31 Days of Halloween Day 5: The Cottage (2008)
October 7th 2010 00:09
After Monday's non-acid-based acid trip, I decided to take a break from weirder horror movies and browse some TV listings for a cue for last night's movie. And I found it! Hurrah! And, perfectly, it was listed as a horror comedy. You know, like Shaun of The Dead, or Scream, or something like that.
I was, to put it mildly, quite wrong about that. This was quite possibly, the most disgusting, non-Saw, non-Hostel, English-language horror movie I've ever seen. Towards the middle of the film's second act, I even sought refuge with someone on IM, who begged me to just turn off the damn thing and watch this instead.
The story begins with two brothers arriving at a cottage late at night. They both argue about something they've just done, which, when the whiny one is ordered by the tough one to go out and get the milk out of their car boot for their tea, transpires to be that they've kidnapped someone and are holding her ransom.
Further clunky dialogue serves as the exposition for the two brothers' family dynamic, which happens to be far more interesting than anything that follows, and it's a shame this is not touched upon either effectively or succinctly. They bicker like an old married couple, with the straight-laced, small-shouldered, bespectacled Peter (Reece Shearsmith) being constantly put down and coddled by his leather jacket-wearing elder, David (played by this guy). We are supposed to believe that they have done this sort of thing before, but the two buffoons make so many mistakes, it's initially difficult to muster up any sympathy for them, and their panic caused by their own ineptitude seems to just be a cheap way to build up tension.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that your sympathy might best lie with Tracey (WAG Jennifer Ellison, who is surprisingly capable in this role with some admirable comic timing), because the first thing we see her do is break Peter's nose with a headbutt while half-unconscious and still tied up. But she proves herself to be a spoiled, loud, foul-mouthed brat, and subject to the rules of horror movie character sympathising, we just wash our hands of her and hope that she gets disposed of soon.
Rounding up the numbers are a few of Tracey's dad's goons, who, after tricking her own double-crossing brother with a money bag of loo roll, decide they may as well follow her captors back to this cottage and dispatch them with some rather ostentatious-looking hatchets. Unsurprisingly, they end up making for some excellent fodder so that some interesting but not-too-showy death scenes can be on display without whacking the main characters first.
There isn't actually a single death until about 45 minutes or so into the movie, when we do meet the deranged, Leatherface-esque farmer who lives in his own makeshift Mutter Museum and decides to off everyone in sight. I do not like characters like this because they are lazy creations, and it's been done several times, with the only way to explain said character's backstory is by having one of the still-surviving victims leaf through a few photos or newspaper clippings inbetween slashings.
But aside from my own personal views on this type of villain, it still doesn't work in the context of the humour of this film. What this movie did was spend 45 minutes showing us amusing Rob Brydon-esque banter, a few cheap tit jokes and a genuinely funny scene involving Peter's crippling fear of moths, But then, instead of incorporating the violence and gore into this set-up, the movie completely switches gears and Ed Geins-itself up.
For the comedy to work as a compliment to the movie, you can still have the gross gore-fest scenes, but here, they just take themselves a little bit too seriously, which spoils the fun. Instead of adjusting the gore for the humour (and vice versa), the movie is a schizophrenic mish-mash of tones that jump back and forth from funny to frightening. The killer is far too much out of place, as any humour goes completely out the window when an unstoppable killing machine with no weakness whatsoever just starts stabbing people up for no reason, and in the middle of nowhere. There are some funny moments that do pull this off (someone actually walks into a rake while trying to escape), but for the most part, it simply doesn't work and just makes for awkward and uncomfortable viewing. Much like the gore, the humour often tries too hard, and fails even harder.
The actual action set-pieces are quite well orchestrated, with just the right amount of tension, apt camerawork and decent acting, and every scene of the "horror half" of this movie did exactly what it should have done. But again, my lack of sympathy for these characters reared its ugly head again in certain scenes, such as one early on in the film in which Tracey and Peter first meet the farmer, and manage to knock him out cold. For a good few minutes, they then decide to start arguing on how to kill him so he won't come back. They spend so long bickering that even after he wakes up and stands up in full view of them, they STILL keep arguing, and, well...let's just say there are two fairly inventive uses of a shovel.
Speaking of sickening violence, there is no shortage of such here. There are a few long closeups of certain money shots, slow executions of violence (so slow you can hear things sink into other things), copious amounts of blood, and a scene in which Farmer Leatherface rips out the spine of some poor bastard and starts swinging it around like a monkey with a banana. Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. In fact, I still see it. This is why I actually did watch this afterwards.
