Red Room

Games have been all the rage lately. From forced-participation events like Saw and Battle Royale, to voluntary stunts in the vein of 13: Game Of Death, there’s an intrinsic joy in seeing how far people will push themselves to survive or to fill up their bank accounts.

In Daisuke Yamanouchi’s video nasty Red Room, the game is The King Game. Four cards are drawn, a king and three numbered cards, and dealt to the four players. The ‘King’ then issues a challenge to two of the numbered players. If the players cannot or will not complete the challenge, they are disqualified. The last man standing is awarded 10 million yen.

The contestants – a married couple, a highschool senior, and an office worker – are the most interesting part about the film. The three female characters are strong, embittered, and prepared to suffer any degradation, while the male character is submissive and unimaginative, trying to grasp paltry authority through sexual domination. Yet, the characters are all individuals, and all use their wits and bodies in entirely different and equally fascinating ways, their motivations for the money blending with their gameplay tactics to create truly interesting personalities. And as the story leaps back and forth along the timeline, and slaps and humiliation give way to rape and violence, the events are revealed with both impact and subtlety.

But when I say ‘video nasty’, I mean nasty. Yamanouchi’s film looks to be made for about five dollars on a digital camera from a bargain warehouse, though his filming style is dexterous considering the budget. The music sounds like something from softcore porn and, while it adds to the sleaziness of the scenario, it stops disbelief from being suspended. It sounds like Yamanouchi’s cousin is playing a synthesiser in the corner of the set.

That is, in fact, the biggest problem. The perversions on screen are disturbing, but the presence of the crew feels too intrusive. The elephant in the room is the camera, and while the characters are interesting and the displays horrendous, it all feels scripted, leaving you thinking too much about the processes involved than the story itself. Yamanouchi does have a magnificent sense of the line between horror and comedy. Accordingly this plays out more like a very black comedy than a genuine horror, recalling the work of Takashi Miike and Eli Roth.

As far as effects go, there’s some great realism, and a good balance between what is revealed and concealed. Unfortunately, the sound is as unrealistic as the images are convincing. Nobody’s vagina makes that many wet, squishy sounds when you insert a lightbulb into it. Or maybe I just haven’t inserted enough lightbulbs. Likewise, the sound of two Japanese girls kissing shouldn’t be the aural equivalent of silly putty in a vegetable steamer.

All up, Red Room is worth seeing as an experiment in low-budget horror and human depravity. The concept, visuals and direction are fantastic, but the music and sound are intrusive enough to make this not as disconcerting as it should be, and it doesn’t deserve to be nearly so lauded as it is. Still, if you can find it, it’s definitely not an afternoon wasted.

The Happening

So another M Night Shyamalan movie’s out, and accordingly the M Night Haters Club is back in full swing, complaining about how that villain has caused any number of unmentionable sins. Then of course there’s the remaining few who would never say a bad word against the twist-master because he got their wicks lit nine years ago when Bruce Willis turned out to be dead.

I’m not a member of either party. In fact, I’m probably one of the least conventional filmgoers out there, as far as Shyamalan movies go. I thought Unbreakable was a bona fide masterpiece, Lady In The Water captivated me, and The Village was quite scary, thank you very much. The Sixth Sense, on the other hand, was a decent enough novelty that was only creepy when I was twelve. Though it’s easy to be indifferent when “I see dead people” becomes a nationally overused catchphrase.

I love Shyamalan and hate him in equal measures, and his new flick, The Happening, is the best example of exactly why this is so.

The Happening, apart from being the vaguest title in recent times, involves people killing themselves all along the east coast of the US of A. It’s got something to do with the fact that the bees have gone missing, and evil plants might be involved somehow. Yep, after ghosts, monsters, scrunts, aliens, and Samuel L Jackson, the plants are coming for us. M Night doesn’t really tell us why, but let’s just say he’s probably been having dinner with Al Gore on the weekends.

Newlywed teacher Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and his cheating missus (Zooey Deschanel) are trying to figure out the mystery as to why an airborne neurotoxin is making people suicidal, all the while trying to stay ahead of the infection. There’s a kid (Ashlyn Sanchez) in tow, as is usually the case, and she’s not a bad little actress for someone who barely speaks. It’s too bad the same can’t be said for the rest of the cast.

