The Loved Ones (2009)

This is what comes out if you crossbreed Jeffrey Dahmer, Carrie and the Overly Attached Girlfriend meme. It is not neccessarily a good thing.

There is Lana, Lara, Laura, Lorna or something, who asks Ben to go to the school ball with her, and learns that Ben is going with his girlfriend Holly, Molly or Hailey. This leads Lana-Lara-Laura-Lorna’s dad to kidnap Ben, play school ball at home for his daughter, and this results in the attempt to drill a hole in Ben’s head and boil his brain with hot water to make him “one of them”. “Them”, in this case, is Laura-Lorna’s mother (?), a zombie-like creature who apparently already underwent this procedure. And possibly the cannibal freaks living in the basement.

So far, so good. It’s not such a bad premise to have a deranged teenage girl creating a braindead homecoming king. However, this movie tries too hard to be smarter than such a story allows. It begins with Ben killing his father in a car crash caused by a bloodcovered boy standing on the road. This boy turns out to be the brother of the goth metal chick Ben’s chubby stoner friend takes to the actual school ball. And the son of the (seemingly only) cop searching for Ben after he fails to pick up Holly-Molly-Hailey. This subplot adds absolutely nothing to the story. Chubby Stoner and Goth Metal Chick add some awkward sex’n’drugs scenes that are irrelevant and not even neccessary to get a higher rating. The torture scenes involving Ben are perfectly enough to qualify this movie as something between mild torture porn and rape’n’revenge with a male victim.

The stupidity highlight reel shows Ben trying to escape by climbing on a freaking tree, and the kidnapper duo throwing stones at him until he falls down; the incredible coincidence of a perfectly functional flashlight just happening to be in the basement when Ben is thrown in there, and the rather random incest implications that just scream “we’re working down a list labeled CONTROVERSIAL THEMES”.

Famous Last Words: Nice try, but nothing more.

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Vile (2011)

Promising idea – some mysterious scientist kidnaps a bunch of people who have to torture each other to release a certain amount of brain liquids that are only released when experiencing extreme pain. Though this does have the more interesting angle of torture porn – unwilling torturers doing what has to be done to survive – it sadly makes some big mistakes. First, the abduction of the group of friends is ridicolous. Instant K.O. perfume? Oh come on. Second, pretty much everyone is way too easily on board with “alright, let’s just torture this guy”. Third, despite a few characters standing out for having a personality, they are ultimately mostly forgettable and I couldn’t put a name to each face most of the time. And last but not least, the plot twist and… let’s call it the attempt of a classic rape’n’revenge ending, underlined the absurdity of the brain implants premise. The unplugging and collecting of the bottles was too unrealistic – up to this point, it was possible to suspend disbelief and not question the implants too much, and the torture, injuries and consequences were believable.

All in all, it’s probably one of the better movies in this category due to little time spent with building up the doomed characters, an acceptable death toll and generally moderate, realistic gore, but still stays behind the expectations.

Famous Last Words: Nothing special.

Experiment in Torture (2007)

Christ on a bike, what a shitty movie. 80 full minutes with airheads: uninspired kills, inconsistant “story”telling with no logic or structure, acting on soap opera level, shaky camera to obscure the underwhelming effects, a pseudo-BDSM theme and painfully stupid cardboard cutout cliché characters.

Maybe I can’t appreciate dumb chicks in bikinis enough, maybe I lack of the ability (or desire) to even attempt to keep 5 near identical looking strippers apart, maybe I’m just jaded. But I simply can’t see any redeeming qualities in a movie where absolutely no-one notices that one of the various killers wears a handsome-human rubbermask over his Freddy Kruger pizza face; people apparently change their names at will, everyone has a surprise sibling and the attempt to make sense of it all in a wooden epilogue police report fails horribly by adding more “background” to random, previously unimportant “characters” than the first 76 minutes.

