Keepin' It Cool

Year: 2008
Director: Mats Stenberg
Cast: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Marthe Snorresdotter Rovik, Kim Wifladt
Run Time: 1 hour 26 minutes
MPAA Rating: N/A

After watching the extremely underwhelming The Descent Part 2 (which I think I've bashed for three straight reviews now), I had somewhat low hopes for Cold Prey 2 (Fritt Vilt II), but our friends in Norway prove once again that they are not to be outdone and this scrappy sequel was a breath of (chilled) fresh air.

Cold Prey 2 is still immensely derivative of American slasher films (in fact, it's basically Halloween II in the mountains), but just like Cold Prey it provides a shot in the arm to the genre. Cinematically, the film is very steady on its feet, and some camera shots were so inspired or off-kilter that I had to pause the film and sit back to let their effects sink in fully. One in particular - a shot of a rescue worker's side mirror as he sees the bruised and beaten woman in the road behind him then opens the door and runs to her - is one of those "I wish I could have thought of that" moments that prove that cinema is much more than just pointing a camera at things and calling it a day.

The movie is full of moments like this, but simply listing them all would take the fun out of watching the film and reading this review.

And looking at this picture of dead Eirik.

Jannicke (Berdal), the sole* survivor of the bloodbath in the first movie, is taken to a sleepy mountain hospital to recover (and await investigation by the police - she's covered in somebody else's blood). The hospital has fallen on hard times and is about to close down, so there's only a skeleton crew (pun 100% intended) on hand to help out when the bodies of her friends (and a gargantuan mountain man with a bloody pickaxe wound) are recovered from the bottom of a massive crevasse in the glacier.

The hospital's backup crew will arrive Tomorrow Morning.

The police chief sends two of his officers off to investigate Jannicke's claims about the Hotel du Murder up on the slopes and leaves one officer behind to guard her room while he checks some files at the station.

The force is short staffed but their reserve forces will arrive Tomorrow Morning.

Can you guess what happens next?

Did you guess that the mountain man is not quite dead and returns to his pickaxin' ways? A+ for you.

What follows is an extremely satisfying, if not totally groundbreaking slasher flick, much in the vein of the original. Now, because the Cold Prey movies have a reputation for being rote slashers with surprisingly high quality and emotional resonance, this isn't all by a long shot.

The characters, while less fleshed out than Número Uno, still manage to capture our hearts. There's Camilla (Rovik), the scrappy and headstrong nurse who'd be our best bet for Final Girl if Jannicke wasn't still hanging around. There's Ole (Wifladt), her boyfriend who's upset that her new job is in the far-off town of Smkyxlqberg; Audhild (Johanna Mørck), the pleasant and dedicated blonde nurse; Daniel (Vetle Qvenild Werring), a little boy with a broken arm who befriends the skittish Jannicke; various policemen and a senile patient who has trouble finding the bathroom; and Sverre (Mats Eldøen), who has a crush on Audhild and unfortunately not me. 

He knows he looks cute in that baseball cap.

Cold Prey II manages to-

Hey! Don't interrupt m- OK, it's fine.

Like I was saying, Cold -

This is getting adorable. I mean annoying.

Prey 2 -

Awwww... Wait, what's that in the mirror? Sh!t.

manages to avoid most of the major flaws of being a slasher sequel. Apparently, when the Norwegians were hitting up American movies for ideas, they also took notes on their mistakes.

Remember the deplorable Mirror Scare used in every movie where the character bends down to spit in the sink/wash their face/pray to the faucet gods and when they look up, something is behind them in the mirror? Cold Prey 2 makes great use of mirrors (see the blurry screenshot above) without ever once resorting to such cheap thrills. Car mirrors, medicine cabinets, those mirrors used to see around corners - all are cleverly used to enhance the thrills of the film and it is a wondrous sight to see.

Which brings me seamlessly to my next point - that the aura of the first film is not violated but isn't ripped off. There's still plenty of heavy steel doors and narrow, ill-lit hallway action in this alpine hospital and even though we already know the main antagonist, there's still a slow burn so we can settle in with the old characters and meet the new before the horror begins in earnest.

And, like most sequels, this one concerns itself more with the backstory of the killer as a way to deepen the universe of the franchise. Somehow, this film hit the lucky balance with providing us enough backstory to keep us interested and crank up our fear of the villain (he's basically unkillable) without bogging us down with unnecessary mythology (for that, please see Cold Prey III, which was never supposed to happen).

Run! Run from the tidal wave of mythology overspill from the set of Paranormal Activity V!

Not that this film is perfect. My theory is that the cinematographer had an astigmatism, which is why he decided to keep the beginning of every important shot blurry for five seconds longer than it needed to be. And we are unfortunately not totally free from Stupid Horror Movie Character Decision Making when Jannicke fails to murder the heck out of the felled killer, leading to an admittedly cool but totally unnecessary climax at the snowy hotel.

All in all, this is a great followup to a great slasher film and I'm not complaining one bit.

