| The Last Horror Movie | |
| Studio: Hart Sharp Video LLC Director: Julian Richards Screenplay By: James Handel Release: 2005 Cast Kevin Howarth .... Max Mark Stevenson .... The Assistant Antonia Beamish .... Petra Christabel Muir .... Sam Jonathan Coote .... John Rita Davies .... Grandma Joe Hurley .... Ben Jamie Langthorne .... Nico John Berlyne .... Phil Mandy Gordon .... Sarah Jim Bywater .... Bill Chris Adamson .... Killer Lisa Ren�e .... Waitress Brian Bowles .... Newsreader Alexandra Hill .... Bridesmaid |  
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| The Last Horror Movie
* DVD Directed by Julian Richards Written by James Handel Cast Kevin Howarth .... Max Mark Stevenson .... The Assistant Antonia Beamish .... Petra Christabel Muir .... Sam Jonathan Coote .... John Rita Davies .... Grandma Joe Hurley .... Ben Jamie Langthorne .... Nico John Berlyne .... Phil Mandy Gordon .... Sarah Jim Bywater .... Bill Chris Adamson .... Killer Lisa Renée .... Waitress Brian Bowles .... Newsreader Alexandra Hill .... Bridesmaid R 90 mins This week I'm still coming to you thanks to horrormovies.com. Please, go. Better still, Cassava Films (www.cassavafilms.com) is also sponsoring me, releasing their choice title, "Serial Slayer" on InDemand pay-per-view starting this Friday, March 25. Pester your cable company for details. Now! And now, back to a truly godawful piece of tripe. What does it say about our society when someone can create a film exhibiting the most awful kind of casual brutality and yet make that film so utterly, utterly boring that it's almost unwatchable? Want to find out? Check out Fangoria's newest release, "The Last Horror Movie." So what we have here is the story of a wedding photographer with a dark secret--he's a serial killer on the side. And all this time I thought it was the wedding singers that went insane. But I guess between photographing fat drunken uncles in ill-fitting formal wear, various bridesmaids in matching horrible outfits, and inhaling developer roughly four hours a day isn't exactly a recipe for sanity. But anyway, Max, the wedding photographer is out documenting his insane antics with the help of a homeless assistant. Max makes quite the charming lunatic, and presents his audience with the mind of a madman. He realizes, to his astonishment, that his audience is shocked by the casual brutality. This leads him to ask the ten thousand dollar question: "If you're so horrified, why are you still watching?" He puts forth one answer: "You shouldn't be. And that's why you are." Which of course irritates me to no end. The last thing I need is a serial killer trying to tell me it's all my fault that he goes off on the killing rampages. This is the most stunning and inventive example of hypocrisy I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing. The serial killer jams chunks of metal into the bowels of innocent people and it's MY fault because I watch a certain genre of movie. Sure, Max. And it's the bank's fault I'm broke. And yes, it's fictional. But frankly, I've heard it before, from pretty much everybody who ever wanted to be allowed their crimes in peace. The callousness with which Max admits his crimes is truly alarming, and we've heard this before too. Watch the evening news some night, and you might well hear a serial killer admit to his crimes with all the remorse and emotion of a man detailing how many pizzas he ate last year. It is as plain as the nose on my face, which I personally guarantee is both very plain and also very substantial, that Julian Richards was going for "callous brutality." And there's no doubt he got it. And he got its brother. And he got everything in between and to the sides. There is also no doubt that "The Last Horror Movie" serves its purpose. Julian Richards wanted to put forth a thought-provoking piece about the nature of maliciousness and satisfaction in life. What Julian Richards did NOT do, however, was make an entertaining film. "The Last Horror Movie" wavers wildly between mind-shattering, vicious brutality and mind-shattering, vicious boredom. Long stretches of people eating, Max carrying on conversations seemingly at random, and other, lesser materials are thrown in amidst scenes people being beaten with steel claw hammers. It is true to life, it is absolutely thought-provoking, and it is as dull as a bag of anvils. Life is not entertainment. If the reality TV movement didn't prove that fact conclusively, nothing will. Which is the worst part of the whole business. The fact that this kind of movie, which is designed to exhibit casual mayhem and senseless slaughter at its most egregious could also be the most boring film released in 2005 is profoundly disturbing. The ending is, well, yipes. Everything from brawls and fistfights to bizarre culinary secrets and of course raving ranting hypocrisy like nothing ever seen before by man is packed into this display of sheer bizarre, and at the same time, vaguely terrifying. The special features include deleted scenes, a behind the scenes featurette, cast auditions, and a deranged little two-minute short film called "The Shoe Collector" which is actually rather clever in its way. Also, we get trailers for "Corn," "Gypsy 83," and "Virgin." All in all, Julian Richards' magnificent think piece fails to entertain or even vaguely satisfy. It is the single biggest yawnfest I've seen so far this year, and this is also somehow alarming. Reviewer Rating of Movie : | |
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| So you're decompressing on the weekend. It has been an awful week---you've worked yourself ragged, you've had to burn the midnight oil to get a major presentation out, the boss hated it, the clients balked, no way of knowing whether you're going to get the deal. The girlfriend is still not talking to you, for whatever reason.
