Bloodletting The Death Factory (2008)

This movie has several interesting things going on; a real concept or script obviously not among them. According to IMDB, this movie is about a guy who invites internet pervs to a snuff show, but then kills them instead of the innocent victim. Sounds good to me, but that’s not the actual story of the movie. Said guy is not a Jigsaw style vigilante; he’s a religious zealot killing in the name of god (or something) with the help of his idiot brother Sid and his failed science experiment mutant sister Alexa (a crossover of 5th Element costume leftovers, X-23/Lady Deathstrike and drug abuse). And his snuff website “Gorehouse” is also not a fake to bait pervs, it’s a very real trading place for them.

The pervs who came to see the snuff are also not all pervs. Actually, the main character, “Massive 9”, is the heroine of the movie; a grieving mother who lost her daughter to one of the real pervs – a pedo guy called “Rubber Love” who attends a snuff event for undisclosed reasons. “Massive 9” went undercover to find her daughter’s killer and this thirst for revenge obviously clouded her judgement as she happily traded other snuff movies to get credibility for her identity.

Early in the movie, there’s an element I really like: the introduction of characters via reality show style screens with their names, aliases and likes/dislikes. It’s easily the most entertaining part of the entire movie. “White Manson”, a nazi rapist and “Black Johnson”, a slave trader, stick around for a bit. The rest is more or less decoration – man-hating call girl “Slutty Baby” is there to engage in a pointless lesbian scene with clichee goth domina “Gretel” while clichee goth slave “Hansel” gets slaughtered by Alexa somewhere else; same for anarchist wannabe bomb terrorist “Cockmaster”.

This somewhat entertaining part of the movie abruptly ends when “Massive 9” kills “Rubber Love” early on. After that, the script got lost and what we get are various people dying by the hands of mutant Alexa while trying to escape the warehouse they are in. Somewhere down the road, “White Manson”, the neonazi with the most pitiful tiny swastika tattoo in movie history, admits that “Rubber Love” only bought the snuff tape of “Massive 9″s daughter and he made it. Meanwhile, the zealot guy running the show lost control over his idiot brother; then there’s some confusion if Alexa got killed or not, then “Massive 9” gets injected with… I don’t know, the stuff that made Alexa a rabid cannibal mutant and consequently turns into a rabid cannibal mutant, too. Then she kills everyone else except the idiot brother. Then, seriously a minute before the credits roll, a group named “The Boys” appears at the warehouse and shoots everyone. The end.

The idea is really nice, it sounded like a mix of Sadisticum and Saw. I think without the weirdo mutant sister, this movie would have been a lot better. Well, a script wouldn’t have hurt either. As it is, it’s somewhere between faux documentary, random jumps, pointless characters and trying too hard to create a “cult monster” (Alexa) while neglecting the fact that a claw-wielding female killer already exists in the form of Lady Deathstrike.

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Short Cuts

Digging through movies I haven’t seen in ages/at all, I came across these in the 2nd January week.

Blood Feast II – All U can eat

The thing that bothers me most about this classic is the title. “all U can eat”. That’s l33t speak before it was trendy. But luckily, the title is really the only thing I dislike. The story is incredibly funny and gory, and though the FX can’t completely keep up with more recent movies, it is still way better than most so-called gore flicks of the past 10 years.

Bloodsucking Freaks

An all-time fave that combines so many of my fave grindhouse elements – caged women, slave trade, sideshow flair and sick torture, along with an almost stand up comic lead duo. What I don’t really get is why this movie is said to be so politically incorrect. The dwarf, for example, is not shown as a mindless idiot who obeys whatever his master Sardu says. No, he’s almost an equal partner – almost because Sardu is the director and Ralphus an actor. But still, he gets his share of fun and artistic freedom, and frequently enjoys the same luxury as his boss. Also, the caged women are almost all white, while Sardu’s dominatrix and her aide are black – that’s very open-minded for a gore flick and completely reverses the ‘token minority dies first’ trope. This movie has been a fave from the first time I’ve seen it, and it will always be.

