so glorious. they're just staring at you...
while those movies are good in their own right (Scream was good for pointing out all the problems with the slasher films of the 70s.... heh, pointing... nipples.... awesome...), the original LHOTL stands out as something entirely different. however, different isn't always good. people fear change for a reason. it's why crystal pepsi never took off. LHOTL is different because it didn't just show some cute young girls using drugs and then getting murdered by some soulless killer. nope, the original LHOTL had to push it a but further. those bitches were getting raped...
a lot.
like three times.
each.
and then once where they forced the one girl to do the other girl.
had this movie premiered on cinemax, it would've been that cool "oh no, i don't want you to touch me, oh fuck it let's do this, give it to me" scene. here, it was pretty much just your standard rape. not exactly what i want to curl up on the couch and watch on a random weeknight. wes craven wasn't done there, though. he had to take it even FURTHER...
nowadays when there's a dramatic or torturous scene in a movie, you get some dramatic music to go with it. something to make you tug at those emotions that aren't triggered by sight, but rather by sound. you'd get some screeching string music, some fast paced drums, etc. in the original LHOTL, however, we got something entirely different. let me set the scene for you. the girls are naked, bruised, beaten, and bleeding. they'd just been raped once or twice at the house, thrown in the trunk of a car, and driven down a country road into the woods. there, they're raped again. and during all of this, what music should be playing? something that sounded like james motherfucking taylor. that's right. picture this guy singing sweet soft lullabies while a girl is getting drilled against her will.
Buzz: With all due respect, Mr. Taylor, this isn't the best time
for your unique brand of bittersweet folk rock. We have a
potentially critical situation here. I'm sure you'll
understand.
Taylor: Listen, Aldrin, I'm not as laid back as people think. Now
here's the deal: I'm going to play, and you're going to
float there and like it.
on top of that, the movie also had a nice section where one of the girls briefly escapes. as she's running for her life, what kind of music should be playing in the background? again, you'd expect some kind of heartpounding beat to convey a sense of imminent danger lest she fail. not in wes craven's fucked up world, no sir. she's gonna be runnin to bluegrass. seriously. i think there was a banjo and a jug band in there. i half expected the duke brothers to leap over her in the general lee, boss hog hot on their trail. you just cannot take a movie seriously with that kind of shit going on. i'm sitting here watching this thing and laughing my ass off because it's so ridiculous, then feeling like shit because i'm laughing at a girl running for her life. sigh...
ok, that little rant aside, here's what the movie is actually about. these two girls go into the city, they get raped by some escaped convicts, the convicts take them out in the woods, rape them again, then make them rape each other for good measure, then kill them both. one of the convicts is stupid enough to take a pendant from one of the girls. the convicts' car happens to break down somewhere on a back road (scene for rapes 2 and 3, as well as the killings), so the convicts go to a house nearby. turns out it's the house of the chick they killed, the one they took the pendant from. the girl's parents take them in and make them comfortable, saying they can try the tow truck in the morning or something. the girl's mother notices the pendant, realizes that these fuckers killed her daughter, and the father and mother exact revenge. all in all, not too complicated.
the remake follows that plot pretty closely, so no real news there. there's still a rape, but this time only one, and the music is fitting for that kind of a scene. the rape scene definitely goes on a little longer than it needed to, but i guess that might've been the point. the director probably wanted to make it as uncomfortable as possible, and he pretty much succeeded. the exception this time is that the daughter lives and manages to crawl back to her parents half alive. she's a trooper.
what i was really looking for in this film, though, is some sweet-ass revenge by the parents. i hate it when people puss out on revenge stories. there's nothing worse than when someone works the entire movie to get revenge on someone that fucked them over, only to bitch out at the last minute and say something like "i'll let you live, so that you can live knowing that i got the better of you." fuck no, you goddamn moron! the dude already fucked you over once, why are you giving him the chance to do it again? it's not like he's suddenly going to say "oh, wow, i guess i shouldn't have tried to have you arrested, killed, and then impregnated your wife." i realize that they want to make the protagonist noble and shit, but come one. i also hate how hollywood gets around that base human desire to smite your enemies by having the good guy win, show mercy, then have the bad guy immediately turn on the good guy so the good guy has to kill the bad guy in self defense, saying, "oh, no, i wish i hadn't had to kill him." fucking. pussy. just get it over with the first time...
whew. sorry. anyway, thats what i wanted to see from the new LHOTL. the old one did a decent job of that. the mom took care of one of the convicts by seducing him, tying his hands behind his back as foreplay, and then biting his penis off. yep, you heard that right. she shook it like a damn dog. disturbing, yet hilarious. the dad also took down the main guy with a chainsaw in the end. chainsaws are excellent horror movie weapons because of the splatter and sound, but they're incredibly impractical. those fuckers aren't exactly wieldy, and you don't want to be an idiot when you use one...
... like this guy.
i'm happy to say, i wasn't disappointed by the new LHOTL. once they finally got to the killins, the parents did a decent job. the first guy in the old movie was the one to lose his wang to the sharp canines of a middle aged housewife. the first guy in the new movie doesn't meet a much better fate. he had already gotten his nose broken earlier in the movie, and it had gotten stitched with no anaesthetic. then he gets a wine bottle broke over his head. then he gets stabbed in the chest. while still fighting back, he wrestles with the dad for a bit until the dad pinches his still-broken nose. then the parents push him over to the sink full of water and try to drown him. when that doesn't seem to be working, they shove his hand into the garbage disposal and turn it on...
a quick side note at this point. i love gratuitous violence. i really do. it's awesome. this movie so far didn't have much crazy violence, but the hand in the garbage disposal tipped it over the edge. this scene went on for a solid 2 minutes. 2 minutes of crunching grinding noise (kudos to the sound department) and screaming. at first i was just like "oh fuck, sucks to be him..." after about the minute 30 mark, though, i couldn't stop laughing. it just went on for so damn long that it was comical. i'm sure i got some weird looks for laughing like a maniac as this guy is getting his hand ground to pieces, but goddamn was it funny. eventually, the parents realize he's not gonna shuffle off his mortal coil, so they pull him out of the sink, and the dad puts a claw hammer into his skull. for the record, this guy didn't even do any raping. he was just an accomplice, and he definitely had the worst of the deaths. talk about choosing the wrong fuckin friends...
once the parents got a taste of sweet sweet revenge/justice, they decided to go to town on the other two convicts. they have plenty of time, as the convicts are sleeping peacefully in the guest house, having heard nothing of their friend/brother getting his ass WHOOPED by some upper-middle class white people. so with all this time, how do these parents decide to arm themselves? with a goddamn butcher knife and a fireplace poker.
what the hell is it with the fireplace poker as a weapon? will someone please explain this to me? yes, it's metal, and yes, it kinda has a hook thingy with a point on one end, but come on. that hook would only stick into someone if you hit them just right, and the point on the end isn't even sharp. the thing also barely has any reach. i could go around my house right now and find something better to defend myself/kill someone with. duct tape a knife to a broom handle and you've got yourself a spear (see the Mist movie review). make some molotov cocktails. put some nails into a baseball bat. something, anything, but the goddamn fireplace poker...
anyway, the parents go after the other two convicts, and they seem to take them out without any of the flair of the first death. the parents steal the main bad guy's gun from the room where the two convicts are sleeping, and before the guy can get a good shot off, they wake up. the one female convict puts up a fight (topless) and eventually gets shot in the eye (still topless). nothin like some gratuitous nudity 30 minutes after a penis-shrinking rape scene. the main bad guy evades the parents by leaping through a window, then plays a little cat and mouse shit, and eventually just gets beat down with a fire extinguisher. the dad checks his pulse, and the fight is over. the parents take off across the lake they live on with their daughter to get her medical attention, and all seems hunky dorey.
at this point, though, i was a little pissed. the first guy, who didn't even really rape or kill anyone, gets the everloving shit kicked out of him and dies a horrible horrible death, but the dude who actually did all the horrible things just takes a fire extinguisher to the face? what the fuck kindof justice is that? hogtie that motherfucker and put his balls over a small-flamed candle; smear his wang with sugar and pour a bunch of ants on there; cram aluminum foil into his mouth and make him chew; just do something...
i was all set to leave the theater pissed. so much for sweet sweet revenge. oh, wait, they're not rolling the credits. oh, wait, the main bad guy is still alive. why is there a knife cutting into his skin? oh yeah, the dad was a doctor, wasn't he....
oh yes, the dad goes back to the house after getting his daughter to safety, and takes care of motherfucking business. he paralyzes the main bad guy, puts his head in a microwave, and turns it on. if you can't guess what happens, it goes a little something like this...
for your unique brand of bittersweet folk rock. We have a
potentially critical situation here. I'm sure you'll
understand.
Taylor: Listen, Aldrin, I'm not as laid back as people think. Now
here's the deal: I'm going to play, and you're going to
float there and like it.
on top of that, the movie also had a nice section where one of the girls briefly escapes. as she's running for her life, what kind of music should be playing in the background? again, you'd expect some kind of heartpounding beat to convey a sense of imminent danger lest she fail. not in wes craven's fucked up world, no sir. she's gonna be runnin to bluegrass. seriously. i think there was a banjo and a jug band in there. i half expected the duke brothers to leap over her in the general lee, boss hog hot on their trail. you just cannot take a movie seriously with that kind of shit going on. i'm sitting here watching this thing and laughing my ass off because it's so ridiculous, then feeling like shit because i'm laughing at a girl running for her life. sigh...
ok, that little rant aside, here's what the movie is actually about. these two girls go into the city, they get raped by some escaped convicts, the convicts take them out in the woods, rape them again, then make them rape each other for good measure, then kill them both. one of the convicts is stupid enough to take a pendant from one of the girls. the convicts' car happens to break down somewhere on a back road (scene for rapes 2 and 3, as well as the killings), so the convicts go to a house nearby. turns out it's the house of the chick they killed, the one they took the pendant from. the girl's parents take them in and make them comfortable, saying they can try the tow truck in the morning or something. the girl's mother notices the pendant, realizes that these fuckers killed her daughter, and the father and mother exact revenge. all in all, not too complicated.
the remake follows that plot pretty closely, so no real news there. there's still a rape, but this time only one, and the music is fitting for that kind of a scene. the rape scene definitely goes on a little longer than it needed to, but i guess that might've been the point. the director probably wanted to make it as uncomfortable as possible, and he pretty much succeeded. the exception this time is that the daughter lives and manages to crawl back to her parents half alive. she's a trooper.
what i was really looking for in this film, though, is some sweet-ass revenge by the parents. i hate it when people puss out on revenge stories. there's nothing worse than when someone works the entire movie to get revenge on someone that fucked them over, only to bitch out at the last minute and say something like "i'll let you live, so that you can live knowing that i got the better of you." fuck no, you goddamn moron! the dude already fucked you over once, why are you giving him the chance to do it again? it's not like he's suddenly going to say "oh, wow, i guess i shouldn't have tried to have you arrested, killed, and then impregnated your wife." i realize that they want to make the protagonist noble and shit, but come one. i also hate how hollywood gets around that base human desire to smite your enemies by having the good guy win, show mercy, then have the bad guy immediately turn on the good guy so the good guy has to kill the bad guy in self defense, saying, "oh, no, i wish i hadn't had to kill him." fucking. pussy. just get it over with the first time...
whew. sorry. anyway, thats what i wanted to see from the new LHOTL. the old one did a decent job of that. the mom took care of one of the convicts by seducing him, tying his hands behind his back as foreplay, and then biting his penis off. yep, you heard that right. she shook it like a damn dog. disturbing, yet hilarious. the dad also took down the main guy with a chainsaw in the end. chainsaws are excellent horror movie weapons because of the splatter and sound, but they're incredibly impractical. those fuckers aren't exactly wieldy, and you don't want to be an idiot when you use one...