So, umm. Story. 6 strippers get hired to do a fetish movie in a house by a lake. Some dude is there as a host. There is some violence; some pseudo-reasons (“mutilation as artform”), much confusion who is who and why they are there and how they know each other; various other guys and possibly two or three previously never mentioned women and everyone is somehow the killer, related to the killer or the victims, of which most – disappointingly – survive. After all that, a failed “edgy” final scene of a girl going insane. Or whatever.

Famous Last Words: Someone misunderstood “torture porn” – it’s supposed to be a genre that treats violence like a porn film treats sex; exploitative, sensationalist, unapologetic and uncensored. It is NOT supposed to be a genre that has strippers, a lame fetish theme and is a pain to watch. And that’s exactly what “Experiment in Torture” is – could as well be titled “Experiment in Viewer Patience”.

Serbia, revisited

104 minutes torture porn it’s truest form. I finally got to watch the uncut A Serbian Film, and I’m still impressed with the execution. Sure, it didn’t have the surprise effects anymore, but still. It is rare that I rewatch a movie so shortly after the first go, but it is hard to resist to check out the uncut version if the cut one was already so impressive. Actually, I can’t pinpoint from memory where those 8 minutes were missing. That’s a good thing, as it just tells me that the movie is, in either version, a round thing.

However, Vukmir’s monologue about victims and their power made me think. Is it true? Do victims have the power he claims? In A Serbian Film, Milos is both victim and victimizer, yet I feel nothing of his power. He is, in fact, powerless; a tool Vukmir and his men use, which puts him more on the victim side. But do I care about him? Do I feel sorry for what happens to him? No. I don’t. I see him as a tool. A choiceless machine that does what the puppet masters ask. No matter how he tries to escape or fight against it. What about his victims; Maria, Petar, the nameless women? Same here, means to an end. I also feel nothing about Vukmir, Rasa and the other victimizers.

And maybe that is exactly what I find so impressive: That I, the viewer, can just sit back and watch, without taking sides. No morals, no ethics, no common sense is forced on me; they are all victims in their own way, and victimizers at the same time. And the movie doesn’t tell me either side is good or bad. And also leaves me the option to still think that people who genuinely like Lady Gaga or Jedward are by far more dangerous than people making movies like this.

Short Cuts, 2nd Take

I haven’t been too busy with movies in the last week. I had to catch up on reality shows, with the sad result: all my suspicions were confirmed. It’s really just the German version that always sucks bad, and it’s our very own fault that we will never find a real idol, talent or top model. Our winners will stay exactly that: audition show winners, regardless of their quality.

The better result of a comparison is that Europe is stronger than ever when it comes to horror movies. While the US is busy to “re-interpret” successful Asian movies, come up with more pointless sequels of movies that are far beyond their highlights or to re-make classics/commit brutal blasphemy, Europe pays no attention to this trend and has found a silent agreement to go in a different direction.

[Rec] and High Tension are no longer exceptions from the prejudice that European movies aren’t daring enough or too artsy to shock.

Martyrs is great, as to be expected. I’m at a point where I’m more surprised if a French movie sucks than if it doesn’t. Martyrs is artsy, no doubt, but it is also extremly sick and graphic, right from the start. A girl, Lucie, escapes a torture chamber, grows up in a mental hospital, only talks to her best friend – Anna, another girl who was abused by her stepfather. After 15 years of silence, Lucie returns to the family that kept her like a dog in a dark chamber – with a shotgun. I call this the ‘first act’ – Lucie kills the family, even though they seem to have changed and live a normal life with their children now, while Anna, the more stable one, loves Lucie too much to give up on her. In the end of act one, Lucie commits suicide; she still sees a hallucination of a girl she left behind on her escape; an illusion that punishes her for that and finally drives her to cut her own throat.

Act two is actually the one losing some of the tension – surprisingly, because this is the actual torture porn part. A group of people, dressed in black and acting like a militia, rush into the house and take Anna prisoner. She had discovered a secret door to an underground facility, and found the girl Lucie saw in her halluciantions. Attempting to help her, she undersetimated how disturbed someone would be after over 15 years of torture. Well, she will discover it soon enough, as Anna takes her place in the dark chamber now.

