Coventry
Joined Nov 2002
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Coventry's rating
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There are two things for which I am always in the mood! #1 is getting a sponge bath from either Alexandra Daddario or Scarlett Johansson (I'm not picky), and #2 is watching a good-old fashioned disaster movie. Admittedly, the one is easier to obtain than the other. I had quite high hopes and expectations for the Swedish "Afgrunden" - I refuse to use the international title because that one belongs to James Cameron - but it turned out a major disappointment. This is only 1/5 disaster movie, and 4/5 whiny family melodrama.
Scandinavians usually know how to make tense and spectacular movies, and this concept had all the potential in the world. A small and geographically isolated town as setting, an old and unstable mine on which the entire town depends for employment, earthquakes, sinkholes, a security manager as protagonist, local teens raving in prohibited areas, ... Perfect! And yet, "Afgrunden" is one of the most boring movies I've seen in a long time, because Richard & Robin Holm's script insists on deep diving into lead heroine Frigga Vibenius' disastrous family situation rather than into the cracks in the asphalt streets or the sinkholes in the sandboxes. Disaster flicks have no right to be boring! Those old Irwin Allen classics may be tacky and clichéd, but they were never boring.
"Afgrunden" is also too focused on being woke (you'll know exactly what I mean), and - more frustratingly - it doesn't have any guts. I assumed it was Frigga's son Simon who got swallowed up by the earth at the beginning. That would have been courageous since she spends the rest of the film looking for him, but then it's "just" a random teenager. In fact, there aren't any unpredictable deaths or shocking surprises at all. You can easily point who will survive and who won't straight from the start.
Scandinavians usually know how to make tense and spectacular movies, and this concept had all the potential in the world. A small and geographically isolated town as setting, an old and unstable mine on which the entire town depends for employment, earthquakes, sinkholes, a security manager as protagonist, local teens raving in prohibited areas, ... Perfect! And yet, "Afgrunden" is one of the most boring movies I've seen in a long time, because Richard & Robin Holm's script insists on deep diving into lead heroine Frigga Vibenius' disastrous family situation rather than into the cracks in the asphalt streets or the sinkholes in the sandboxes. Disaster flicks have no right to be boring! Those old Irwin Allen classics may be tacky and clichéd, but they were never boring.
"Afgrunden" is also too focused on being woke (you'll know exactly what I mean), and - more frustratingly - it doesn't have any guts. I assumed it was Frigga's son Simon who got swallowed up by the earth at the beginning. That would have been courageous since she spends the rest of the film looking for him, but then it's "just" a random teenager. In fact, there aren't any unpredictable deaths or shocking surprises at all. You can easily point who will survive and who won't straight from the start.
What a fun little surprise! Not a good movie, mind you, but a fun surprise. Judging by the mundane title and cliched cover image, I was expecting a forgettable erotic thriller about a hunky photographer murdering his models after bedding them. And that's exactly what it is, in fact, but there's more! There's plenty of absurd gooey gore, AND "Fatal Exposure" is also a Jack-the-Rippersploitation flick!
A what? Well, one of the coolest short-lived hypes of 80s slasher horror was the "celebration" of 100 years since Jack the Ripper's infamous and still unresolved killing spree in Whitechapel, London. Between 1986 and 1989, there suddenly emerged a number of flicks that either revolved around the actual Ripper case or a copycat killer, or much sillier tales that somehow teleported the real Jack to a present-day setting! In the latter category, you'll find hugely amusing B-movies like "Terror at London Bridge", "Jack's Back", and thus also "Fatal Exposure".
Good-looking and smooth-talking Blake Bahner stars as Jack Ripperton (!); - playboy, photographer and great-grandson of Jack the Ripper who settled in a quiet God-fearing community where the local sheriff challenges you to a drinking contest and where Bible fanatics secretly dream about kinky sex games. Jack murders his models in imaginatively gruesome ways and drinks their blood, but simultaneously he also hopes to find the perfect woman to bear him a son. "Fatal Exposure" simply offers too much fun in the gore & sleaze departments to whine about the shortcomings! How can you not love a twisted little flick that features acid-kills, rotary saw dismemberment, shotgun blasts, axe decapitations, and plenty of gratuitous T&A?
A what? Well, one of the coolest short-lived hypes of 80s slasher horror was the "celebration" of 100 years since Jack the Ripper's infamous and still unresolved killing spree in Whitechapel, London. Between 1986 and 1989, there suddenly emerged a number of flicks that either revolved around the actual Ripper case or a copycat killer, or much sillier tales that somehow teleported the real Jack to a present-day setting! In the latter category, you'll find hugely amusing B-movies like "Terror at London Bridge", "Jack's Back", and thus also "Fatal Exposure".
Good-looking and smooth-talking Blake Bahner stars as Jack Ripperton (!); - playboy, photographer and great-grandson of Jack the Ripper who settled in a quiet God-fearing community where the local sheriff challenges you to a drinking contest and where Bible fanatics secretly dream about kinky sex games. Jack murders his models in imaginatively gruesome ways and drinks their blood, but simultaneously he also hopes to find the perfect woman to bear him a son. "Fatal Exposure" simply offers too much fun in the gore & sleaze departments to whine about the shortcomings! How can you not love a twisted little flick that features acid-kills, rotary saw dismemberment, shotgun blasts, axe decapitations, and plenty of gratuitous T&A?