... like this guy.
i'm happy to say, i wasn't disappointed by the new LHOTL. once they finally got to the killins, the parents did a decent job. the first guy in the old movie was the one to lose his wang to the sharp canines of a middle aged housewife. the first guy in the new movie doesn't meet a much better fate. he had already gotten his nose broken earlier in the movie, and it had gotten stitched with no anaesthetic. then he gets a wine bottle broke over his head. then he gets stabbed in the chest. while still fighting back, he wrestles with the dad for a bit until the dad pinches his still-broken nose. then the parents push him over to the sink full of water and try to drown him. when that doesn't seem to be working, they shove his hand into the garbage disposal and turn it on...
a quick side note at this point. i love gratuitous violence. i really do. it's awesome. this movie so far didn't have much crazy violence, but the hand in the garbage disposal tipped it over the edge. this scene went on for a solid 2 minutes. 2 minutes of crunching grinding noise (kudos to the sound department) and screaming. at first i was just like "oh fuck, sucks to be him..." after about the minute 30 mark, though, i couldn't stop laughing. it just went on for so damn long that it was comical. i'm sure i got some weird looks for laughing like a maniac as this guy is getting his hand ground to pieces, but goddamn was it funny. eventually, the parents realize he's not gonna shuffle off his mortal coil, so they pull him out of the sink, and the dad puts a claw hammer into his skull. for the record, this guy didn't even do any raping. he was just an accomplice, and he definitely had the worst of the deaths. talk about choosing the wrong fuckin friends...
once the parents got a taste of sweet sweet revenge/justice, they decided to go to town on the other two convicts. they have plenty of time, as the convicts are sleeping peacefully in the guest house, having heard nothing of their friend/brother getting his ass WHOOPED by some upper-middle class white people. so with all this time, how do these parents decide to arm themselves? with a goddamn butcher knife and a fireplace poker.
what the hell is it with the fireplace poker as a weapon? will someone please explain this to me? yes, it's metal, and yes, it kinda has a hook thingy with a point on one end, but come on. that hook would only stick into someone if you hit them just right, and the point on the end isn't even sharp. the thing also barely has any reach. i could go around my house right now and find something better to defend myself/kill someone with. duct tape a knife to a broom handle and you've got yourself a spear (see the Mist movie review). make some molotov cocktails. put some nails into a baseball bat. something, anything, but the goddamn fireplace poker...
anyway, the parents go after the other two convicts, and they seem to take them out without any of the flair of the first death. the parents steal the main bad guy's gun from the room where the two convicts are sleeping, and before the guy can get a good shot off, they wake up. the one female convict puts up a fight (topless) and eventually gets shot in the eye (still topless). nothin like some gratuitous nudity 30 minutes after a penis-shrinking rape scene. the main bad guy evades the parents by leaping through a window, then plays a little cat and mouse shit, and eventually just gets beat down with a fire extinguisher. the dad checks his pulse, and the fight is over. the parents take off across the lake they live on with their daughter to get her medical attention, and all seems hunky dorey.
at this point, though, i was a little pissed. the first guy, who didn't even really rape or kill anyone, gets the everloving shit kicked out of him and dies a horrible horrible death, but the dude who actually did all the horrible things just takes a fire extinguisher to the face? what the fuck kindof justice is that? hogtie that motherfucker and put his balls over a small-flamed candle; smear his wang with sugar and pour a bunch of ants on there; cram aluminum foil into his mouth and make him chew; just do something...
i was all set to leave the theater pissed. so much for sweet sweet revenge. oh, wait, they're not rolling the credits. oh, wait, the main bad guy is still alive. why is there a knife cutting into his skin? oh yeah, the dad was a doctor, wasn't he....
