My blog: Some thoughts on films

These days, I’d rather watch a bad original horror film than an average remake. I’m pretty sure that’s become apparent from my previous reviews/ramblings.

Last Friday, as I perused the poor film choices at the cinema with my faithful horror companion, it was real slim pickings. We decided upon “The Collector” as we knew it was written by Marcus Dunstan, the guy who wrote Saw 4, 5 and 6. Although these were when the Saw films completely lost their appeal for me, we went ahead.

I had not seen much promotion of the film so I went in with absolutely no expectations and have to say I really (sort of) enjoyed it.  

A man is hired to rob his new employer’s house to get his ex-wife out of debt, unbeknownst to him however, a second criminal has targeted the house with a serious of deadly traps in order to torment the family living there.

Once you get past the initial “Oh my god, this is just a horrific Home Alone!!” thought, this film is very suspenseful and pretty terrifying in parts. As you’d expect from a Saw writer, the gore is affluent and the environment of a family household is quickly turned into a torture dungeon reminiscent of the Hostel films. What I like about this film is that there is a certain element of old school horror mixed in here with the new over-graphically, sickening torture scenes. The Collector wears a mask, which is ALWAYS creepy, not seeing the face means the audience is always on edge and uncomfortable. There is also a good amount of cat and mouse in the film to build up suspense and really interesting camera angles so we can see everything that’s happening and where in the house. Not to mention this film has a kick-ass soundtrack!

The only downside to films like these is that the creators are already thinking ahead to make it a franchise and this is pretty apparent with this film. But I don’t want to ruin anything so go watch it and make you’re own mind up about that one!

It’s not going to win best horror of the year (that goes hands down to Rec2) and you really have to leave plausibility at the door, but it’s fun and original so I’m happy.

I don’t know why I’ve picked five, I could probably do more. But here is five soundtracks I think are pretty much perfecto! Let me know yours.

1. Ghost World

I love this soundtrack as it got me interested in ragtime and blues. The album is varied in its sound, it starts off with Indian music, works through to rap, then blues  and then ragtime. It perfectly reflects the quirky style of the film and a lot of the music reflects each character from the film, most noticeable being Seymour’s love of ragtime.  

For me the stand out song is Skip James’ “Devil Got My Woman” which is used in the film, the song that Enid and Seymour bond over:

2. Death Proof

It’s the Tarrantino film that divides the fans but one things for certain the soundtrack is spot on. Tarrantino always puts as much effort into the accompanying music as he does into the film itself and his fifth film is no exception.

Stand out tracks for me are: Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich- “Hold Tight”, which is used in one of the best car crash scenes I have ever witnessed on screen, The Coasters “Down In Mexico”, which is used for the lap dance scene and Eddie Floyd’s “Good Love, Bad Love”. 

This song wins hands down, Chick Habit by April March:

Fun fact: The juke box used in Death Proof is Tarrantino’s own juke box which he calls Amy and all the songs listed were hand written by QT himself.

3. O Brother Where Art Thou?

Along with Ghost World, this soundtrack inspired me to become more aquainted with bluegrass music. This album however mainly uses contemporary recordings as opposed to Ghost World which used the original early recordings. The score is produced by T-Bone Burnett.

I love the version of Skip James’ “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” by Chris Thomas King and “Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby” by Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch. 

This has to be my favourite though as it was the most entertaining scene from the film and is the most popular song of the album, “I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow” by the Soggy Bottom Boys and Dan Tyminski: 

4. The Royal Tenenbaums

Like with Tarrantino, Wes Anderson uses music to perfectly reflect the mood of what’s happening on screen. While writing a script Anderson will know exactly what pieces he will be using for each scene. For him a soundtrack is not just an after thought, it is an integral part of the film making process.

All andersons films have a certain style and feel to them and I think the main contributing factor to this is the music he uses. On this particular album there is a real nostalgic feel to the music being used, there are many British punk rock bands spanning the decades from the 60’s to the 80’s and each song used will relate to one member of the family, or the tone of the families emotional state.

On this album the score is done by Mark Mothersbaugh and stand out songs for me are Van Morrison’s “Everyone” which is a perfect song to finish the film with and Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio Down By The School Yard”. I’ve shown this clip previously on this blog but it is the most perfect combination of music and script, it is Elliott Smith “Needle In The Hay”:

5. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind 

Ah what a beautiful album for a beautiful film. Again, there is a total mixture of sounds here. The score is composed by Jon Brion but there are plenty of bands that contribute songs too. 

Like with Ghost World, there are Indian influences in the films soundtrack where music from Hindi films can be heard in the background to many of Joel and Clementine’s scenes. There are also a lot of references to the sun and memories in the song titles.

I love Jon Brion’s theme song for the film, the piano is very haunting and sad but my favourite is his and Beck’s rendition of The Korgis “Everbody’s Got To Learn sometime”:

It’s only taken 5 months but we finally have it guys, a decent horror film and shock horror! It’s a sequel! Yep, this year’s first decent horror film comes in the form of Rec2, the follow up to the 2007 Spanish horror film Rec.

Instantly starting where Rec left off, we follow the attempts of a SWAT team to control an outbreak of an unknown infection that has taken over a building. In the previous film we only had the point of view of the news team and their camera, in Rec2 we get a much more diverse perspective. Each member of the SWAT team has a camera planted on their helmets giving directors, Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, the opportunity to use different techniques second time round to scare their audience.

The key for a good sequel is to not just make an extension of the first film, but to make something completely different which is what Rec2 does. The trailer was slightly misleading in that, to me, it looked just liked the original so going in I was not expecting much. But interestingly there is much more back story and a whole new spin on the outbreak that I won’t go into here (I don’t like to spoil in this blog).

There are some brilliantly brutal scenes in this film, notably the terror of a young girl trying to act quickly with a fire arm who obviously had zero previous experience. Also, air ducts are NEVER a good place to go roaming when you’re in an infected block of flats.

As with the first film, it is the last few scenes that have the most effect on the audience. We actually had a night vision camera filming our cinema, I can only imagine the humour other people will have had at seeing me squeal and jump watching the end sequences of the film.

I love the new direction this film took and I urge anyone who loved the first one to watch this one too. It’s hard to compare Rec2 with its predecessor which is novel really. I feel Rec2 is a totally different film just shot in the same style.

8/10

Rec2 is now showing at all UK cinemas.