Act three, or more the revelation act, finally reveals the intentions of the mystery militia. The group is dedicated to create Martyrs, unrelated to religion, by inflicting pain and suffering, in order to reach a state of ecstasy that allows the ‘Martyr’ to see ‘the other side’. Why exactly they do it? It’s not mentioned, but it also doesn’t matter. Martyrs manages it to stay interesting, even through the quiet parts of plain torture, lacking of any dialogue or explanation, and to come up with a satisfying end.

A Serbian Film is a revelation of it’s own. Someone actually got the concept of torture porn and brought it to a new level. Milos, a retired porn star in need of money, accepts the offer of the shady artist Vukmir to appear in his new movie. He soon starts to doubt the project, but tries to go through with it while his brother Marko, a policeman, investigates Vukmir.

The movie is like a 96 minutes drug trip through the eyes of Milos, and though it uses many elements I’m usually not too fond of, I would call it a perfect execution. We have a not always chronological storytelling, but it fits the blackout moments of Milos, the time steps and backflashes when the memories are triggered. We have some cases of handcamera, but again, this just underlines the unstable drugged scenes. The ‘artsy’ scenes shot by the strange cameramen sometimes remind of the glass box scenes in Tromeo and Juliet, just a lot rawer and sicker.

In movies that intentionally go for the most extreme perversions, it can easily come out forced, constructed and stay behind expectations. We’ve seen that in movies like Hostel, Wolf Creek, Hills Run Red or the Hills Have Eyes remakes. A Serbian Film, however, fulfills these expectations and presents them in such a raw and dirty way that it feels authentic and disturbing from the first moment to the last – and can still surprise through it all.

Session 9 as the only US production I watched last week, is certainly not a bad movie, but – sorry to say – pales in comparison to the outstanding European ones. It is by far more mystery than horror, but though there are a few graphic scenes (maybe 5 minutes and not going to any extremes) it creates a wonderful atmosphere of permanent danger. Sure, there are some parts of the plot that don’t make much sense and also don’t really reveal their meaning or relevance, but overall, the spooky scenery of an abandoned mental hospital makes up for it. It’s a nice watch, though I can see how it never made the big break.

Exitus Interruptus

Exitus Interruptus

If I watch a movie by Andreas Bethmann without being forced to do so, it can mean two things. One, I lost a bet. Two, I’m bored out of my mind. Today, it was neither. It was curiosity.

Last week, I found an old issue of a horror magazine under my couch, and there was an interview with Bethmann about the movie in question – Exitus Interruptus. It appeared he suffered from the delusion to have made a serious, professional movie, and I wanted to see what caused this tragic idea. Last time I checked, a movie starring a porn ‘star’ and listing the same person as responsible for camera, cut, lights, stage probs, sounds, effects and as director was quite far from ‘professional’. Just for the records, it still is.

Main character Manuela is portayed by Renee Pornero. If that name doesn’t say anything to you, let me help your imagination. Do you know the type of desperate young woman, dreaming of a career as a movie star, but lacking of talent? The one that would do anything for a ‘serious’ role, and ends up as a hardcore porn actress, though she hasn’t really the physical attributes to be a successful one? There you go.

Other than Manuela, there are only two more or less significant roles. That would be the stereotype Monique. The “you know I only love women” type of ‘best friend’ that will engage in a pointless lesbian scene during the first 15 minutes and later die rather spectacular. And the killer, mainly defined by the most ridicolous latex mask I have seen since… No, Violent Shit 1 doesn’t count, that was a devil rubber mask. Anyways, all three together have the talent of a doorknob.

The dialogues from hell [tm] are not even stupid or funny, they are plain pointless and the way the so-called actors speak them, I totally wish for subtitles only. Because the music isn’t much better. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect there is only one title and it was played over and over again, no matter if it fit the scene or not. Mostly, it didn’t. However, the synchro is slightly off – and that is from German to… German. Respect for that.