So you figure you'll grab some brew and a horror flick from the local video store. You rent "The Last Horror Movie", you pour a cup of liquid cheer, you pop the tape in the hopper and let it rip. Something unexpected happens. Seconds after the hapless waitress working the late shift at the roadside Michigan diner is about to get slaughtered by the masked serial killer, the screen goes fuzzy---white noise, electric snow---and then a man's face---lanky black hair, thick pursed lips, a smug and arrogant countenance---fills the screen. He introduces himself as `Max' (Kevin Howarth, truly a one-man show). He tells you he taped over the horror flick you rented. He also tells you that in its place is his own `home movie', but rejoice: you're still going to get to see a horror movie. The only difference: this time the horrors will be real. You like scary movies? Then you're in for a treat. What you're going to watch, then---should you choose to keep watching---is Max's little experiment in Reality TV: he's going to commit murders, real murders, carried out against random victims---and film them. The rest of the movie boils down to four `themes': 1) Max going about his work: throttling, stabbing, and bludgeoning his unwitting victims; 2) Max talking directly to the camera---to us---about his philosophy of life; 3) Max trying to psyche his cameraman into killing someone (Mark Stevenson, who plays the bloodthirsty down-and-out homeless assistant as part reluctant monster and part good-hearted human Border collie); 4) Max hanging out with friends and family (and musing to the camera about killing them, of course). Now: "The Last Horror Movie" moves along briskly, is competently shot (yes, it captures the raw home-movie feel, but without the barf-inducing vertiginous camera-maneuvers of Blair Witch or Bourne Supremacy), carries out is bloody business and gets home in time for chow. If you release yourself to its black magic, and turn all the lights in the house out, you might even get goosebumps in the final five minutes. But "The Last Horror Movie" is not really horror: maybe I'm jaded, but I wasn't shocked by any of the killings. This film has been compared to "Man Bites Dog" and "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", which is an insult to either of those truly disturbing and genuinely pioneering films: "Man Bites Dog" is napalm, "Henry" a bunker-buster, and---by contrast---"The Last Horror Movie" is a knife shoved deep into the back of your neck in the dark. But hey, a knife in the dark gets the job done, doesn't it? Cheap, silent, quick, sarcastic, and very deadly, "The Last Horror Movie" succeeds in spades: not as horror, but as a wickedly gleeful little Q&A (with the victims, of course!) on the Meaning of Life. In that regard, the movie rises and falls on the strength of the actor playing Max: Kevin Howarth is "The Last Horror Movie". You should see the movie for Howarth's insanely amazing, and genuinely moving, performance. His expressive facial expressions, his caustic, brutal, Satanic wit, the range of emotion on his face, the relentless questions---all of this could have been wasted in the hands of a less accomplished actor, and had Max been weakly cast, the flick would have been a disaster. Not so with Howarth, who makes his Max captivating, engaging, charismatic, and surprisingly compelling in his bleak assessment of the world. Now if you want disturbing---the cold grue of the dead gaze of a camera that chronicles, without moralizing, a serial killer's ghoulish adventures---look elsewhere: this isn't that movie, despite that being the way it promotes itself. In a world bombarded by "Silence of the Lambs", "Man Bites Dog", "I Stand Alone", "Maniac", and "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", there are plenty of nastier films that serve up blood and gore and shock. Why, then, did "Last Horror Movie" quickly capture my interest and slake my ceaseless thirst for the deranged? Easy answer: it's a sincerely spooky little flick that gets right down to its creepy-crawly business. But the deeper answer: I like the fact that Max isn't a garden-weed monster: this dude is seriously looking for answers. If you're thoroughly miserable, Max wonders---well, why live? Why do these hapless souls, leading their lives of desperation both quiet and noisy, their faces screwed up in despair---why do they struggle so against the blade, the strangler's embrace, the pistol shoved up against the skull? Why do they fight so hard, cling so tenaciously to a life they despise? Good questions, and Max takes considerable pains---as do his victims---in getting answers. The least you could do is bolt the door, secure the windows, douse the lights, and spend a rainy evening scoping out the results of his experiment. Speaking of which, did you just hear a noise? Is that someone in the corner, huddled next to the fridge? And why is he holding a videocamera...? Reviewer Rating of Movie : | |
