Film REVIEWS
SUMMER HORROR ON DVD
Forget Hollywood – this month we embark on a European horror odyssey. First up is Lars von Trier’s superlative haunted hospital drama The Kingdom (Second Sight ●●●●●). Collecting both of his four-part Danish TV series into one boxed set for the first time in the UK, it’s a fantastic package that has much in common with Twin Peaks in terms of surreal style, creepy comedy and kooky characters. However, it ends with many questions left unanswered as the planned third series was never filmed, following the unfortunate (unrelated) deaths of several cast members.
A hodge podge homage to the Italian black- gloved serial killer genre he helped invent, Giallo (Lionsgate ●●●●●) unfortunately only continues to prove that Dario Argento hasn’t made a great film since the truly amazing Terror at the Opera in 1987. France continues its bid to become the continent’s most prolific and gruesome horror hotspot in The Pack (Icon ●●●●●), a down and dirty redneck-crazies- meet-subterranean-mutant-monsters mash-up (pictured).
Maverick German director Uwe Boll is back,
with perhaps his best film yet and the third entry in his vampire videogame adaptation series Blood Reich: Bloodrayne 3 (Metrodome ●●●●●). This time our Dhampir heroine is kicking Nazi butt, and only Boll would have the balls to include an all too brief vampire-Hitler dream sequence. Boll returns (as producer) with Italian zombie movie Eaters: Rise of the Dead (Chelsea Films ●●●●●), which has its moments, but never quite knows where it’s going. More undead apocalypse action in World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2 (Metrodome ●●●●●), which goes for the ‘found footage’ format but offers nothing we haven’t seen before as a small group of squaddies fight their way across a zombie-ravaged Britain. UK horror Siren (Matchbox ●●●●●) fortunately isn’t all bikinis and babes, as the deceiving cover shot suggests, but unfortunately is a ho-hum tale of three friends who run into a Siren (as in Greek mythology type, not a police type) on an isolated island in the Mediterranean.
Finland’s Evil Rising (Matchbox ●●●●●), aka Sauna, takes us to 1595 as Sweden and Russia mark their new borders following 25 years of war, where two brothers discover a strange village in the middle of a swamp and are haunted by the sins of their past. It meanders along but never really builds on the atmosphere it creates in the first hour. We recommend you check out Christopher Smith’s Black Death for a very similar medieval horror instead. OK, so Lake Mungo (Second Sight ●●●●●) is Australian, but it was once a British colony so we’ll let it slide as it’s a surprisingly effective and very watchable fake documentary that subtly mixes a family’s grief with supernatural elements. (Henry Northmore)
DRAMA THE BIG PICTURE (L’HOMME QUI VOULAIT VIVRE SA VIE) (tbc) 114min ●●●●●
This adaptation of Douglas Kennedy’s novel relocates the setting from New York and Montana to Paris and the Adriatic Coast. Despite a plot involving murder, identity theft and abandonment, this is not so much a thriller as an investigation into the psyche of a man struggling with guilt. In many ways an organic throwback to the New Hollywood thrillers of the 1970s, this is the film that Anton Corbijn wanted The American to be.
Romain Duris plays Paul Exben as a Dostoyevskian anti-hero deep in emotional crisis. The lawyer’s marriage has reached a cul- de-sac, so much so that he nicknames his wife (the excellent Marina Foïs) ‘Sarah Bovary’ without the slightest hint of irony. No surprise then that his wife is doing the dirty on him with his neighbour Gregoire (Eric Ruf). Paul’s feelings
of inadequacy are fuelled by the fact that Gregoire (Eric Ruf) is a successful photographer, a profession Paul always wanted to pursue. Paul confronts Gregoire and his problems really begin.
Director Eric Lartigau’s nuanced control of atmospherics is impressive, particularly when the action moves to the former Yugoslavia. The source novel’s porous plot demands that not too many questions are asked (it was written before the omnipresence of the internet) and Lartigau manages to suspend belief.
Once again, Duris proves that he is always
more watchable when playing tormented souls – as in the excellent The Beat that My Heart Skipped – than he is playing romantic leads. As a study of a man pushed to the edge and unable to run away from himself, The Big Picture is as fascinating as it is slow-burning. (Kaleem Aftab) ■ GFT, Glasgow, Fri 22 Jul–Thu 4 Aug. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 5–Thu 11 Aug.
COMEDY ZOOKEEPER (PG) 101min ●●●●●
Part rom-com, part Doctor Dolittle-style family comedy, Zookeeper, starring lard arse comic actor Kevin James (The Dilemma, Grown Ups), is a wholly unsatisfactory experience for all but the most juvenile minds. The latest offering from Happy Madison, Adam Sandler’s production company, is directed by Frank Coraci (Click, The Waterboy) and is content to go for easy laughs and simplistic plot beats. James plays loveable zookeeper Griffin Keyes, whose beach-side wedding proposal is callously turned down by Leslie Bibb’s money-grabber at the start of the movie, and who spends the ensuing time trying to win her back by proving that he’s better than his surroundings. Helping him to do so, meanwhile, are Rosario Dawson’s shy vet (a more suitable match) and the various animals he looks after, who start talking in a bid to coach him in romance.
What follows is an endless array of slapstick situations involving James falling over, awkward situation comedy as he puts animal mating practices into real-life play (urinating inside a restaurant to mark his territory, etc), and low-brow jokes. The most surprising thing about Zookeeper is the big names lending their voices to this farce – Cher, Nick Nolte, Sylvester Stallone and Jon Favreau included – but no one can breathe life into the tedious script. (Rob Carnevale) ■ General release from Fri 29 Jul.
54 THE LIST 21 Jul–4 Aug 2011