The, hehe, story… Manuela was kidnapped and raped 5 years ago. She killed the offender and buried him in the woods. Now she’s in therapy, but alas, the therapist is the killer’s brother, finds out where she buried him, digs him out and kidnaps Manuela again to bring her together with his brother. What’s a, hehe, ‘good’ movie without an insane masked axe killer, if that killer doesn’t live with the corpse of his mother and talks to her? Right, its probably not a movie about Ed Gein then. Our killer does live with his dead mother, dead brother and a latex mask. And just like his brother, he fails with his task. Manuela escapes, after the killer invited and killed Monique, and decided to couple her with his brother. Then Manuela kills him and burns the dead brother in the woods. And Andreas Bethmann has threatened the world with a sequel. I bet it will be very professional and tell a real deep story.

Famous last words: What a waste of time, for everyone involved. The story is overused and boring, the acting is beyond grace even for a porn star and yes, it is worse than Angel of Death.

Last House On Dead End Street

Last House on Dead End Street

Last House on Dead End Street and I have history. I saw the title on a 100 Sickest Movies of all times list, years ago. It was said to be the most perverse and twisted piece of celluloid ever. Forbidden in like 47875 countries for a very disturbing deer leg rape scene. For years, I tried to get a good quality uncut, and finally found a tape. (Hello, kids, tape, that is this huge black thing you put in video recorders; these are the huge black boxes your parents replaced with a DVD player 10 years ago…)

Last House on Dead End Street has nothing of the raw charme of early Wes Craven splatter, in detail: It is not like Last House on the Left. It is more like some boring 70ies porn with some violence and pseudo s/m scenes for the first half. It is also hard to follow the plot. Friends of fanfiction may know what I mean with the rating “PWP” – Plot, what plot?

The story. There is Terry. He looks like a wannabe rock’n’roller and he has no job, or some strange movie-related job. Just like his buddy (whose name I already forgot, but who looks like the professor in several generic late 70ies cannibal movies, just without a pipe), who was big in porn production, but now works as a slaughter and still has contacts to very very famous directors. The very very famous director Terry and his buddy want for their snuff (?) movie is a Mr. Palmer, who is married to a whore called Nancy. He also has a partner, again a name I must have missed, so let’s call him Mr. Awful Sunglasses.

Terry and his film crew (Terry, cannibal movie lookalike, 2 random chicks, a camera man that was kinda forced into the team, but still likes it) now kidnap Mr. Palmer, Nancy and Mr. Awful Sunglasses and bring them to the “last house on dead end street”, which is no house but an abandoned industrial facility. Or something like that. That was the summary of around 1 hour of 70ies haircut visual torture for the viewer and a plot beyond all logic and sense.

The second half of the movie deals with the ending lives of the 3 kidnapped people. Mr. Palmer, whom I expected to be the main target for refusing to direct the movie, surprisingly dies first. And not even spectacular. The slaughter/former movie guy simply stabs him with a knife. Exciting, huh? Next is his wife, delivering the one scene that is not completely boring and kinda well done. Its a patient-is-consious-during-double-leg-amputation-with-a-saw scene. Ok, the scene plays completely in the dark and ends with Terry using a saw to open the belly and pull out something meant to be guts, but clearly coming from a Italian fastfood service. But it is much better than the biggest disappointment in my long exploitation history. *sniff*

You know, if someone tells me the movie has a rape with a deer leg, I imagine a female victim. But the only female just died after amputation. And there’s only Mr. Awful Sunglasses.

Mr. Awful Sunglasses is tied to a chair, and at least 3, maybe 4 of the bad guys are in the room. This does not make any sense, because the next scene shows Mr. Awful Sunglasses obviously trying to escape – however he got rid of the ties, chair and killers. They catch him outside the building though.