There is worse (much worse), but why let me spoil it for you? If you feel like having nightmares tonight and forgot to buy some cheese, please watch this movie.
I was, to put it mildly, quite wrong about that. This was quite possibly, the most disgusting, non-Saw, non-Hostel, English-language horror movie I've ever seen. Towards the middle of the film's second act, I even sought refuge with someone on IM, who begged me to just turn off the damn thing and watch this instead.
The story begins with two brothers arriving at a cottage late at night. They both argue about something they've just done, which, when the whiny one is ordered by the tough one to go out and get the milk out of their car boot for their tea, transpires to be that they've kidnapped someone and are holding her ransom.
Further clunky dialogue serves as the exposition for the two brothers' family dynamic, which happens to be far more interesting than anything that follows, and it's a shame this is not touched upon either effectively or succinctly. They bicker like an old married couple, with the straight-laced, small-shouldered, bespectacled Peter (Reece Shearsmith) being constantly put down and coddled by his leather jacket-wearing elder, David (played by this guy). We are supposed to believe that they have done this sort of thing before, but the two buffoons make so many mistakes, it's initially difficult to muster up any sympathy for them, and their panic caused by their own ineptitude seems to just be a cheap way to build up tension.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that your sympathy might best lie with Tracey (WAG Jennifer Ellison, who is surprisingly capable in this role with some admirable comic timing), because the first thing we see her do is break Peter's nose with a headbutt while half-unconscious and still tied up. But she proves herself to be a spoiled, loud, foul-mouthed brat, and subject to the rules of horror movie character sympathising, we just wash our hands of her and hope that she gets disposed of soon.
Rounding up the numbers are a few of Tracey's dad's goons, who, after tricking her own double-crossing brother with a money bag of loo roll, decide they may as well follow her captors back to this cottage and dispatch them with some rather ostentatious-looking hatchets. Unsurprisingly, they end up making for some excellent fodder so that some interesting but not-too-showy death scenes can be on display without whacking the main characters first.
There isn't actually a single death until about 45 minutes or so into the movie, when we do meet the deranged, Leatherface-esque farmer who lives in his own makeshift Mutter Museum and decides to off everyone in sight. I do not like characters like this because they are lazy creations, and it's been done several times, with the only way to explain said character's backstory is by having one of the still-surviving victims leaf through a few photos or newspaper clippings inbetween slashings.
But aside from my own personal views on this type of villain, it still doesn't work in the context of the humour of this film. What this movie did was spend 45 minutes showing us amusing Rob Brydon-esque banter, a few cheap tit jokes and a genuinely funny scene involving Peter's crippling fear of moths, But then, instead of incorporating the violence and gore into this set-up, the movie completely switches gears and Ed Geins-itself up.
For the comedy to work as a compliment to the movie, you can still have the gross gore-fest scenes, but here, they just take themselves a little bit too seriously, which spoils the fun. Instead of adjusting the gore for the humour (and vice versa), the movie is a schizophrenic mish-mash of tones that jump back and forth from funny to frightening. The killer is far too much out of place, as any humour goes completely out the window when an unstoppable killing machine with no weakness whatsoever just starts stabbing people up for no reason, and in the middle of nowhere. There are some funny moments that do pull this off (someone actually walks into a rake while trying to escape), but for the most part, it simply doesn't work and just makes for awkward and uncomfortable viewing. Much like the gore, the humour often tries too hard, and fails even harder.
The actual action set-pieces are quite well orchestrated, with just the right amount of tension, apt camerawork and decent acting, and every scene of the "horror half" of this movie did exactly what it should have done. But again, my lack of sympathy for these characters reared its ugly head again in certain scenes, such as one early on in the film in which Tracey and Peter first meet the farmer, and manage to knock him out cold. For a good few minutes, they then decide to start arguing on how to kill him so he won't come back. They spend so long bickering that even after he wakes up and stands up in full view of them, they STILL keep arguing, and, well...let's just say there are two fairly inventive uses of a shovel.
Speaking of sickening violence, there is no shortage of such here. There are a few long closeups of certain money shots, slow executions of violence (so slow you can hear things sink into other things), copious amounts of blood, and a scene in which Farmer Leatherface rips out the spine of some poor bastard and starts swinging it around like a monkey with a banana. Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. In fact, I still see it. This is why I actually did watch this afterwards.
There is worse (much worse), but why let me spoil it for you? If you feel like having nightmares tonight and forgot to buy some cheese, please watch this movie.
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Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile