene more or less recreated in Eli Roth's quite funny THANKSGIVING faux trailer in GRINDHOUSE) we've almost forgotten we are watching a thriller at all thanks to all the perfectly scooped boobs.Then an expertly timed and shot slash sequence jumps out and really grabs our senses, banging them into place. Soon this is followed by another young lady named Clair being stalked and killed after she breaks up with an older man she was having an affair with.

This is Clair. Italy eventually enacted laws about women being this hot.

In a fit of reckless depression, she leaves with the local dope heads a
nd almost ends up the centerpiece of their orgy, only to find herself wandering stoned into the swamp as she is stalked by a masked killer who eventually strangles and dismembers her. He takes a loving long time to of course admire her nude mud and blood flecked breasts, All the while having flashbacks to his youth and some weird incident involving poking the eyes out of a doll. The remaining four girls are naturally scared, so they head up to one of their uncle's cabins to get away. Add to that the local town obsessive-compulsive is stalking one of them and she wants away from him too. Unfortunately, the town where the cabin is located is not unlike the town in DELIVERANCE: full of uneducated, sub-level humans who are all more than likely inbred on purpose, The towns folk talk endlessly about fucking the four girls, making us fear a gang rape might be coming any minute, Thankfully that is avoided, because the actual killer arrives and does some cleaning up of his own at the villa. Seems he doesn't like lesbians much at all, Which leads to the reveal of the killer that is not all that shocking, but still reasonably suspenseful. We also get to see the rest of that flashback that has a freaking hilarious shot of a little kid falling off a cliff.

Reaching for dolls in exchange to see down a girl's panties always leads to trouble. Kids, make note of this.

Okay, it's not supposed to be funny, but there's something seriously wrong with me. Hey, it's clearly a dummy that looks like a little kid with child like screams dubbed over it. It's a cheesy moment in an otherwise impeccably made film.

One of Giallo's most memorable killers.

The movie starts off really well with those two very effective back to back stalk and slash scenes that are more or less iconic. The woods/swamp scene is especially effective and gut churning stuff. Once we are up to the summer villa, things slow down considerably with some of the tighter writing from earlier becoming lax before becoming taut again with the final scenes with the killer, using the directorial flare that Martino has built from his years of making action oriented movies.

Suzy Kendall wonder's what she had for dinner that smells like that.

The cinematography in TORSO is stunning. Maybe not as acrobatic or eye assaulting as we have come to expect in some of the other Italian thrillers from the period, but aesthetically is very beautiful. With tight composition, and always creatively placed and framed. Not to mention incredible camera moves and fantastic editing. There is a lot of shifting focus and impressive depth of field work that reveals and hides details within a given shot.

Male models punch it up big time under the supervision of maestro Sergio Martino!

TORSO has a good reputation, but is not really mentioned in the same breath as some of Argento's or Fulci's work, which to me is a shame. In fact it is much, much better than the later era work of either of those great talents. It wipes the floor of anything Argento has produced since THE STENDHAL SYNDROME and most of Fulci's movies from the 90's. TORSO is a movie that deserves a much better place on the shelves of horror fans in my estimation.


Reviews © Andy Copp