I will describe the deer leg rape in all detail: He licks a deer hoove. Oh my god, how disturbing. Right after that, Mr. Awful Sunglasses gets killed with a driller, which does not visually express. We just see Terry take the driller and walk over to the victim; then some moments of screams in the dark, and now the real unexpected part: The movie is over! And some voice tells me, while the credits are scrolling down, that all 5 killers were sentenced to jail!

Hello??? There are several ways to end a movie. The traditional way of rape’n’revenge; one victim escapes and kills the bad guys, then gets picked up by a police car. The boring way; the killers finish their work, then get surprised by the police and are sentenced either to jail or death. The hey-lets-make-a-sequel way; the killers escape and are on the run. The creepy way; the killers already eye a new victim. But all these ways are visual. You see what happens to them. And not some voice in the off to tell me! Oh yes, it leaves room for my imagination. But I couldn’t take the chance, I was too busy asking “WTF?!”

The Hills Run Red

The Hills Run Red

I can’t be lucky 3 days in a row.

On wednesday, I enjoyed the wonderful Land of the Dead. YAY for Tom Savini appearances! YAY for gangland stuff, heavily armed cars and half anarchistic systems! YAY for great effects, great storytelling, great makeup, great acting!

On thursday, I got the surprise of the month with Zombieland. YAY for fun splatter with smart stories, YAY for Bill Murray and YAY for zombie hunting on rollercoasters!

Today… I made the mistake to pick blindly between Basket Case and The Hills Run Red. Is it Friday 13th? Because that would explain why I ended up with the second.

But let’s start from the beginning. Does anyone care about the story? Just asking because the movie sure does not. Tyler is a super duper big horror fan and got obsessed with the research about a never released movie called “The Hills Run Red”. The director vanished 20 years ago, and the only remains of the movie are a weirdo trailer and a few stills. Its said to be the most disturbing movie ever made and all the fanfare. Tyler talks his friend Lalo and his girlfriend Girlfriend (sorry, she had no name during the entire story…) into helping him with his research. For that, he finds the only living relative of the director, his daughter – a drug addicted stripper called Alexa.

After Alexa (who never looked like the junkie she was supposed to be) experienced a 2 – 3 days wonder healing from her addiction, they start to visit the locations were the movie was made/that were seen in the trailer. During the wonder healing through Tyler, Girlfriend cheated him with Lalo, which has no further relevance for the story.

To give you a general idea of the roles:

Tyler – main character, boring early 20ies guy with obsession about horror movies. I think he’s an idiot.

Girlfriend – brunette stereotype girlfriend, annoyed by his obsession. I think she’s an idiot.

Lalo – kinda annoyed by Tyler’s obsession too, thinks horror movies are all the same and stupid. If all movies were like this one, I’d even agree with him.

Alexa – ultra hot blonde, fails to play a junkie, a scared teenager and is so-so at playing a ice cold killer. She plays all anyways.

Back to the, hehe, story. The 4 drive into the woods and do what people always do in this kind of movie. Run through the woods, make campfire, talk, get surprised by armed hillbillies, get saved by the – tataaa – real killer from the movie, then get chased by him. Yup. It gets THAT creative – the killer from the movie is a real killer. He looks like someone with little imagination tries to dress up as Leatherface for Halloween. He also acts like that. And now hold your breathe – his name is BABYFACE! And his mask isn’t made of human flesh, no. Woohoo, he actually CUT OFF HIS OWN FACE WITH SCISSORS and replaced it with… you’ll never guess it because it would never ever fit on a human skull – the face of a porcelain doll! AND SEWED IT TO HIS FLESH! That’s right, he SEWED a PORCELAIN DOLL FACE to his head. I bet coming up with such a stupid idea hurts more than sewing anything to the face.

Okay, Babyface surprises the hillbillies that surprise the camping researchers. Alexa flees into the woods. Tyler runs after her and Babyface to help her. Girlfriend tries to call the police but can’t explain them were in the woods they are. So she and Lalo run around, and tataaa – Babyface catches Lalo only a minute later. Meanwhile, Tyler reached the house of the insane movie director, broke in and tries to free Alexa. When they make it to the porch outside, they meet Girlfriend. She tries to run, but Babyface shows up again and now, sensational twist you so don’t expect (if you watched the movie with closed eyes and without sound so far) – Alexa sends Babyface after Girlfriend.

