Eden Lake (2008)

HI KIDS! Wow, I feel like it was not so long ago that I was all "yeah, I'm gonna start updating again, ALL THE TIME. Really! I mean it!" And then I promptly did no such thing. Wow. I suck. Sorry about that.

I mean, I could sit here and make excuses to you about how being a perpetual university student eats my life and I've barely had time to watch a movie lately, let alone review one. But you deserve better then my whining, so we'll skip that bit. Especially since I know that most of my fellow horror bloggers have a real life that they manage to upkeep as well as their blogs. But, like I said before, I suck, so let's move on.

Eden Lake was the movie I watched to reward myself for making it through the summer semester without defenestrating anyone. I had this whole "If I just get through finals, then I can watch Eden Lake, and eat pizza, and all will be right with the world".

I'm not entirely sure why I decided this movie was going to be my reward, but I did.

No. Wait. Scratch that. I know exactly why I decided this movie would be my reward.

And his name is Michael Fassbender.




I could watch a movie that starred him as a shut in. And the entire film would just be him pointing to various flower pots he'd collected over the years and explaining why he liked them. And I would be happy.

I would come away from that film going "Ah yes, today was a good day indeed." The man is glorious, I'm just saying.

So I set out to watch Eden Lake, and when it was over it had fully solidified for me two facts with which I was already pretty certain of going into it.

1) Michael Fassbender is an exquisite creature who should always do movies that involve him getting shirtless, and preferably, wet.
2) There is no way in Hell that you will get me to go camping.
( seriously, if Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, AND Benedict Cumberatch showed up at my door and asked me to go camping with them ... well, okay, I would go if that happened. But it would give me pause.)

I went into this film convinced that camping is evil. I am a girl of my creature comforts. Don't get me wrong, I love nature, I do; but at the end of the day I like to come home to a hot shower and a clean bed that consists of a pillow-top mattress, with an extra layer of padding on top of that to make it all marshmallow-y. It was long ago established by one of my best friends that in some sort of a grimy hostage situation I would get us all out by the sheer fact that 24 hours without soap would make me go bat shit crazy, and punch a hole through the nearest wall through which me and my fellow captives could escape.

Long story short, me and camping are like oil and vinegar. But enough about me, let's move on to this movie about people who are crazy and actually enjoy camping and sleeping on the ground and other madness.



Meet Jenny (played by the always adorable, even when portraying a complete psychopath, Kelly Reilly) and Steve (played by Michael "sexy shark" Fassbender). Jenny is a school teacher, and I have no idea what the Hell Steve does for a living, maybe he's a swimsuit model or does toothpaste commercials or something, maybe he just gets paid to sit around and look pretty, who knows. They decide that they're going to escape to a remote lake for the weekend that Steve used to go to when he was younger or something.

Steve has the master plan of using the opportunity of this little get away to finally pop the question to Jenny. Because sleeping in the dirt is some people's idea of romantic. It's not mine, but we established that.

There are, at this point I should note, layers of foreshadowing and foreboding occurring now. In the night that they first arrive, apparently to spend the first night in a little B&B, because SLEEPING ON THE GROUND ISN'T FUN, the locals come off as ... prickly to say the least. The couple are either ignored or treated to clipped responses, and then get to enjoy the fine folks being generally awful and back handing their children. Now maybe this is the naive little California girl in me talking, but I thought that trailer trash was something that just happened here in the states. Apparently England has it too, well color me surprised.

The next bit of "this is your sign, just turn the Hell around and go back NOW" comes when they actually reach the titular lake, only to find the surrounding area fenced off to be redeveloped into a gated community. Jenny, in an unknowing voice of doom asks at this point "Who are they so afraid of?"

Oh Hunny. You don't even know. You don't EVEN know. Just let me hold you.



When they get to the lake is when we meet the band of merry miscreants who will be our antagonists for the evening. Hoodies. Yay hoodies!

