bleeding heart Posted October 13, 2013 Report Posted October 13, 2013 An Australian horror-comedy, filthy and violent, but with a lot of heart. Two brothers, Reg and Lindsay, run a fertilizer business, selling to local farmers. They've discovered that the potassium levels in human remains make for excellent product. The movie plays on the "city folk meet deranged rural madmen" theme, which we've seen in everything from Deliverance to Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Hills Have Eyes....and about a thousand other movies ranging from the awful to the sublime. But as in most horror-comedies, it's ultimately about the characters....and as usual, in the battle between horror and comedy, the nihilism of the horror gives way to the warm heart of the comedy. The movie keeps upending what is expected, playing with the genre conventions. One of the would-be killers, it turns out (the younger, apparently weaker brother, Reg) turns out to be not such a bad guy, all his evil a result of his brother's influence and bullying. The three young people whom they kidnap form a love triangle: Sophie is the earnest and serious James' girlfriend, and he plans to ask her to marry him. But she's also sleeping with the bad boy of the group, heavy-partying Wesley. (Spoiler Alert) What's interesting about this dynamic is that it's not, as per convention, the wronged, husband-material James who becomes the hero....it is Sophie, his unfaithful girlfriend, who has the insight into the assailants' characters, and the raw courage, to save the day. Best one I've seen since Shaun of the Dead, and more than worth a Halloween movie-night. Quote “There is a limit to how much we can constantly say no to the political masters in Washington. All we had was Afghanistan to wave. On every other file we were offside. Eventually we came onside on Haiti, so we got another arrow in our quiver." --Bill Graham, Former Canadian Foreign Minister, 2007
kimmy Posted October 13, 2013 Report Posted October 13, 2013 Have you seen Cabin In The Woods? This talk of playing with genre conventions and turning horror into comedy made me think of it. -k Quote (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ Friendly forum facilitator! ┬──┬◡ﾉ(° -°ﾉ)
bleeding heart Posted October 13, 2013 Author Report Posted October 13, 2013 I have seen it, and liked it. The difference, I think, is that (arguably) Cabin in the Woods decides to fall more into the horror genre than the comedy one...in that the resolution is not "comic" in the usual sense. (ie the victims don't "win," as is in Bloody Acres, Zombieland, shaun of the Dead, etc.) So it's maybe more nihilistic. But I don't mean that as a criticism. Quote “There is a limit to how much we can constantly say no to the political masters in Washington. All we had was Afghanistan to wave. On every other file we were offside. Eventually we came onside on Haiti, so we got another arrow in our quiver." --Bill Graham, Former Canadian Foreign Minister, 2007
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