There's globally unanimous consent regarding the climax of Rob Zombie's 2005 "The Devil's Rejects" being perfect and absolutely brilliant! At the end of their murderous rampage, fatigued and heavily wounded, the Firefly psychos run into the police's roadblock and have the choice to either surrender or go down in a blaze of infamous glory. The final minutes of the film, guided by the fantastic and apt tunes of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird, are undoubtedly the best cult minutes of the new Millenium.
The ending of "Devil's Rejects" could not be better, and nobody - including cast and crew at the time - ever doubted that Captain Spaulding, Otis, and Baby died in the spitfire of bullets. Because of the sublime closure, of course, many people found it unacceptable when the news of another sequel got out. I wasn't very enthusiast about the idea, neither (hence why it took me five years to see it), but I also understand why Rob Zomie tried this. Let's face it, Zombie hasn't had a real success since "House of a 1,000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects". Personally, I still liked his version of "Halloween", but the rest of the world didn't. "Halloween II" and "The Lords of Salem", however, were unendurable disasters. "31" was a step back in the right direction, and actually quite reminiscent of "House of a 1,000 Corpses", but it somehow still wasn't successful. That's why Zombie revived the only formula/franchise that ever worked for him. At least, that is my theory, I obviously don't know the guy well enough to actually ask...
Either way, once you get over the fact this sequel shouldn't really exist, it's fun and chock-full of revolting & uncompromising violence. You basically have to see the protagonists in "3 From Hell" as indestructible über-killers like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. How else could they have survived the bullet rain? During the intro of "3 From Hell", a narrator's voice they are each hit by more than 20 bullets and that their chances for survival are next to none. And yet, they all survive! Even without scars, permanent damage or whatever. Captain Spaulding is medically brought back only to be executed shortly after - Sid Haig's deteriorating health didn't allow for an extended role - but he's replaced by Rob Zombie's new favorite actor Richard Brake as Otis and Baby's psychotic half-brother Winslow. He helps Otis escaping from prison, together they break out Baby, and they pursue their bloody rampage to Mexico.
Zombie's script is quite poor and vastly implausible. Baby's escape from prison goes really easy, and the supposedly invincible band of Mexican gangsters/cartel killers are a bunch of dumb & easily distracted amateurs. And why, on earth, was there clown coming to house of the head warden? However, the movie excels in sickness and brutality. The home-jacking/hostage taking is vintage Rob Zombie. Also vintage Rob Zombie, but unfortunately of the most annoying kind, is the insufferably over-the-top chaotic performance of his wife Sheri Moon. She literally ruins every sequence she's in, ... and she's in a lot of sequences. Moseley and Brake are good, though, and so are many Rob Zombie regulars in the supportive cast (Dee Wallace, Sean Whalen, Sylvia Jefferies, Clint Howard, ...).
The ending of "Devil's Rejects" could not be better, and nobody - including cast and crew at the time - ever doubted that Captain Spaulding, Otis, and Baby died in the spitfire of bullets. Because of the sublime closure, of course, many people found it unacceptable when the news of another sequel got out. I wasn't very enthusiast about the idea, neither (hence why it took me five years to see it), but I also understand why Rob Zomie tried this. Let's face it, Zombie hasn't had a real success since "House of a 1,000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects". Personally, I still liked his version of "Halloween", but the rest of the world didn't. "Halloween II" and "The Lords of Salem", however, were unendurable disasters. "31" was a step back in the right direction, and actually quite reminiscent of "House of a 1,000 Corpses", but it somehow still wasn't successful. That's why Zombie revived the only formula/franchise that ever worked for him. At least, that is my theory, I obviously don't know the guy well enough to actually ask...
Either way, once you get over the fact this sequel shouldn't really exist, it's fun and chock-full of revolting & uncompromising violence. You basically have to see the protagonists in "3 From Hell" as indestructible über-killers like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. How else could they have survived the bullet rain? During the intro of "3 From Hell", a narrator's voice they are each hit by more than 20 bullets and that their chances for survival are next to none. And yet, they all survive! Even without scars, permanent damage or whatever. Captain Spaulding is medically brought back only to be executed shortly after - Sid Haig's deteriorating health didn't allow for an extended role - but he's replaced by Rob Zombie's new favorite actor Richard Brake as Otis and Baby's psychotic half-brother Winslow. He helps Otis escaping from prison, together they break out Baby, and they pursue their bloody rampage to Mexico.
Zombie's script is quite poor and vastly implausible. Baby's escape from prison goes really easy, and the supposedly invincible band of Mexican gangsters/cartel killers are a bunch of dumb & easily distracted amateurs. And why, on earth, was there clown coming to house of the head warden? However, the movie excels in sickness and brutality. The home-jacking/hostage taking is vintage Rob Zombie. Also vintage Rob Zombie, but unfortunately of the most annoying kind, is the insufferably over-the-top chaotic performance of his wife Sheri Moon. She literally ruins every sequence she's in, ... and she's in a lot of sequences. Moseley and Brake are good, though, and so are many Rob Zombie regulars in the supportive cast (Dee Wallace, Sean Whalen, Sylvia Jefferies, Clint Howard, ...).