What starts out as a minor confrontation between Steve and the leader of the pack of delinquents, Brett (played by Jack O'Connel, who I can't hate, because he will always be Cook from Skins for me, and I love Cook from Skins), which escalates to their car being stolen and demolished, which FURTHER escalates to the teenagers hunting Jenny and Steve through the woods.

Because camping is bad.

If you go camping you will be hunted down and tortured by psychotic hoodlums.

That being said, I hesitate to classify Eden lake under the umbrella of "torture porn". Because unlike many of the films that are classified as such, the torture isn't really the central focus of the film. It's more in the vein of a thriller in the sense that more of it is about the chasing and the game of cat and mouse and by today's standards, the violence is really quite tame.

The aim here, I believe, was not to make the violence itself be what is shocking to the viewers, but have the perpetrators of the violence and the victim/villain relationship be what makes you honestly uncomfortable. It's incredibly common for a movie to pit adults against one another, but less common to have a group of minors be the antagonists - which can make the viewers uncomfortable on two fronts: First, the idea of what many people consider to be children acting in such a fashion, and Second, the idea that adults would be forced to retaliate, and how far would you be willing to go against a group of, so called, children?

That dynamic is considerably more rare. Though it has been called up in such films as The Children and Who Can Kill A Child, or even such instances at The Bad Seed and The Omen. A plot line in which adults know they must fight back against the younger generation has a way of making an audience a little squirrely.



There is, I feel worth noting, a very interesting psychology within the group of teenagers. The leader of the gang has rather obvious psychosis - in a crazier then a shit house rat kind of a way. But he is not, cut and dried, the worst of the bunch. A fair number of his comrades are equally happy to hunt down and potentially murder Jenny and Steve. And then there is the lone female of the pack, who records the acts of atrocity on her cell phone without so much as a blink.

If Horror Movies are the forum through which movie makers air their fears and dissatisfaction with the world, then Eden Lake can be seen as following in the footsteps of George Romero's trend of social commentary. The message at the core of Eden Lake is not just the fear of what today's youth is becoming; but also a horror at the generation that not only raised them to be such monsters, and then washes their hands of them when they begin to act in the manner they were taught.

And honestly, Jack O'Connell's performance is damn good. You really believe that he will go twenty kinds of ape shit on you if you cross him. And yeah, I was a little biased, like I said before. And sure, in multiple parts I was like "nooooo, he doesn't mean it, not my Jack." Damn my love of skins.

And really, characterization is the strong point of Eden Lake. Even though I have read a fair deal of reviews that contradict this statement. No. You guys are wrong. I can't hear you. Lalalalalalalalalalalalala.

The characters are developed just FINE thank you so much. You really really like Jenny and Steve. You're rooting for them. Goddamit, you WANT them to make it out okay and get married, and go live somewhere very very industrialized and NEVER GO CAMPING AGAIN. I was definitely pulling for them, and no, not just because Michael Fassbender is much too pretty die somewhere that dirty.

And really, if you want to get into characterization and psychology. Let's look at Jenny for a minute.



Kelly Reilly is really a very underrated actress. Who I really should gave a grudge against for the simple fact that she has the ability to keep getting cast in rolls where she gets to make out with Spooky's favorite boys. Seriously - Dead Bodies with Andrew Scott, Sherlock Holmes with Jude Law, and now Michael Fassbender. You bitch. No, I'm kidding, I love you.

Jenny begins the movie as this fragile, non confrontational character. While Steve is ready to tell people off and huff and puff when things irritate him, Jenny is just as happy to let them blow over so no one needs to raise their voice. But as she is pushed she grows from mousey damsel to the sort of heroine you hope for in these kinds of movies. And did I mention she does this all in some of the cutest dresses I've ever seen? Sure, I don't think most people of the camping-oriented persuasion would find her clothing choices good for the great outdoors, but meh. If anything I think the choice to have her run through the movie in demure, feminine clothing, was kind of a brilliant choice.

It's like they said "look at her, she's supposed to be this delicate thing who has small animals do her hair in the morning as she sings. But look what she can become." In this aspect Jenny is much like a heroine in a fairy tale like the Brother's Grimm. But not by Disney. Not by a long shot.

