Goldbeater

A trash story about a Vietnam veteran who has become asocial due to PTSD and retreats into his house in the middle of the Florida swamps, having venomous snakes as his only company. He tries to protect the animals from local poachers who are after snake skin, but since those want more than just the snakes, an unpleasant fight takes place. Stanley has a certain trashy charm and a solid atmosphere of sordid villages, but also stagnates as much as the surrounding water in terms of pace and these 108 minutes are way too much for such a simple story. Moreover, despite the fact that the flick seeks to promote a peaceful coexistence of humans with wild venomous reptiles, the explicit violence it shows towards these creatures undermines the global image of the film (the creators could and should really have done without it).

Indonesia comes with yet another demonic showcase of gore scenes and heavy dark images, to what I say, ‘Bring it on!’ Kimo Stamboel and Joko Anwar drew on the Indonesian horror classic The Queen of Black Magic (1981), changing and updating its theme to a great extent, thus leaving only a few elements from the original, the rest being an entirely new, enhanced adventure. A group of old acquaintances get together in a secluded orphanage to remember the old days, but the past turns out to be much more horrifying than what they want to admit. The horror side of the flick works very well and brings a few seriously disturbing visions. I could maybe just complain about the abusive use of digital effects (those computer-generated insects are really painful); otherwise the atmosphere is very powerful, at times downright hellish.

The Indonesian classic horror film The Queen of Black Magic concerns an aggrieved young lady who, by falling into dark schemes, turns into the titular queen of black magic and exacts revenge against the villagers who had unduly sentenced her to death. The flick is relatively inconsistent. On the one hand, it contains a rather melodramatic story with family entanglements that – especially towards the end – somewhat evoke a Latin American soap opera, while infusing the main character with an excessively naive nature. On the other hand, it comes with enchanting fantastic scenery and gusts of surprisingly bloody scenes that culminate with the mad ripping off of a head, which then levitates all around. Considering that the Indonesian cinematography of the early ’80s was behind in terms of genres, this is definitely a memorable piece of filmmaking. From a more cosmopolitan point of view, however, one needs to be quite indulgent while watching this.

Night of Death has a cosily uneasy atmosphere characteristic of gothic horror films from Europe. There’s a clear perception that the main heroine is alone in this adventure, with no one to help her. What’s more, Isabelle Goguey’s performance in the main role has a very friendly aspect to it, despite her character being predominantly naive. In contrast, the screenplay reveals all its secrets too early, so you learn everything about the nature of the local evil forces during the first twenty minutes, then have to endure a never-ending hour (in which almost nothing happens), waiting for some strong outcome which, finally, doesn’t bring anything new. Unfortunately, that middle part of the film felt to me like the week before receiving your paycheck, and managed to make me sleepy. Those 95 minutes were quite exhausting and it wouldn’t hurt to somehow thicken the sauce of the storyline.

Vamp is a horror comedy with a distinctive touch. A group of students sets out for a seedy striptease bar which, unfortunately for them, turns out to be full of vampires. The creator of this film is Richard Wenk, known as the screenwriter of some very memorable action movies produced in the recent years (16 Blocks, The Equalizer I-II, The Expendables 2). On the artistic side, the use of pastel colours reminiscent of neon lights give the film a genuine 80s feel and, at the same time, compensates in various ways for a flick that would otherwise feel flimsy due to a somewhat fragmented plot and predictable script full of dry humour (the latter is fine, though). Now, if you’re after some easy teenage vampire comedy à la Tom Holland’s Fright Night, you’re on the right path!

Trailer statements for this sci-fi thriller like ‘unbelievable true story’ or ‘based on real life events’ once again show us that everything’s wrong with the human race, especially when it comes to overly ambitious C-movie filmmakers. This is a transcendental feat. Producer and screenwriter Milan Friedrich pumped cash into a boyishly naive fairy tale, and moreover – perhaps most fundamentally – this sci-fi about the abduction of humans by aliens is based on his real experience, as we will discover at the beginning of the film. Yes, they are among us! And when I see Friedrich’s new film to come, I’m starting to believe something really out of this world is happening to the Czech cinema today. In Alpha Code, the creativity peak is, of course, the physical fight between Marek Vašut and UFC champion Randy Couture (The Expendables I-III). You can even play and guess who will win. The daylight beautifully reveals how choreographically poor and pathetically shot this scene is. That is not to say the rest of the movie is made in a less pathetic way.

A beautiful example of how Hollywood producers imagine the ideal modern remake of a film hit from the eighties. Just hire a music video director (who never shot any feature-length movie), put together a bunch of ideas from the original series, cast some attractive model actors, throw in some cheap jump scares (because you can’t make a horror movie without them today), add ostensibly expensive visuals and wrap the rest in ‘really gorgeous’ modern digital effects, and you immediately get a picture that’s tuned to today’s audience. And the fact there’s no soul? That it is dull and vacuous? That all the substance is diluted into the feeblest rehash? Doesn’t matter; there will always be jaded young crowds who don’t know the original to make for happy viewers!

After five sequels, of which some were of higher and some of lesser quality, and one totally out there (the second instalment), legendary Wes Craven returned to the series, finally bringing some fresh air in the form of a new concept and interesting ideas. And even if, admittedly, New Nightmare’s second half has numerous variations on horror scenes and murders from the initial movie, and Freddy is only sparingly seen on the screen, one must objectively acknowledge that this film offers the best story of all sequels. This film will particularly appeal to cinephile fans of the series, who will appreciate the horror-style behind-the-scene views and staff appearances, featuring a significant number of actors as themselves, but also producers, visual effects artists and most of all, director Wes Craven, whose ‘new nightmares’ made this last ‘meta’ part of the sequel possible – and delightful.

The somewhat cumbersome fifth instalment called for some fresh air and a change of concept, so the creators came up with the ultimate finale, which is kind of a silly comedy. The horror scenes are on the border of slapstick (or maybe beyond), but that didn’t bother me at all. Freddy’s Dead enriched the franchise with a generous dose of humour, and this should be all fine. BUT – and this one is huge – the creators didn’t set a clear tone for the whole movie, resulting in quite a hybrid experience, ranging from one extreme (slapstick comedy) to another (serious flashbacks). Add to the injury the worse acting performances of the entire series, some weird cameo roles (Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr – WTF), a story that isn’t correctly structured and very outdated scenes adapted to the 3D format, and you get a very inconsistent film which, in a way, is fun, but at the same time doesn’t fit its position of the grand finale for a legendary horror saga. Fortunately, a few years later, Wes Craven came back with his New Nightmare, which handles that position with a lot more dignity.

With this fifth part of the saga, some wear and tear is noticeable. All the action takes place on a smaller scale than in previous films, and those situations where the characters doze off and fall in the killer’s clutches are very cumbersome. Apart from the most inventive scene, the ‘fusion with the motorbike’, this sequel is quite dull, too serious without any reason and by far less fun than the other instalments of A Nightmare on Elm Street – including the insanely crazy flick that followed after this one.