Shyamalan’s visuals are fantastic. The man knows how to use a camera to create a sense of dread, and the film is most tense when it relies on its visuals. He has the gift of revealing and concealing exactly the right things to show you the beginning of a thought and let your imagination do the work. There’s a little gore, yes, but not enough to be desensitising. Unfortunately, he spends so much time on his pretty pictures that he drops the ball on pretty much everything else.

Like I said, the acting is appalling. Marky Mark seems to be channelling a valium-addicted self-help guru, he spends so much of the movie being softly spoken and rational. He’s realistic on the few moments he does freak out, but otherwise he sounds like he’s reading his lines on helium from a teleprompter. Deschanel is slightly better, but is equally wooden, which wouldn’t be so bad except these two have to carry the film, and the dialogue they’re spouting is often clunky and forced. M Night might as well put up a neon sign reading “EXPOSITION” every time they speak, and his usually subtle touches seem forced and obvious here. The only bright spots are John Leguizamo as the kid’s panicked father, and a crazy old lady (Betty Buckley) who briefly takes them in and reminded me far too much of Tim Robbins in War Of The Worlds.

That’s not to say it’s an awful film, but it’s a weak film. M Night’s biggest problem is that he listens to what other people have to say. You like the twist? He’ll make more. Don’t like them anymore? He’ll stop. The last film was too vague? He’ll spell everything out. With this one he’s just confused. There’s a lot of good stuff here, and at only 89 minutes most of the pacing problems are negligible. Apart from parts were people are actually required to act, and the awkward social-environmental commentary, it’s a taut survival thriller with a solid sense of foreboding. Not his best, maybe, but still an enjoyable enough movie experience.

Brisbane Queer Film Festival: Otto, or Up With Dead People

The German’s are known for being a bit weird. There’s their porn of course, their penchant for lederhosen, and their bizarre love of sauerkraut. Not to mention the whole Hitler fiasco (oh those crazy Germans!). They’ve also managed to mix zombie films with queer cinema, a concept even stranger than pickled cabbage.

It sounds potentially inspired, conjuring up images of couture zombies staggering about in pink, a bit of sociopolitical commentary to rival Romero, and some neat jokes about ‘eating manflesh’. This of course would be my perfect gay zombie movie. But Otto, or Up With Dead People is not the perfect gay zombie movie. To put it politely, it’s a pile of pretentious wank.

Bruce LaBruce’s film revolves around Otto (Jey Crisfar), a young man who may or may not be a zombie, may or may not be repressing a traumatic past, and may or may not be gay. Medea (Katharina Klewinghaus) is an insane goth chick who hangs out with her girlfriend Hella Bent and makes avant-garde queer horror films. Hella has a bobcut and is literally spliced in from a silent movie. See Hella and Medea drink tea on the lawn! See them shop for headstones! See them exploit Otto and make him their new star!

I went in with only one agenda: to see some hardcore gay necrophilia. But even though this lifelong dream was realised, and in great style, the sight of a fetid cock thrusting into a slippery stomach cavity was the brief high point of Bruce LaBruce’s woeful piece of cinema. The film isn’t just pretentious, it’s annoying. You think the constant sound of distorted radio feedback (ostensibly representing Otto’s troubled and rotting mind) is aggravating? Try listening to a monotonous gothic freak with a German accent opine about alienation and mindless consumption. Because you’ll hear both. Ad nauseum.

Visually, the film is unimpressive. The greys and reds of your usual gorefest are present, and apart from a recurring motif of Medea preaching in front of a cloud-streaked bluescreen, it doesn’t offer anything memorable. The framing is bland, and the occasional novel shot is shattered by the irritating voiceover, relentless radio distortion, or another tedious shot of Otto looking blank and static. The constant narration only serves to highlight the fact that LaBruce isn’t a good enough writer or director to tell his story with subtle touches, something that might have saved the film. Instead, the commentary is like kids reading subtitles out loud in the seats behind you. Intrusive, and painfully moronic.

To put it nicely, Otto, or Up With Dead People is an experimental horror pornography with a couple of genuinely interesting moments. To put it nastily, I’d need a few more pages. Bad acting, bad writing, bad direction. It’s got the trifecta. The only people who will like this film are more pretentious than the director himself, a man who manages to make a gay zombie orgy into something boring.