Neighbor (2009)

(AKA Robert Angelo Masciantonio's Neighbor)



"A mysterious new girl arrives in a posh suburban neighborhood and quickly sets out to terrorize the town. As she starts breaking into homes and torturing the occupants, they begin to realize that she isn't just another girl next door."

I don't know why I torture myself with these low-budget movies but here's another one. This time, appropriately enough, it really is a "torture porn" but with a slightly different style to most of the others that I've seen. This one has an alternative ending right in the middle of the film!

Although cut down from the version shown at various conventions and festivals, there are quite a few gory scenes with some very good effects considering that there was probably hardly any budget for this film at all once the actors had been paid. You may recognise a few faces here and there from various American TV shows since, although it feels like a Canadian movie, it was in fact filmed in Pennsylvania.

I'm not going to spend too much time reviewing this DVD since it's not really something that anybody will go out of their way to watch. If you just think of "Misery" but with a hot psycho chick instead of Kathy Bates then you can more or less guess where the director, Robert Angelo Masciantonio, went with this. He didn't do a bad job I suppose but there's nothing really outstanding here. A lot of the torture happens off screen so you can either imagine the bad things happening or completely disregard them. I chose to do the latter.

America Olivo plays the psycho. You've probably never heard of her but she played Amanda in the awful "Friday the 13th" remake. She doesn't even get a name in this film as she is just credited as "The Girl". She calls herself Jenn at one point and Christina later on but none of that is important anyway. She's very attractive and makes this film 100 times more watchable than it could be. I'm not sure if she's playing what she thinks a psycho is really like or goes for comic effect but either way she's just eye candy and can't really act. There's nothing wrong with that though. I could look at her all day.

Another recognisable TV face is that of Christian Campbell who has the dubious honour of being the main victim, Don. He looks familiar but I can't actually place him in anything. I think he must do a lot of bit parts. Some really nasty stuff happens to him which I won't spoil for you but it's nothing compared to anything you'd see in "Hostel" or some of the even more creative low-budget movies out there.

There's nobody else that you will have ever heard of unless you watch enough bad movies to even know the name Mink Stole. She often plays the old lady part in these straight to video releases although her real claim to fame is from working for John Waters in various grotesque roles. She does a pretty good job in yet another minor role here too.

I suppose I should go back to the weird placement of the alternative ending. It's about 40 minutes in and, in my opinion, everything should have stopped there. Sometimes less is more and this would have been a nice little short with good characterisation and all that jazz if it had stayed that way. Unfortunately, there was an attempt at making things clever by passing that scene off as some kind of wish fulfilment and everything that follows is what really happens to the victims up until the unhappy end of the film. You could call it an excuse to add a few more badly done torture scenes but it makes the central section of the film a bit redundant and somewhat confusing. If it had stayed more linear then it would have been a much better story. Having said that, it was nice to get another 30 minutes of America Olivo.

I can't really recommend "Neighbor" because it really is the kind of thing that would be shown on Zone Horror late at night when nobody is paying attention or end up being sold from a table at low-budget horror movie conventions. It has quite good production values but that's what I expect as the norm anyway. I will give it credit for not being an obvious handycam nasty.

If you really are that desperate to see a pretty brunette torture people with amusing comments every so often then by all means hire this from Netflix or something. An alternative would be "Sick Girl" which is by far a better film but without quite such a sexy actress in it.

Triangle (2009)

"The story revolves around the passengers of a yachting trip in the Atlantic Ocean who, when struck by mysterious weather conditions, jump to another ship only to experience greater havoc on the open seas."

I love Melissa George so I had to watch this film even though with Christopher "Creep" Smith responsible for writing and helming it, I wasn't entirely sure that it was going to be any good.

It's impossible to say anything about "Triangle" without mentioning "Timecrimes" or "Groundhog Day" since this is very much a horror version of the same thing. It's derivative for sure but there's no comedy either intentionally or unintentionally here. The best way to describe it would be as a very anxious and tense "Twilight Zone" style thriller with some gory bits.

Having got that out of the way, the whole time loop scenario has been done to death and for those of us with short attention spans the thought of watching something else that is guaranteed to turn our brains inside out is not a pleasant one. There are further complications to this story too in that none of the characters have any memory of what has gone before. Every time things reset, the main character, Jess, has to pick up clues about what to do which are left over from the previous time loop. It gives me a headache just thinking about it!

The peculiar thing is that there are at least two Jesses in every time loop. One tries to guide the other without giving away her identity for reasons which aren't fully explained but may have some kind of Doctor Who reasoning behind them about two versions not being able to occupy the same space. That theory doesn't really hold up as the motivation often seems to be a simple fear of being discovered but to say any more would give away too much of the plot.

At its most basic level, "Triangle" is a kind of slasher film with time loop layers which lead back to the start of the film. Confusingly, the very start of the film turns out to not really be the beginning of the time loop at all because there's a twist which gives you the motivation for why any of this is happening in the first place. For those of us with a Classical education, this is very much a combination of the myths of Sisyphus and Tantalus although only the former gets a mention. Just when you think Jess has succeeded, the prize is taken away from her and she has to start again. I would call that tantalising myself. Time loops are big in ancient Greek mythology and often used as punishment in the afterlife. Remember that if you don't quite understand the ending. It's not a cop out like the end of "Lost" though but it will have you thinking.

