HOUR OF THE WOLF

Okay, folks. First I'd like to get the big Nordic elephant out of the way: Oscar-nominated Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann is basically Chris Colfer's face-twin. It was a little distracting.
                  

            

Alright. On with the review…
              

                      

I had never seen an Ingmar Bergman movie before Hour of the Wolf. Everything I knew about Ingmar Bergman I learned from Simpsons references and Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. I knew that he was a Scandinavian director who did a bunch of artsy black-and-white movies and that Woody Allen loved him. I also knew, almost without a shadow of a doubt, that his movies were not my style. I pictured long, murky parables about war and death. I pictured beautiful cinematography and absolute boredom. I didn’t picture horror movies. And yet, here I am, writing about an Ingmar Bergman movie in my horror blog.
                

Hour of the Wolf, from what I could tell, is about a pregnant woman and her older husband who live on an island. The husband is slowly getting crazier and crazier because of his interactions with the island's other residents, a castle full of wack-jobs, including a woman that he fooled around with before knocking up his current wife. This guy is pushed to the edge by the surrounding characters, and his wife is becoming increasingly afraid that she’s starting to share her husband’s psychosis. I’m not going to continue explaining the plot, because it isn’t exactly linear, so let’s instead talk about how I might interpret some of the events of this story.

               

               

ONE: The husband is a crazy artist who has retreated to this isolated island to be alone. He lashes out at everyone he meets (including the little boy on the beach) because of some intense distrust of the outside world. He has his pregnant wife to cling to, but when he finally lashes out at her (he shoots her), that’s the final straw and he cracks, disappearing forever into himself.

                

TWO: None of the characters are real except for the husband and wife. The husband has elaborate delusions about the strange people he meets. Slowly, his wife begins to see them too. When one of these delusions gives him the gun he uses to shoot his wife, then his psychosis has finally crossed into a level where he can no longer be cured. At the end of the movie, his wife talks about a scar that the bullets left on her, thus implying that not only is she now damaged by her husband’s psychosis, but now she’s fully succumbed to it, too.

              

            

I could go on discussing about a dozen theories that try to tie together all the loose ends and abrupt moments of violence (and cross-dressing). In fact, that’s probably what Bergman wanted. But I’m of the mindset that reviews aren’t about interpretations, they’re about recommendations. Did I enjoy this movie? Was I intrigued instead of confused? Would I recommend this? I think I’d say yes to all three questions.
            

This is a difficult movie, one with characters that don’t really behave like real people and situations that don’t quite gel. Intellectually, I’m frustrated. Emotionally, I’m highly pleased. This movie kept me surprised, tense, and weirdly curious. The dinner scene at the castle… the violent outburst with the little kid… the laughing ex-girlfriend corpse lady… these were moments that will probably stick with me for a while. As a whole, I prefer my movies to be a little more straight-forward than this, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating how unsettling everything comes across.

                

Is this a horror movie? Sure. I have a fairly inclusive definition of horror. Everything from Jaws to Rosemary’s Baby to Silence of the Lambs fits under the umbrella. This is psychological. It’s a lot like 2010’s Antichrist without all that squicky gore. Is it wall-to-wall scary? Nope. But I think this one will linger with me.

           

            

I just don’t think it completely works as a narrative film. It’s like watching a hallucination, which is a pretty powerful experience. Sure. But once you realize it’s just a hallucination, it’s hard to really care about what happens.

FOR MORE HOUR OF THE WOLF FUN, CHECK OUT THESE OTHER, MUCH BETTER REVIEWS:

Moon Is a Dead World
Lerner International
United Provinces of Ivanlandia
The Lightning Bug’s Lair

DYING BREED

STATS:

DYING BREED

2008

Directed by Jody Dywer (Is that the world's worst pen name, or the world's best real name?)

Starring Leigh Whannell (Insidious, Saw) and Nathan Phillips (Wolf Creek)

WHA’ HAPPENED?

A researcher disappears in the Tasmanian jungle looking for some Tasmanian Tiger thing, so her sister and a few friends follow her footsteps to try to figure out what happened. And what did happen? Cannibals. A well organized network of local cannibals that might be related to a historical serial killer and (bestiality alert) the Tasmanian Tiger itself. Freaking Australians.

ISN’T THAT SPECIAL?

I wanted to watch this movie because of my love-hate relationship with Australian horror cinema. (For your homework assignment, watch Razorback, Rogue, Wolf Creek, and Dead-End Drive-In and try to figure out which movies go in the love column and which go in the hate column.) I also knew this one involved cannibals, so it could be glorious or awful. On a scale of Wrong Turn 1 to Wrong Turn 3, I had my fingers crossed that it would end up being closer to Wrong Turn 1.

SHIRTS AND SKINS:

No nudity of interest. Whannell and Phillips are both handsome, by the way, in an off-kilter kind of way.

BLOOD AND GUTS:

Fingers get bitten off. Whannell gets all bloodied. And there are computer animated dingo things. Nothing to write home about.

POSSIBLE DRINKING GAME:Take a shot every time someone mentions The Pie-Man. You will get DRUNK. And not at all scared, because holy crap that is a stupid name for a mass murderer.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This isn’t horrible, but I was hoping for something ape-shit insane, like the Down Under version of The Hills Have Eyes Part II. Instead, I got something that was a little gory, a little creepy, but none too memorable. That finger-eating girl was pretty scary though. And the scenery makes me really want to visit Tasmania. With a large group of people, of course.

ARGH! PIE MAN!

PINOCCHIO

PINOCCHIO

Written, produced, directed, and starring Roberto Benigni

Pinocchio is the timeless tale of an innocent puppet who struggles to grow up into a real boy, but he keeps making all the mistakes of childhood. It’s archetypal. It’s a fairy tale. And it’s a story that will never, ever be a good live action movie.

I’m just going to say it right now: Pinocchio is one of the greatest animated films of all time. It’s one of the greatest FILMS of all time. Period. It’s a shining jewel in Disney’s crown. But watching a beautifully animated puppet turn into a donkey and talk to a cricket is adorable. Watching a balding Italian man in his 40s doing the same… well, it’s just creepy.

Life is a-beautiful! I am Italian!

Throughout the movie, he does the same kind of physical schtick that would be cute if he weren’t a 40-year-old man wearing a dunce cap.

If I don’t look at him or acknowledge his existence,

maybe he'll stop trying to act precocious.

Unfortunately, the less people laugh at his antics, the harder Roberto Benigni mugs for the camera. I call that the Robin Williams Guide to Being Insufferable. By the time his closest friend (Topher Grace) turns into a donkey and dies because a farmer works him too hard, I decided that this was the single creepiest, most misguided family film since the last adaptation of Pinocchio that I saw.

So is it gay? God I hope not. On one hand, it’s about an outsider trying to win the respect of his father… but he can’t, because he constantly lapses into childish behavior. That’s basically the plot of at least a dozen gay indie comedies that I’ve not seen but pretended I did. On the other hand, it is really, really irredeemably awful. And not in a campy way. It’s basically the movie equivalent of a creepy uncle who sits at the kids table during family reunions and pretends that he’s seven. So no. That’s not gay. It’s just sad.