TL;DR: Cold Prey 2 is a surprisingly solid return to form for the Norwegian slasher franchise.
Rating: 7/10
Should I Spend Money On This DVD? Actually, yeah. It's one of the best slasher sequels I've ever seen. And it's foreign so it has cachet.
Word Count: 1051
Reviews In This Series
Cold Prey / Fritt Vilt (Uthaug, 2006)
Cold Prey 2 / Fritt Vilt II (Stenberg, 2008)

Party to Murder

Year: 2012
Director: Robert Heath
Cast: Tom Kane, Liam Boyle, Jack Gordon
Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
MPAA Rating: UR

When Henri and were flipping through Netflix, we were cooling off from the somewhat disappointing afterglow of The Descent Part 2 and just wanted to watch a dumb horror movie. Which is essentially what we got, but we could never have anticipated the semi-quality of a movie with such a hideously funny name as Truth or Die.

Our first tip-off came immediately after the opening credits when the first character opened his mouth and a British accent came out! Nobody told us this was a UK film and we got very excited. Honestly, much like Charlize Theron's character in Arrested Development, the accents make the whole thing seem a little smarter. It's not, but what are you gonna do?

We join our young cast at a Halloween party fueled by dubstep, booze, and mountains of cocaine as they celebrate their first successful year at college - sorry, university. Don't ask me how Halloween fits into that timeline, I have no idea how their school schedule works. For all I know they call semesters something pretentious like "half-moons" or whatever.

Those pretentious, stuffy Brits...

It is at this party that we meet our protagonists, who are surprisingly easy to tell apart, which is a blessing in any movie of Truth or Die's pedigree. We have Chris (Gordon), the douchey alpha male; Paul (Boyle), the less douchey but still annoying student who just got a job at a major firm; Eleanor (Jennie Jacques), his slutty girlfriend who is less than happy that his job requires him moving to Scotland; and Gemma (Florence Hall), Chris's girlfriend and the only sort-of nice one in their friend group.

There's also Luke (Alexander Vlahos), resident party animal, cocaine-haver, and star of my daydreams.

Also attending the party is Felix (Kane), a quiet nerdy boy with a massive crush on Gemma. He wants to snog her so hard she'll take him to the loo for a swift shag. Cheerio! Luke, the friendly neighborhood drug dealer, gives him some powdered confidence and sends him on his merry way. Needless to say, things do not end well, with a truth or dare game going awry (Felix basically admits he wants to bone Gemma and Chris picks a fight) and dragging the party to a halt.

Cut to months later, and the group seems to have no qualms about going to Felix's birthday party even though none of them really know him and he at least marginally hates all of them. Whatever. Free booze. They arrive at his family's mansion, but are directed by a creepy groundskeeper to a remote cabin in the woods behind the property.

There they meet Felix's brother, Justin (David Oakes) who says Felix hasn't arrived yet but they should feel free to party it up. Like most grown-up men and women over the age of 18, they decide to play truth of dare again! (This movie was clearly written for 16-year-olds before the filmmakers realized older people are prettier to look at)

Let's play Seven Minutes in Heaven next! I'm looking at you, Luke.

I'll wrap this up before we drown in exposition.

Felix is not delayed. He is dead. He hanged himself after receiving a mean truth or dare related postcard (Sorry, I meant this script was written for twelve-year-olds) and now his brother must defend his family honor.

It's more fun this way anyway. Everyone always just picks truth and it gets boring.

See Luke standing there? For some reason, Justin implicitly trusts him and asks him to help out in terrorizing his friends. Luke does so for fear of being shot, but also probably because of the intensely homoerotic tension between the two of them.

I wish I knew how to quit (tormenting) you

This is probably a good time to mention that Justin is a real queer-basher. He constantly spews homophobic comments even when they aren't relevant to any part of the conversation. Fingers crossed that this is supposed to be some satirical commentary on the army or on psychopaths or... anything. Please. 

But it really just feels mean-spirited and is the biggest flaw in an already deeply flawed film.

In between hailstorms of homophobic slurs, our horrible protagonists are asked "truth or dare?" The questions range widely from "Did you send the postcard?" to "Who do you think sent the postcard?" but things start to heat up when Justin breaks out the battery acid.

It's not a party if your insides aren't sizzling.

That's right, Truth or Die takes a serious left turn into Saw territory and although it is less focused on being horrifyingly gory, the killer game gets more and more complex as each member of the party has their morals and resolve tested. Secrets are revealed and people are scarred for life, just like every other game of Truth or Dare.

Without going into spoiler territory, the climax reminds me of the Scream finale - in a good way. It's actually pretty funny, to be completely honest.

So what we have is a movie where every decision is completely unmotivated and every plot twist is either absurdly telegraphed or utterly silly, but it's just so earnest and fun and packed with surprisingly intense moments that the hour and a half just flies by.

Also there's a grenade. Pulled out of nowhere. It's that kind of movie. We were expecting stupid fun and Truth or Die delivered, along with a half order of quality and a coupon for fond memories.

TL;DR: Truth or Die is a nonsensical British riff on Saw, but provides enough cheesy and intense moments to be great for slumber parties.

Rating: 6/10

Should I Spend Money On This DVD? Heck no, but it's on Netflix.