And much like a Grimm's fairtytale you do not just walk away from Eden Lake feeling good about the world. You feel like you need to take a long shower and then watch kitten videos on Youtube for the next three hours. You feel disoriented and more then just a little uncomfortable.

And for that I really do have to applaud them.



Okay, Okay, so strictly speaking, Eden Lake is NOT what I would consider "my kind of a horror film". If you know me, you know I like my horror movies a bit more in the supernatural and psychological department, and less in the "BLOOD BLOOD EVERYWHERE" fashion. Especially since I feel like these days you can't throw a rock without hitting a movie that is just about blood.

I've got news for you Horror Movie Industry, blood all over the place doesn't scare this girl. Hell, that's just a typical Friday night in the Pie household. I think you sincerely underestimate the sheer volume of bandages this girl goes through on a weekly basis. When you're as accident prone as me, blood is about as shocking and uncommon as a roll of toilet paper.

That being said, Eden Lake is not a bad little film. It has a message and it gets it out there. And from a cine-phile point of view it is shot BEAUTIFULLY. I know you can't tell from my grainy screen caps, but there are points when the camera pulls back to show wide angles of the all the nature and is AMAZING. The framing of shots and the subtle score of the film are really just lovely. It's odd to think of a horror movie as pretty - especially when people are getting brutalized and hobbling through a forest caked in their own blood, but seriously, it is PRETTY.

While I don't see myself running out to buy Eden Lake, I don't consider the evening I spent watching it to have been a waste either. And let's not forget the valuable message it has brought to us all:

DON'T GO CAMPING

I know this girl won't be any time soon.

Well, until next time kiddies.
Stay out of trouble AND the woods.

Hugs and Kisses

♥
Spooky Pie

Peeping Tom (1960)

Well, ladies and jelly-spoons, today's offering is a bit of an oldie, but it's like what they say about re-runs; "If you haven't seen it before, then it's new to you".

So, I will grudgingly admit that this girl didn't even know of this film's existence until about a year and a half ago, but I guess that shouldn't be so surprising, considering the sort of reception 'Peeping Tom' got when it was released caused it to get relocated to the status of 'cult film'.

Sure, by today's standards, 'Peeping Tom' is about as disturbing as moldy pudding, but this was England in 1960, stiff upper lip and what have you, through that lense its understandable that at the time it was considered pretty much the filthiest thing ever.

I'm not going to say that there aren't themes in 'Peeping Tom' that even by today's standards aren't a bit risque, but in our modern age of films like 'Hostel', 'The Hills have eyes', and Hell, even 'Silence of the Lambs', this film is shot in such a tasteful fashion that you almost can forget that there are some deeply warped psychological themes at work here. Almost.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.



Much to my disappointment, the lead of this film is not, actually, named Tom. I guess that would have been to kitsch, but whatever. His name is Mark Lewis (I still think that is should have been Tom), he works as a 'scene puller' for a movie studio. I don't know tons about making movies, but as far as I could tell its got to do with setting the optimal scene up so all the camera man has to do is press the button. Mark also works part time taking erotic pictures for small newspaper store.

A little odd, but meh.

Anyway, Mark is a pretty quiet unassuming kind of a guy. Except for the fact that he likes to murder prostitutes with his tripod, whilst filming their expressions as they bite it.

But, you know, who doesn't ...

He also spends almost every night in his little home theater re-watching his snuff films. This is pretty much the extent of his social interaction until one night when he comes home from a long night of staking prosies and runs into his downstairs neighbor Helen.

She's having a party for his 21st (yeah, right, 21st) birthday. She tries to get him to come join the party, but, being the socially awkward thing he is, Mark declines and scurries upstairs to his apartment.

Now too long after this Helen traipses upstairs with a slice of cake and wiggles her way into his apartment, and his home theater. Once inside she pretty well browbeats Mark into showing her one of his little films. A bit pushy, but hey, some people like forthright broads.