Wrong Turn I & II

Oh man, how could I ignore them so long? Answer: I got them along with Vacancy I and II and High Tension. I found all of these boring and uninspired, so I didn’t bother to watch Wrong Turn – and then forgot. Now I gave them a chance and they immediately made it into my top list. While Wrong Turn (1) was nice and bloody and didn’t have any lengths, Wrong Turn 2 – Dead End is even better. Not just bloodier, though that certainly applies. I also just love the premise of a reality survival game show turning into the real deal. Bonus points for Henry Rollins as retired marine Dale, who is so badass, he’d technically need an identical twin brother to contain it.

Dead Snow

…made me regret yet again that I never learned any Scandinavian language, because the DVD only features the original Norwegian sound and German, both also as subs. Not really helpful. As much as I love the movie, as much am I bothered by German synchros. I would have watched it in Norwegian with English subs, if there were any. German translations always seem to lack authenticity – the voices seem wrong even if I don’t know the real actors’ voices. Still, a great movie that will always have a special place in my heart. Nazi zombies are simply better than just nazis or just zombies.

Saw II

Easily my fave of the series. Not that hard, as I only consider Saw 1 – 3 as decent and the rest as crap I only watch to rant about it. Mainly watched it because I needed to relax, voice-wise, and it was the nearest DVD I knew had English audio.

Anatomy

After (yet another) failed attempt to watch Salo – The 120 Days of Sodom, I decided to make the test: a German movie in original language. And yes, my theory confirms; the voices sound right, only synchros suck bad. To my surprise, the movie didn’t suck. I hadn’t bothered with it before because I don’t like Franka Potente, which is a reason I dislike a lot German movies. It’s sad but true – we don’t have that many decent actors. One of them was in Anatomy, by the way, Benno Fürmann.

The movie has a few lengths in the middle, but that’s not too bad. It’s actually quite entertaining and features some awesome grotesque plastinated bodies. I hadn’t expected the surgery scenes to be so explicit; kudos.

Salo – The 120 Days of Sodom

Well, I just don’t get it. It’s one of these ‘must sees’, but I can’t get through the full length. Why the hell is this movie so controversial? Why do people claim it is perverse and shocking? It’s goddamn boring! I make 1 hour at best, and then I get distracted by the first fly on the window, hunger, urgent desire to play a video game… anything, if it’s only more entertaining than this. I keep trying, just so I can say I’ve seen it, but I have a feeling I make it through the 235 minutes cut of Caligola before I ever see the rest of Salo.

Everyone can be Jigsaw for a day

…in other words, Saw 7 meets all expectations. The unlucky detail is that I expected it to suck.

The uncharismatic Jigsaw escaped the trap that the charismatic Jigsaw left his wife. And starts a new game, this time with the victim Bobby. Bobby self makes no sense at all as a character. He is a self help guru and book author who claims he’s a Jigsaw trap survivor, though he has really never been anywhere near a trap. Now, how does that work? Jigsaw is the most wanted killer, the crime scenes are the mekka of every cop in sight, and someone can just claim he survived a trap that didn’t exist?! And really no-one, especially not the cops, notice that? Nope, sorry. Doesn’t work for me at all.

Anyway, the original Jigsaw knew Bobby was lying – obviously. But how the… umm, 45th Jigsaw knew remains a mystery, and it also doesn’t matter. Bobby has to go through a game similar to Saw 3 and Saw 6, with his wife being the reward for ‘learning his lesson’. Oh, I miss the times when that lesson self was the reward… While Bobby plays, Jigsaw’s ex-wife goes into protective custody and sends a generic cop after the current Jigsaw, who once, when he was still a cop himself, saved the life of the cop hunting him now. Woohoo, who cares? No-one, including the movie.

Jigsaw is also more random than ever. The movie starts with a public triple saw blade trap of two lovers of the same greedy girl, hanging from the ceiling, getting cut in halfs. It has nothing to do with the story, but the two guys survive, so they are potential new Jigsaws for the inevitable sequels.

Early in the story, Jigsaw also kills four neo nazis on a junkyard, just because. None of them survives, so Saw 8 will still show political correct kills. Late in the movie, Jigsaw also slays an entire police station and kills all cops hunting him to then kill Jill, the ex-Jigsaw’s ex-wife. Just like the traps Bobby goes through, these kills are unoriginal and don’t have any message at all.

Bobby has to face various helpers on his way to survivor fame, like his manager, but he fails to save any of them and they die in half assed traps. When Bobby reaches the last room, where his wife is, he has to face the trap he claimed he survived in his book, yet again fails and his wife dies in basically the same trap as Obe in Saw 2. Just more pyros, but same story. Bobby then throws himself into an electric fence around the oven and dies. I think.

Jigsaw, who meanwhile killed all cops and Jill, sets his workshop on fire and leaves, just to be attacked by three people with pig masks – we haven’t seen those in a while – and finds himself in the basement from Saw 1. Guess who also got a message from the original Jigsaw, who was also a helper, and is now probably the new Jigsaw? Never mind, I tell you. It’s the guy who survived the basement. After sewing his foot off and creeping through the basement, he was healed by Jigsaw and became his helper. He is the doctor who recommended to kidnap the other doctor in Saw 3 and… really, who cares? I don’t, because it seems that really everyone who ever walked through the set was really a secret helper, ally or successor of the original Jigsaw and the next sequel will be just like the last one. Random victim, someone turns out as a helper and it’s neither surprising nor original, traps so unoriginal and meaningless that you wouldn’t learn a lesson from them if you studied them all your life, and another generic cop fails to catch whoever is Jigsaw that day.

Famous last words: It’s always sad to see a legend not die, but make a fool of itself. And that’s what the Saw series is doing proudly since at least Saw 4.

Saw VI

Saw VI

To get you in the right mood, I will first tell you what I currently drink. Its not alcoholic or anything, no. Its in a pink plastic bottle, it was very very cheap and right next to my energy drinks in the store. How could I resist “Disney’s Hannah Montana Star 4u Drink” in “mild strawberry & vanilla”? It has more bubbles than anything else I ever drank, mostly tastes like water and it disgusts me. I just love disgusting things.

Now, with this visual, let’s advance to another quite disgusting fact: I liked Saw VI.

Yes, I liked Saw VI. In a “I liked Saw VI better than Saw IV or Saw V” way, that is. And that’s basically like saying “I like typhus better than ebola because at least your eyes don’t bleed so bad”.

What makes Saw VI better than the last 2 parts? There are several things:

Tobin Bell. He’s more around since he died than ever. Its not just Mark (that’s the new killer’s name, I realized that after about 50 minutes and totally missed it in the last 2 movies) we have to endure.

No more mixing up cop and killer. Because the cop is the killer now. They could have made that twist a bit more interesting, but oh well, maybe that would have been simply too Dexter.

Story. Yeah, there is one. Jigsaw finishes open business with the insurance company that denied his cancer therapy. We go back to the Saw III concept of one main victim having to question his past decisions and face their consequences. It was less random this time.

Traps. They were pretty balanced. Some real gory ones like the first, but also some that were visually less spectacular and made more sense for the story instead, like the choice between the secretary and the data clerk.

Sure there were also some downsides. No big surprise for a VI-sequel. The old Saw illness of having to tell the background story of each and every person that was ever anywhere on the set, for example. But this time, they didn’t do it as annoying as before.

The trap I didn’t like for several reasons was the russian roulette type with the 6 employees on the chairs. First of all, I couldn’t really see what happened to the main victim when he decided to let one live (scene too dark), and that was inconsequent for Saw. And secondly, I would have liked to know the reasoning behind the choices. 4 die, 2 live, fine. But I didn’t see in any way on what the choices were based. The other traps, and this one likely too, had the purpose to teach that man that his formula was wrong. During the choice trap before, he had to revise his formula already – formula says a healthy young man with no realitives and no history of chronic illness is valued higher than an older woman with a disease history in her family and many relatives. He lets the woman live, despite his own formula. He obviously admitted he was wrong with that, and this part was what I missed about the roulette trap. He kinda randomly let live and die, without any hints why he made what choices.

We also have to deal with a lot flashbacks, but oh well, that was to be expected.

The finale grande had a “oh wait, I’ve seen that before” effect. The trapped woman and son were supposed to be mistaken for the victim’s family, but are actually the wife and son of a man that died because the insurance denied to cover his treatment, early in the movie. The annoying reporter turned out to be the victim’s wife, and she made only little sense all the time. Got kidnapped and woke up in a room, but destroyed the tape before she (or I, or anyone) ever heard what Jigsaw told her, if there was a trap or a way to escape for her. That made it slightly obvious to guess that she was there for another reason.

I did like the mix up in Saw III, but not so much here.

Then, the woman and son get to decide if the insurance guy will live or die. Jigsaw grants the victims a chance to take revenge or show mercy – yet another thing we’ve seen in Saw III; it was all about forgiving. A very open repeat of that concept, if I may say so.

I’m glad Mark is dead. I didn’t like him as Jigsaw. Not at all. Amanda, yes. She was a good heir. She had a reason and a background that made sense. About Mark, I never really understood why he helped Jigsaw. He just did. And through 3 movies, his motivation was never revealed, at least not that I noticed or understood.

So who’s left? On what characters can we put our money for another sequel? Jill, Jigsaw’s wife, finishes his work. She was a top bet for quite a while to become the new Jigsaw. The reporter survived unharmed, but also unchanged. She had no trap or lesson that her habit to exploit others for her profit was wrong. She saw her husband die, but that doesn’t turn you into a killer. Wife and son of the man that died. Wife, not so much. She didn’t pull the trigger. But her son did. He’s about 16 I’d say – old enough to become a killer? We’ve seen less logic in Saw IV already, so why not?

Famous last words: I can live with this as the end of the Saw legacy. Really, its a good movie. It shows the best sides of the concept again, after 2 really disappointing sequels. Its a good moment to stop and let it rest. A worthy last impression if you will. And Hannah Montana is smiling at this movie.

A Letter To Eli Roth

Criminal Minds – Legacy

Dear Eli Roth,

 

please watch Criminal Minds, season 2, episode 22 “Legacy” before you dare to think about another Hostel sequel. This episode, not half the run time of one Hostel part, does everything right that you did wrong. I highly recommend to watch it along with Darren Lynn Bousman, because he can learn a damn lot for upcoming Saw sequels, too.

Where you lost track and simply tried to get close ups of mutilations that turn out to be disappointing in the end, this episode goes just far enough to leave the viewer enough room for own disgusting interpretations. I have never seen a regular crime show episode that features more blood and gore than this one. And it is perfect this way. There are close ups of a woman robbing on all fours through a room with broken glass, yes. There is the atmosphere of permanent danger. There is everything you missed in Hostel 1, Hostel 2, Saw 4 and Saw 5. Especially in comparison to Saw 4 and 5, you can learn a lot.

In Saw, the investigation from the police side was unrealistic and confusing. In Criminal Mind, it makes sense. In Hostel, you tried to leave your killer(s) faceless to make them scarier, and failed. No-one even cared about them. In Criminal Minds, the killer is faceless and still truly evil and scary.

Both Hostel movies are boring to no end. Saw 4 and 5 are a sad attempt to continue a legacy, which ended in plots and twists beyond logic.

This Criminal Minds episode feels like watching a damn good slasher movie, and should be an example for both of you.

Thanks for your attention.