Unseen Terror 2015: Day 25

Jess is a single mother with an autistic son named Tommy, whom she has been planning on taking out for a boat trip. While her companions wait for her at the docks, she ends up arriving alone, appearing to be quite shaken. The small group commences sailing, with several of these strangers reacquainting or introducing themselves to Jess. A lengthy amount of time passes, and a strange, seemingly unavoidable storm appears in the sky before them. During this chaos, the boat is flipped, and one person disappears after it has passed. Panicked, but still optimistic, the gang spots an ocean liner approaching, and they proceed to scream for help before boarding it. Oddly enough, the ship appears to be abandoned, but Jess can't seem to shake the feeling that this vessel seems eerily, disturbingly familiar.



Man.


Just....man.


Yesterday, I revisited France's Martyrs, a sinister effort that I initially dismissed back in the day, only to find myself being able to appreciate it more upon a second viewing. It was twisted, unique, and wholly memorable, shooting itself into the top ten of films that I have eyeballed thus far. Basically, what many feel is lacking from a large chunk of scary movies that are relatively easy to obtain. For what feels like the first time since the earliest entries in this year's Unseen Terror, I feel that we have the very rare one-two combo with back-to-back flicks that are equals to one another in terms of quality and originality, though this foray into psychological terror from British director Christopher Smith (Black Death, Severance), simply known as Triangle, deserves far more attention than it has received by now.


If one were to google pictures of a production such as this, your first thoughts would be most likely be "Ryan, this just appears to be another run-of-the-mill "killer on the loose" or slasher movie, but set out at sea rather than anywhere on land. Considering all that is out there for viewing and how some of the plots and characters are interchangeable, you can't fool me into watching this."

"You've got some attitude mister."

Triangle could possibly be the hardest piece of media of which I must try to not spoil anything, proving to be more difficult than anything that I've had to deal with in a very long time, be it for this blog-o-thon or just for an average review. Its plot is more akin to complex puzzles such as Christopher Nolan's Memento, and by god you must absolutely pay attention to every minor detail, so as to not get lost and fully grasp every single action taken by its characters. Though the cast of characters assembled may not be unusually complex or uncommon themselves, Melissa George (30 Days Of Night, Dark City) is sensational as the fragile, alert, and fascinating lead protagonist Jess. Admittedly, it does take a tiny amount of time for you to start getting into and relating to her as its heroine, but the possibility of the woman sticking around in your mind and sympathizing with her is quite high.

A rather random observation also hit me during its ninety nine minute running time: the thought of being stuck at sea, especially when you are quite far from land with seemingly no salvation in sight, is quite terrifying. Perhaps that's to blame on Robert Humphreys, the head of cinematography, who accentuates the negatives of the ocean surrounding our befuddled cast. It certainly doesn't help that composer Christian Henson (The Devil's Double) composes a very simple, quiet, creepy song that plays throughout a decent amount of Triangle, only adding to the curious, foreign atmosphere. Any motion picture that can make you feel claustrophobic, even when you're on a vehicle that has decks aplenty, has to be commended.

Even with a tendency to get swallowed up by moments of confusion and occasionally swerving into "mindfuck" territory (which is unavoidable given the subject matter that takes hold at the beginning of its second act), I can not tell you enough times that you should seek this out in some way, shape, or form. With apologies to 2007's entry The Signal, I believe that Triangle may have yanked the trophy for "most underrated" away from it with gusto, and after reminding myself of what else is to come this week, it is going to be even more difficult for something to repeat its own actions of such award thievery. If you're feeling up to watching it with a handicap (of sorts), Triangle is available in multipart videos on social networking sites such as Youtube. It can also be rented on streaming giant Amazon Prime, and can be purchased on DVD (Region 1) and Blu-Ray (Region 2) from various websites.

Tomorrow, we have to deal with.....*sigh* M. Night Shyamalan. Hopefully, it will be the first and last time he shall make an appearance on here.