Mark has enough common sense to not show her one of his 'stabby-stabby' productions, and instead pulls out a reel that introduces us to the undercurrent of the film that is possibly even more disturbing then the obvious one of Voyeurism.

The film that Mark shows Helen is one of him as a little boy that his father took. Apparently, Daddy was a psychiatrist, and a pretty warped one at that. His main focus was studying the effect of fear on people, specifically children. So he experimented on his own son, and filmed the results. We aren't shown what, exactly, the old man did to young Mark, but leaving it to the viewer's imagination lets us assume the worst possible.

And so lays our groundwork for Mark as a serial killer; his fascination with viewing everything through the lens of a camera, and his further fixation on fear. The only thing not surprising about this whole thing is that Mark doesn't have Daddy's bones under the floorboards or something.

Despite the fact that any sane person would have taken their fashionable taffeta party dress and ran like hell, this actually sparks a sort of romantic relationship between Helen and Mark.

Go figure.



Their little romance is pushed a long by the fact that Helen is writing a Children's book about a child with a magical camera, and she wants Mark to collaborate with he for the pictures of the book. He agrees, giddily, even.

While on one hand he is having a sort of sweet, childish, romance with Helen, he is still making his snuff films on the side. Adorable, right?

Early on in their courtship, Helen's blind mother's "spidey senses" go off about Mark, and despite her warning her daughter against him, Helen goes along merrily with her beloved serial killer.

But when one of Mark's victims for the sake of cinema is high profile enough that it gets a full on investigation going, Mark starts to lose his cool a bit, and enter into a downward spiral, eventually leading to the film's conclusion.

Okay, the plot is a little simple, but if you are able to get beyond that, 'Peeping Tom' is a psychological goldmine.



Voyeurism is definitely the prevailing theme in this film, and its done quite cleverly if you're willing to give it a good look.

The opening of the film is shown entirely as though you are looking through the lens of Mark's camera. This makes the viewer, the audience, into the predator. Stalking the first victim from the street, up to her loft, and closing in on her face as she is killed in a way that makes you feel like you're even hovering over this woman, and delivering the final blow yourself.

In this sense its a commentary on society and its desire to look at the grisly/uncomfortable. 'Peeping Tom' is just an analysis on mankind's need to stop and stare at car wrecks. Ironically, the same public that loudly denounced 'Peeping Tom' as "nauseating" and "vile", are the same people who slow down to look at a freeway accident, with no intention of helping the people involved.

Mark is just one person made into an analogy for the majority of mankind.

And another thing is, beyond the fact that, yes, Mark is totally a cold-blooded serial killer, he is still a character that you feel sympathetic towards. The way he acts with Helen is so charming its ridiculous, he becomes a little boy around her. Especially when you take into account that this was a guy who didn't really get to have a childhood thanks to dear old dad.

I will admit, that at first I had trouble with Mark as a lead. Mainly because through all of it I felt like I was watching Graham Norton's deranged uncle.


tell me you don't see it


But once I got past that, he was kind of endearing. But then again, I've been known to sympathize with the protagonist anti-hero in these types of things.

Right, so, should probably wrap this up because I'm running out of things to say that won't be just long rambling nonsense. So let's tie this up here.

Is 'Peeping Tom' worth watching? I think so. I can see how it is considered a classic, and I also see how it can be seen as a compliment to Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho'. No, I don't think it's for everyone, and I'm pretty sure that by today's standards it's too slow moving for a lot of people. And it's not a gore fest by any stretch of the imagination, in fact the murders are very subtle. At the heart of it, 'Peeping Tom' as actually a quite sensitive movie, and I think that if most of the critics who slammed it took a closer look at it, they would see that it actually a quiet, repressed, almost heartbreaking portrait of a psychologically damaged little boy trapped in the guise of a grown man.

So until next time my darlings,
Love and kisses!

♥
Spooky Pie

The Dead Set (Television) - 2008/2010

Oh Britain and your zombies, what am I going to do about you?