oh yes, the dad goes back to the house after getting his daughter to safety, and takes care of motherfucking business. he paralyzes the main bad guy, puts his head in a microwave, and turns it on. if you can't guess what happens, it goes a little something like this...
this is also what happens when normal people try to comprehend scientology...
wow. way to fulfill my wishes, director of LHOTL. no accidental self-defense death here. oh no, this was cold-blooded revenge murder, and it was fucking sweet...
oh yeah, i totally wouldn't waste money seeing this movie. i've really just spelled out everything for you, and you're not missing anything. the gratuitous boobs weren't that great, and $11 is way to much to pay to see some dude get the shit kicked out of him. me, i just see these things because it's my hobby. just as aaron will go see a crappy concert and colonel honey mustard will eat a crappy sandwich, i go to see crappy movies. it's a curse...
oh, one more thing. this movie was fucked up, but two other things happened at it that are even more fucked up. first, right after the horribly uncomfortable rape scene, a couple walked out of the theater. normal enough, you might think; maybe it was just too much for them. what made this just plain wrong is that this couple walked out WITH THEIR TWO KIDS, AGES 5 AND 10! holy shit, what the fuck is wrong with you two jackasses?! first off, the movie was a 10:20pm showing, so those little bastards should be in bed. second, there's no way they don't come out a little screwed up from seeing some girl get horribly raped. third, and perhaps the worst part, the people left AFTER the rape scene. it's like they saw what they needed to see, so they could now go home and enjoy the rest of their evening. that should seriously be grounds for calling child protective services...
the second fucked up thing involved these three little hipster fags after the theater. this 16 yr old bastard wearing chuck taylors (god how i hate those), girl's jeans, an ironic vintage t-shirt, and having emo hair calls up his friend right after the movie gets out, tells him how it ends, and then a bunch of similar fags stand around to discuss how it's the worst thing they've ever seen. they were actually pissed off that it was so bad. what the fuck did they expect? did they not read one review, or even the plot description, before going to the movie? me, i paid good money to see something i knew was going to be absolute garbage, because that's just what i do. these kids were apparently expecting an oscar winner or something. sorry man, scorsese couldn't step in to direct this one, he was busy. fucking idiots...
LHOTL: god i hate hipsters...
oh yeah, i totally wouldn't waste money seeing this movie. i've really just spelled out everything for you, and you're not missing anything. the gratuitous boobs weren't that great, and $11 is way to much to pay to see some dude get the shit kicked out of him. me, i just see these things because it's my hobby. just as aaron will go see a crappy concert and colonel honey mustard will eat a crappy sandwich, i go to see crappy movies. it's a curse...
oh, one more thing. this movie was fucked up, but two other things happened at it that are even more fucked up. first, right after the horribly uncomfortable rape scene, a couple walked out of the theater. normal enough, you might think; maybe it was just too much for them. what made this just plain wrong is that this couple walked out WITH THEIR TWO KIDS, AGES 5 AND 10! holy shit, what the fuck is wrong with you two jackasses?! first off, the movie was a 10:20pm showing, so those little bastards should be in bed. second, there's no way they don't come out a little screwed up from seeing some girl get horribly raped. third, and perhaps the worst part, the people left AFTER the rape scene. it's like they saw what they needed to see, so they could now go home and enjoy the rest of their evening. that should seriously be grounds for calling child protective services...
the second fucked up thing involved these three little hipster fags after the theater. this 16 yr old bastard wearing chuck taylors (god how i hate those), girl's jeans, an ironic vintage t-shirt, and having emo hair calls up his friend right after the movie gets out, tells him how it ends, and then a bunch of similar fags stand around to discuss how it's the worst thing they've ever seen. they were actually pissed off that it was so bad. what the fuck did they expect? did they not read one review, or even the plot description, before going to the movie? me, i paid good money to see something i knew was going to be absolute garbage, because that's just what i do. these kids were apparently expecting an oscar winner or something. sorry man, scorsese couldn't step in to direct this one, he was busy. fucking idiots...
LHOTL: god i hate hipsters...
