bigburnleyjim Reviews

Prey Alone (2004)

One of the best short films I have ever seen.

[9/10 · 4 September 2005]

This is an absolutely stunning short film that captures the spirit of the Matrix and Sin City and distills it into fifteen minutes.

Shot using green screen and with almost no sets the film is the perfect combination of special effects and intelligent storytelling. The acting is good, mindful of the genre it is working in, but perfectly suited to the story. The special effects aren't blockbuster standard but for the budget they are very impressive and they are never bad enough to distract you from the story.

Hardly subtle but undeniably thrilling which is very very rare for a short film these days.

The Last Horror Movie (2003)

A flawed but intelligent movie.

[4/10 · 1 November 2003]

I saw the last horror movie at Leicester Pheonix last night in a horror double bill with Ichi the Killer (which was v.good). The director showed up briefly to introduce the film and answer a couple of questions. Here's what I thought of the whole thing:

Basically it's a brief (80 minute) film about Max, Wedding Photographer by day but heartless serial killer, well pretty much most of the time. We first meet him as he interupts the start of a cheesy horror film to introduce us to his documentary expose on his own killings, going from one murder to the next as he tries to get his drifter cameraman to kill someone too.

Now, while I can say that this is not a bad movie by a long way, it is however a flawed but intelligent one, searching for perhaps a slightly better execution. I admire the director for making the film on such a modest budget (50,000) but the trouble is that low budget horror (Henry Portrait of a serial killer, Man Bites Dog) works best when the situation creates a truthful reality, whereas this film shows up its small budget with the most painfully obvious camera techniques and bykeeping a fair bit of its violence off screen. The whole point of low budget gritty reality horror is to show unflinching violence, so mixing that intention with more hollywood style camera moves just doesn't work.

Secondly the dialogue is quite poor, I found that Max's little chats to camera were repeatitive and painfully pretentious, apart from one excellent monologue about selling your TV for African children (sounds better than it is).

Finally, what makes this film come across as intelligent and, i guess postmodern is the right word (although i hate using it), just doesn't fit the big screen. Without going into it, this film might have had a better effect on me if i had rented it on video rather than seen it on the big screen, specifically the ending. Trouble is, there is no way this film would reach any kind of audience by getting released straight to video, so its a catch 22 i guess.

The people I went to see the film with liked it a lot more than I did, so I can't say my opinion is the norm. I suppose I should be a bit more supportive of films that dare to be different, but a lot of people use that as an excuse make all kinds of extreme crap. All in all, not bad, just could have been better.

5/10

28 Days Later (2002)

Intelligent, thought provoking......and zombies!

[9/10 · 11 November 2002]

A british zombie film, an intelligent, well acted, thought provoking zombie film with an apocalyptic twist. It's mature, stunning, at times horrifically violent, at others astonishingly touching. All the actors are perfect (expect that one note little girl), the plot is unpredictable and with a powerful social message (note the name of the virus is called Rage, and is partly psychological). Danny Boyle's recent output hasn't been brilliant, although him off form is much better than most, but he really nailed it here with a script from Alex 'The beach' Garland. Oh and it's funny too, black British humour mind you. Remember 'The end is extremely f*cking nigh'.

9/10