Shortly after that, it turns out that Alexa isn’t only the daughter of the director but also the incest mother of Babyface, and her father is also his father. Things that happen after this super original twist – the director ties Tyler to a wheelchair and forces him to watch scenes he already shot for his movie (snuff scenes that were used in the trailer). Babyface takes Girlfriend to a barn to rape her (doesn’t get to it because of upcoming chaos). Alexa decides to become a director like her father and starts to torture Lalo in another barn. Her father brings Tyler there, then tells Alexa she sucks as a director and calls in Babyface to show her how it’s done right. Due to that, Girlfriend escapes the other barn. The father shoots Alexa, and Babyface then kills him. Tyler manages it to get rid of his ties, and when Babyface tries to kill him, Girlfriend comes from the other barn and kills Babyface. And now, surprise surprise, Alexa (who was shot in the stomach 3 minutes ago) attacks both Girlfriend and Tyler and I have no idea what happens with Girlfriend, but Tyler gets tied to the chair again and Alexa forces him to watch snuff scenes from her movie. It ends with Tyler sitting in a cinema full of (dead) victims and laughing at the movie like a maniac.

I have no idea how they managed it to steal from so many better movies and come up with such crap in the end. We have a whole dose of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a bit Devil’s Rejects, a bit 8 mm, a bit Last House on the Left. And another dose Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Babyface not only looks like a cheap version of Leatherface, he also has a slaughterhouse barn; Alexa tries really bad to be Baby Firefly and simply isn’t, and the insane director is kinda boring and doesn’t really do a thing. The victims are cut out from Hostel auditions, and it must mean something if I say they are even more faceless and random than the Hostel victims.

I give full points for gore. This movie is bloody, damn bloody. Its explicit, it has close ups, its really really violent. But the scores for everything else are negative, and even with a full score from gore, the final result is: waste of celluloid. Even the best mutilations don’t save a bad story that is so obviously copying other movies and actors beyond good and evil.

Famous last words: Hands off the classics, n00bs!

 

Last House On The Left (Remake)

Last House on the Left (remake)

Wes Craven’s infamous Last House on the Left from 1977 (if I recall correctly) was a bit a pioneer project; nearly every rape’n’revenge based movie that came later has references to this masterpiece of violent trash. Of course, compared to more recent movies like Saw or even Hostel, Last House on the Left is almost tame, obviously also a result of much better special fx. But this oldie but goldie is still a major reference for non-monster horror.

The story is probably known, if not, told quickly. Two teenagers wanna have a party, get kidnapped by a group of psychopaths, raped and killed; the psycho gang then accidentally has to seek shelter from a storm in the house of one victim’s parents. The parents realize who these people are and kill them.

Let’s compare 1977 to 2009:

1977: Two hippy girls wanna go to a concert on the birthday of one girl.

2009: Two teenage girls meet a guy in a drugstore and he offers them the best weed they ever had, so they follow him to a motel.

1977: The movie plays by day.

2009: The movie plays almost completely by night/in the dark.

1977: There’s a damn chainsaw!!!

2009: There’s no chainsaw. Boo!!!

1977: The kills aren’t all that quick, yet less spectacular.

2009: The kills are quite quick but some are quite original. (Doesn’t matter, it plays in the dark, so its just a guess anyways.)

The two girls (Mary and Page I think) are kidnapped from the motel from the father of Justin (weed kid), his brother Francis and girlfrriend (?). Trying to escape, they start a fight in the car, causing it to crash in a lonely forest, not far from Mary’s house. She’s a swimmer and her dad a surgeon. Yeah, that’s both important.