Unseen Terror 2014: Day 21

The Winners are a struggling rock and roll band on the verge of breaking up. Vocalist Joey is convinced that should their next tour flop, it will spell the end and lead to a life of boredom and complacency. After a gig, their bassist Jennifer runs off with a mysterious stranger, promising to return in the morning for their trip to the next city of their itinerary. While she does indeed live up to her promise, she comes back looking a little paler and hungrier than before, and the band slowly discovers that their bass player has become one of the undead. Much to their surprise, this proves to be anything but a detriment, instead leading to previously-unseen interest in their uncluttered tunes.


Back in February and/or March, I had plans to do a small mini-marathon entitled "The Blockbuster Bunch," which would have focused on a myriad of titles that my cheap self picked up from the now-defunct video rental chain. The bad news is that thanks to laziness, this never fully materialized (though it may later if time is on my side this holiday season). The good news is that quite a few of these flicks have made their way onto this year's list, including The Midnight Meat Train, Dead Sushi, and Overtime. Today, I'm taking a chance on another one of these random picks, writer/director Rob Stefaniuk's rock and roll vampire-comedy Suck.


And boy am I glad that I did. For the past few days, I had been suffering through some real dreck, proving to my friends that I may in fact be a masochist (that or just willing to watch what nobody else will). When a movie as fun as Suck comes along, it's the type of experience that makes you forget the pains of those previous entries. For starters, everyone just looks like they're having a good time filming and starring in this picture, and thankfully don't forsake keeping the audience entertained as well. Suck's cast is surprisingly large too considering that it wasn't filmed with the highest of budgets (travel montages are made of claymation sequences). From the realm of music, we get Henry Rollins as a loudmouthed DJ, Alex Lifeson of Rush as a Canadian border guard, Alice Cooper as a bartender, and Burning Brides/Off! guitarist Dimitri Coats (looking like a combination of Jack White and Johnny Depp's portrayal of the Mad Hatter) as the vampiric musician who turns Jennifer into a bloodsucker. There are quite a few more to look out for, but for the sake of this review, I won't say who shows up and where. Malcolm McDowell also turns up as a vampire hunter with a connection to Coats' character (and spouts possibly the best line in the movie). In a cool little trick, they use and edit footage from 1973's O Lucky Man! for flashback sequences, wherein McDowell himself was a young man in his 30s.


Not letting the cameos make up most of the praise, the band and their crew (particularly their VERY French-Canadian roadie Hugo) provide some entertaining and purposely comedic moments as well. As I've done once before so far during this year's countdown, I'll have to let my primal male instincts out for once: Jessica Pare's Jennifer, bassist for the band and frontman Joey's ex-girlfriend, is stupidly, undeniably attractive, and probably the best-looking female vampire that I've seen in at least a decade. Don't let the looks fool you though, since Suck reminds you that while vampires may be "cool" in this day and age thanks to mainstream successes like Twilight and similar ilk, they are still horrifying monsters with an appetite for death and murder. As of the time of this writing, I'm not certain as to whether the band themselves were playing their own tunes, but I sure hope that was the case. In this universe, the Winners might be viewed as a band whose tunes as less-than-spectacular and impassioned, but damn are some of them catchy. The aforementioned Burning Brides also contribute two songs to the picture, including the pretty great and gloomy "Flesh and Bone," whose video you can view down below.

All of that fellating aside, and as much as I thought that the build to the inevitable was very pleasing, it does make for a somewhat rushed climax. Suck also boasts quite a few moments of over-the-top content, and while that kind of goes hand in hand with rock and roll, it may turn some people off. Me though? I've sat through men getting their penises ripped off by cheap-looking bigfoot costumes in this year's iteration, and I've also had to watch a Leprechaun movie without a real god damn leprechaun, so I didn't have a problem whatsoever.


So, you see kids? There IS such a thing as a great blind buy in this day and age. Suck might sport one of the simpler, and debatably stupider titles in recent memory (which could be one of the reasons as to why most pass it over in favor of other films), but it's definitely worth your time considering that it mostly flew under the radar with only a select few hearing about its very limited theatrical release. If you can find this for a decently cheap price, or at the very least, on an accessible streaming site that isn't outrageously expensive, give it a watch one afternoon or evening with some likeminded friends and fans of horror-comedies based around the devil's music, for which I know there aren't a lot to choose from.



Besides, getting to see Henry Rollins with hair again is worth the price alone.



Tomorrow, I stay hungry (hardy har har) and dig into Ravenous!