I feel like I'm the only person in the horror circuit who didn't fall head over heels for the British five part mini-series "The Dead Set", that aired on IFC Halloween night. I'm not saying that I hated it or anything, I'm just saying that I don't really feel the need to move to a quaint little house in the country and pick out lacy curtains either.

Now here's where I'm going to get a little more un-popular. I am not the hugest fan of zombies. I KNOW I KNOW. What sort of self respecting horror blogger am I if I'm not all:

"WOOO HAAAA! ZOMBIES! NOTHING BUT ZOMBIES ALL THE TIME!!!!! GOD HELP ME! I LOVE ME SOME FREAKING ZOMBIES!"

If that was the sort of talk you were expecting out of me, well, then now is your time to disown and turn your back on me. Because that just isn't the case. I'll understand if you do this, I really will, but I was hoping that we could at least still be friends...

But before you hold this all together against me, let me explain to you my side of the story.

Some of you might already know this about me, but I really don't scare. My friends, and especially my roommate, think that I am overly desensitized to horror, and who knows, maybe they're right. However, one of the only things that can get to me is cannibalism. I can't help it, the idea of being eaten while you're still alive is, in my opinion, that absolute worst way to die. Seriously, I can't even deal with it.

This is why I generally give movies like 'The Hills Have Eyes' and 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' a wide berth. So, obviously, this is a statement that extends to Zombie films. It's only been the past couple of years that I've really been able to make myself sit down and watch zombie films without getting nauseous and generally a bit freaky.

It's really only on account of films like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, and Fido that this girl was able to ease into the zombie genre.

Now that I've rambled about me, as I am like to do, Let's actually talk about The Dead Set.



The premise of The Dead Set revolves around the ever-popular British Reality Series Big Brother. Which, for those of you not in the know about this sort of thing, Big Brother is a show where a group of people are kept in a house together, secluded from all contact with the outside world. There are cameras installed everywhere within the house, so that the inhabitants are constantly being recorded, and there's also a "diary room" where people sit and talk into a private camera, generally about who in the house that they hate.

Every so often certain inhabitants are nominated to be "evicted" from the house, and the British public gets to vote for who they want out. Whichever housemate lasts through the series without being evicted gets a cash prize. In a creepy George Orwell-ian tribute, there is a giant glowing eye in the house through which a voice reminds the inhabitants that 'Big brother is watching you'.

I don't get it, but hey, my only real experience with the Big Brother franchise before this was an episode of Doctor Who.

So the heart of The Dead Set revolves around the fictitious group of current housemates, and the people who work behind the scenes producing and what have you.

The heroine of the series is arguably Kelly, who begins the story as a 'runner' on the show. Kelly and her boyfriend are in a bit of a tiff, which shouldn't be anything we care about, except that the boyfriend, Riq, is to become the window into the world outside the studio... so it's a little bit relevant.

It's eviction night, so tempers and what have you are up, everyone is stressed, inside and outside of the house. But the people in the studio are too caught up in the night of Big Brother that they entirely ignore the impending Zombie Apocalypse.

There is even a monitor that the backstage crew is watching, that has the news, showing what is happening outside in all its gores detail. Yet, the main concern is that 'Big Brother might be getting bumped for the news. Oh noes.

So, of course, no one knows/cares that there is a herd of zombies headed towards the crowd of Big Brother fans clustered outside the studio. So as the crowd is turned into flesh eating monsters, the zombie army quadruples, and really at that point it doesn't take much work at all for them to blunder, flailing, into the studio.

There aren't a lot places to run, hide, or make quick getaways to within that building, so the crew starts to drop like flies.



Kelly, in a feat of admirable Bad-ass-ery, manages to fight her way through the waves upon waves of former friends and coworkers, armed with only a large pair of scissors, until she makes it into the 'Big Brother' house.

To more or less set the majority of the case up to not be missed as they start dropping like flies, the housemates are pretty much idiots when Kelly comes stumbling into their house covered in blood and whispering about "the things outside".