Word Count: 974

Welcome to the Shatterdome

Year: 2013
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi
Run Time: 2 hours 12 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

If you'll allow me to name drop for a minute, I had the unspeakable pleasure of attending a Q&A session featuring Guillermo del Toro himself and it was very clear that Pacific Rim was a product of love. He didn't discuss it so that he could sell it - he couldn't care less if we saw it, just that it was made to the best of his ability. Now, it's certainly not his best film by any stretch of the imagination, but all that time in his childhood spent avidly watching Japanese imports paid off.

Not content with just making a movie about giant robots punching big monsters in the face, del Toro has created a world that has grown accustomed to monster attacks, something which hasn't really been thoroughly explored. After a series of attacks on major cities by ravenous Kaijus (in Japanese - "strange creatures"), humanity dropped their disputes and banded together against the common enemy. The invention of the massive monster-fighting machines called the Jaegers (in German - "hunter") has allowed the world to carry on as normal. By this point in 2020, the monsters are a normal factor of life. Kaiju figurines fill toy store windows, Jaeger pilots are worshipped like rock stars, and Kaiju bone powder makes entrepreneurs a fortune with its Viagra-like qualities. There is even a slum in Hong Kong built inside a massive ribcage.

Humanity has grown confident in their abilities to beat back the Kaiju menace (they appear through a portal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean about once every six months) but things have begun to change. Kaiju attacks are getting more frequent and the monsters are becoming more powerful.

Commander Striker Pentecost (Elba) rallies all the remaining Jaegers to launch one final defense of humanity. There are four; Cherno Alpha, a Russian behemoth operated by a husband and wife team (hooking a single person up to the machine proved too much for the human brain's capacity, so Jaeger pilots hook their brains together and work in tandem); the Crimson Typhoon, operated by a set of Chinese triplets; Striker Eureka, the most advanced model to date, run by an Australian father son team; and Gipsy Danger, an American Mark 3 model without a pilot.

Pentecost brings in the only living Mark 3 pilot, Raleigh (I could have sworn the said Riley, but IMDb never lies) Becket (Hunnam) and assigns his top agent, Mako Mori (Kikuchi), to find him a new partner. He is still traumatized by his brother's death five years ago. They were in the Jaeger with their brains hooked together and he could feel his brother be torn apart, which left him understandably a little shaken.

There's actually even more plot than this (it's two and a half hours, a lot happens), but I'll leave it at that for now. This is a good point to bring up the characters anyway. Every one of the mains and most of the supporting characters have a backstory that provides a motivation for their participation in this final showdown, like revenge for their family, duty to their culture, or even unbearable cockiness. Maybe the characterizations aren't as deep and complex as some of del Toro's artier Spanish works, but their backstories all resonate in the same simplistic, primal way as the monster fighting and as such, are a good tonal fit with Pacific Rim.

And of course, this being del Toro, there are some parts that generate actual feelings in the audience. Several scenes brought me close to tears, even. In a monster movie! With whatever flaws the movie had (including being far too long), it always had a solid emotional foundation to fall back on. It proves that although it can be tremendous fun to watch a monster level an entire city, human lives are ever expendable.

And yes, unfortunately, there are several flaws. While we're used to our giant monsters looking kinda fake (come on, Godzilla was a guy in a suit), there is something a little shabby about the CGI here that necessitates most scenes being shot at night so it's harder to notice.

This is one of the few daylight(ish) scenes and... well, it leaves something to be desired. 

Really, this isn't a huge complaint because, again, we don't honestly expect our monsters to look hyperrealistic. And how could a monster look real anyway? We don't actually have any to compare the Kaiju designs to. There's just something inescapably computer generated about them that you stop noticing after a while, but it is worth mentioning.

But hey, things get crushed, robots punch them in the face, and everything is fine. 

Let's talk about Charlie Hunnam. To my (and many people on tumblr's) astonishment, the lead character is played by the same guy who played the British womanizer Lloyd in Judd Apatow's 2001 college sitcom Undeclared, and boy has he grown. How a man could go from this...

to this...

is one of the great mysteries of the world, but I thank the Nondenominational Gods every day for it. Perhaps you've noticed that he's a British actor playing an American. Frankly, it shows. Many of his lines sound like they were spoken with a mouth full of dental instruments. But hey. You won't catch me complaining.

And that brings us to the other Charlie. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia's Charlie Day plays a neurotic scientist bent on discovering the secrets of the Kaiju anatomy. It's a comic relief role, yes, and he plays it well. But his character is given much more importance than that and his dramatic scenes are incredibly credible. This isn't Oscar-worthy acting by any means, but I'm pretty impressed with Day's range.

So. Robots punching monsters. Mostly human characters. Actual emotional moments. Guillermo del Toro. It's just a popcorn movie, but it has enough of the good stuff to be a step above the rest of the box office bait out there at the moment.

TL;DR: Pacific Rim is fun, creative, and has emotional resonance despite some shaky CGI work.
Rating: 7/10
Should I Spend Money On This? You already know if you are going to like this movie, you don't need me to tell you.
Word Count: 1059