"Triangle" really is Melissa George's vehicle. She acts her heart out, fights, screams, runs, and turns out to be not quite so meek and mild as her pretty face suggests. She does everything in it apart from get nude which is probably only a bit of a disappointment to me. Normal people will be satisfied with everything she does rather than hoping for a peek at her bunny rabbits' noses.

The other actors are pretty good too even though they don't have such a long time on screen. A couple of the guys have never been in anything else but the girls are both from TV backgrounds. I was particularly impressed by one of them but I won't tell you who as you'll have to see this film for yourself to find out why.

There's a fair bit of gore to this too. It's not overdone but it's there and quite effective when it happens. Couple that with a good use of tension and you have a pretty good horror film on your hands. Unfortunately, the tension often turns into an atmosphere of frustration which makes the whole film very tiring to watch. It's a bit of a rollercoaster and it will make your head hurt.

As with all time loop stories, there do seem to be a few plotholes but, the more I thought about it afterwards, they aren't anything that can't be explained away. I like that attention to detail even if I prefer more straightforward stories in general. Christopher Smith allegedly spent two years on the script so you have to give credit where it is due. The dialogue might be a bit sparse but everything else is quite polished especially when you consider the low-budget.

I think this was one of the best films of its kind that I've seen. It's not quite as good as "Timecrimes" but it isn't far off. You probably couldn't watch both films back to back either without having some kind of cerebral aneurysm and I wouldn't want to even try. I'm not even sure that I could watch either of them again either.

If you want something to think about rather than the usual "blood and boobs" horror then you definitely need to rent or buy "Triangle". It doesn't have many scares or shocks but it is a very clever film.

A Meme for Horror Bloggers

(Taken from The First Ever Billy Loves Stu Meme for Horror Bloggers)

I saw this was being passed around so I thought I'd have a crack at it myself. :D

1: In Ten Words or Less, Describe Your Blog:

Not quite how I want it to be yet.

2: During What Cinematic Era Where you Born?
A: The Classic Horror Era (late 30's to 40's)
B: The Atomic Monster/Nuclear Angst Era (the late 40's through 50's)
C: The Psycho Era ( Early 60's)
D: The Rosemary's Baby Era (Mid to Late 60's)

E: The Exorcism Era (Early to mid 70's) - this one.

F: The Halloween Era (Late 70's to Early 80's)
G: The Slasher Era (Mid to late 80's)
H: The Self Referential/Post Modern Era (1990 to 1999)

3: The Carrie Compatibility Question:
(gay men and straight women - make your choice from section A)
A: Billy Nolan or Tommy Ross, who would you take to the prom?
(straight guys and lesbians - make your choice from section B)
B: Sue Snell or Chris Hargensen, who would you take to the prom?

Chris Hargensen because she was played by Nancy Allen and I'd be a fool to turn something like that down.

4: You have been given an ungodly amount of money, and total control of a major motion picture studio - what would your dream Horror project be?

I'd like to make "A Serbian Film Part 2" but with even more offensive scenes.

5: What horror film "franchise" that others have embraced, left you cold?
"Friday the 13th". It lost me after the one with Ryan Dallion (John D. LeMay) from the TV series in it. I liked the first one but the rest are just the same old thing over and over. The remake was terrible too.

6: Is Michael Bay the Antichrist?

No. He just shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a horror movie.

7: Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Frankenstein Monster - which one of these classic villains scares you, and why?

None of them really scare me but I wouldn't want to hang out with the Frankenstein Monster. He's made up of dead bodies all stitched together and it would put me off my coco-pops.

8: Tell me about a scene from a NON HORROR Film that scares the crap out of you:

I'm trying to think of one that has any kind of aerial shots of a building or city because I'm afraid of heights and it makes me feel giddy. For lack of anything else, the end of "Die Hard" where Alan Rickman falls to his death. I can just imagine my skull cracking on the concrete in a similar situation.

9: Baby Jane Hudson invites you over to her house for lunch. What do you bring?

A bag for her head and some lubricant.

10: So, between you and me, do you have any ulterior motives for blogging? Come, on you can tell me, it will be our little secret, I won't tell a soul.

I'm just replacing my website that I had for 13 years with it because it's easier to write a blog than to recode a ton of HTML pages and upload them.

11: What would you have brought to Rosemary Woodhouse's baby shower?
A bag for her head and some lubricant... and an orange. Oh, and another plastic bag for the baby to play with.

12: Godzilla vs The Cloverfield Monster, who wins?

Godzilla - the cartoon version. The Cloverfield Monster was nothing but a big baby and Godzilla would just breathe fire on him and make him cry.

13: If you found out that Rob Zombie was reading your blog, what would you post in hopes that he read it?

Something along the lines of how hot his wife Sheri is or how jealous I am that he can get away with making such awful movies for enormous sums of money while I have to watch them and eat Ramen Noodles.

14: What is your favourite NON HORROR FILM, and why?

This is the most difficult question ever because it changes all the time. If I had to choose just one then it would be "Day Watch" the sequel to "Night Watch" even though both films are part of the same whole. It's just pure escapism and completely different to anything else.

15: If blogging technology did not exist, what would you be doing?

I'd still be uploading my reviews to my website. If I couldn't even do that then I suppose I'd just watch the horror films anyway and bitch about them to the TV screen.