In a fit of being a complete asshole, the one contestant not only starts to call Kelly, essentially, a dumb bitch, but then goes on to start impersonating the brother from the beginning of 'Night of the Living Dead' ; Lurching towards her with his arms out and saying "THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU BARBRA!"

Because in that film, being a complete douchebag and saying that sort of thing ended so well for him.

People are dumb.

Anyway.

After mocking Kelly incessantly, that same douchebag decides to open the door that empties into the studio, letting a zombie into their former safe haven.

Smooth move Exlax.

I'm sure you can guess that it all goes even further to Hell in a hand basket past that point.




One thing that 'The Dead Set' tackled pretty well in its storytelling was the look at the human psyche, and what people are willing to do or act like during a crisis.

Prime examples come in the form of when the housemates finally realize that Kelly told the truth, as they look out at the flood of zombies behind their wall, and one of them says

"Does this mean that we aren't on telly anymore?"

Then there's Riq, and struggle to make his way to the studio, and to Kelly. Furthermore is the woman he teams up with along the way, who tells him that he hasn't had to do anything to survive, and how she had to shoot her best friend in the face in order to stay alive.

And there's always Kelly's boss, Patrick, who is more than willing to damn all the other survivors if it gives him the remotest chance of getting out of the compound alive.

So it could be argued that theme of 'The Dead Set', is that humanity is being destroyed by its own vanity. Which would make sense, given that zombie films have, in the past, often been means of conveying social commentary through the horror medium. And it's not as though there weren't many homages to George A. Romero throughout the mini-series anyway.

Unlike the Romero zombie franchise, however, the zombies of The Dead Set seem slightly more akin to those in 28 Days Later, in the sense that they can seriously run like hell.

While not a huge zombie fan, I take issue with this. In 28 Days Later it made sense, because it was more of a virus film than a zombie one, and it was virus that made you essentially rabid. These aren't rabid humans though, these are your run of the mill zombies, and anything that is pretty much hunks of un-refrigerated dead meat should not be impersonating Flo Jo.

I mean, because really, they are these rotting, festering things. Shouldn't they be too busy decomposing and taking on the traits of rigor mortis to be doing a 5k jog? I could be wrong, but it just doesn't make sense to me.

Also, I was amazed that Britain, which usually shies away from graphic violence, went so all-out with the gore of this thing. Really now, it was the sort of thing I would expect from Eli Roth or Rob Zombie, not my good friends across the pond.

There was a scene where a man is ripped apart and eaten, and the whole time he is bellowing at the zombies. And oh yes, the camera shows you everything in gut-wrenching detail. I was overjoyed. That was sarcasm.

So here's the thing kids; I think that if you were a dyed in the wool zombie fanatic, this just might be your cup of tea. If you're squeamish, you should probably just shuffle away as fast as your little legs can carry you.



Okay, so I don't want you to go away from this thinking that The Dead Set is merit-less. There are some definite good things about it.

For one, it has absolutely stunning cinematography. Once you get past the gore factor involved here, they framing and coloration of each scene is done in such perfection that the arty film nerd in me wanted to kiss the camera man and the editor of this thing.

There are also some EXTREMELY funny moments inside this. Sure, some of them are jokes that you feel like an eight year old boy for laughing at, but they are laughs all the same.

And there are a few characters, mainly Kelly and Riq, who you genuinely like and have sympathy for. You really want those kids to make it through the nightmare. And truly, a production is nothing without a hero or heroine that you can get behind.

I also have to give props to 'The Dead Set' for its realistic non-Disney ending.

In closing, let me just say, that 'The Dead Set' is only for the zombie enthusiast or those with extremely strong stomachs. If you had to shut your eyes during either Saw or Hostel, you'll really want to skip it all together. And if you don't, well, you were warned so don't come crying to me when you upheave your dinner.

So that's that I guess my darlings.

Until I get around to another of the 45165484798 reviews I'm behind on writing I'll just say:

Love and kisses

♥
Spooky Pie