In said forest, Page tries to run first, but gets caught and brought back to the crashside. Justin’s dad tries to make him pick one of the girls to rape, but since his son refuses, he rapes Mary himself, after stabbing Page and letting her die. That’s one stab with a butterfly knife, ladies and gentlemen, that’s what I mean with “quick kills”. However, after that, Mary manages it to run, and she makes it to jump into the sea that borders to her parents’ house. As a professional swimmer, she almost makes it to reach the other side, but gets shot and seems to die at 2/3 of the way.

Now the thunderstorm and real bad rain starts, and the psychopath gang, with their car damaged, walks to the house where Mary’s parents have a romantic diner. They offer the gang shelter in their guest house and also treat the injuries (Francis has a broken nose from the crash). Justin acts strange all the time, and secretly leaves a bracelet or necklace he took from Mary in the kitchen, after seeing her photo on the fridge and realizing whose house it was.

During the night, the power generator gets stuck by lightning or something – from here on the entire movie plays in the dark and there is just a maximum of 3 candles to light a scene.

After the psychos went to the guest house, the parents hear a knocking on the porch, and when they go check what it is, they find their daughter more dead than alive outside. They take her in and treat her, and her mother finds the jewelry thingy Justin put in the kitchen. They now know who their guests are, and having no car (Mary used it when getting kidnapped) and no electricity/phone, they decide they have to do something for their own protection. And revenge.

While Mary’s dad (John I think) is searching for tools, Francis wakes up and comes over to main house to get a drink. He finds Mary’s mom (Emma I think) in the kitchen where she was getting knives. She can hide the knives in time and keep Francis distracted by flirting with him and claiming her husband is sleeping. Francis asks her to go to the hot tub with him, but on the way there he sees Mary in the living room and that she is alive. Before he can eliminate the witness, Emma stabs him with a kitchen knife from the back. They start to fight in the kitchen, until John shows up and helps his wife. Together they kill Francis in a probably quite original scene that I don’t get. They seem to put his head under water in the sink, but then he pulls the plug and the water flushes away. When the sink is almost empty, John uses a switch on the wall and yeah, that’s the part I don’t get. It appears to be the on switch for a mixer or something IN the sink. At least the water gets brownish-bloody, but WTF? Who the hell has a mixer blade in the sink? And yes, I’m sure it is a sink!

When Francis is finally dead, the parents sneak into the guest house and find Justin awake and with his father’s gun, sitting besides the bed where his dad and his girlfriend sleep. At this point, dialogues are temporarily suspended. There aren’t any for the next 15 – 20 minutes, and they play in the very dark, so I might miss certain details. If there were any. However, Justin hands John the gun, and when loading it, the click wakes the victims. John pushes Justin’s father out of the window – very silly scene, btw, because after the fall he gets right up and runs to the main house like nothing happened. John starts a fight with the girlfriend, losing the gun, leading to the bathroom. It ends with the girl getting a headshot by Emma and dying right next to the toilet.

Back in the main house, things get a bit chaotic in the dark. I think they involve John, Justin’ dad and several fireplace tools. It ends with John on the floor, about to get killed with a hook, but Justin appears with the gun and forces his father to stop. Stupid thing, the gun is out of ammunition, but luckily Emma is around with a fire distinguisher and attacks Justin’s dad before he can attack his son. John gets up and joins the battle and they leave the house in the morning. The finish seems to be the parents, Mary and Justin in a motorboat. I thought its a quite nice morbid happy end that they adopt Justin, kind of, after his father raped their daughter, the bloodbath and all. But actually, it isn’t the finish.

The finish is Justin’s dad waking up, asking why he can’t move. John tells him he is paralized from the neck down, and what he couldn’t paralize with medics, is duct taped to the floor. Then we see that the head is in a open microwave, which gets switched on by John. My question: What microwave can be switched on with the door open?! However, the rapist’s head explodes and that is the finish. I guess they need to hire someone else to do the director’s cut, because, well, this makes no sense at all.

Last Words: Na, save your time. Its not really worth to watch. Though the story gives some more details than the original, its not one of the better remakes. Not really.