THE BURROWERS: A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW

First glimpsed by Australian audiences at the 2009 Melbourne Film Festival, J.T. Petty's The Burrowers all but vanished from the public's eye. SCREEN-SPACE's second Retrospective Review aims to bring this undervalued creature feature the prominence it deserves.

Stars: Clancy Brown, William Mapother, Karl Geary, Doug Hutchison, Laura Leighton and Jocelin Donahue.
Writer/Director: J.T. Petty

Rating: 3.5/5

An atmospheric, slightly loopy mix of western lore and monster movie shocks – best described as The Searchers meets The Thing – The Burrowers is a very cool movie. Director J.T Petty's nasty romp followed up Alex Turner's Dead Birds (2004) and preceeded John Geddes Exit Humanity (2011) in Old West/monster movie mash-up genre; it may well be the best of them.

In 1879, the earliest white settlers are barely surviving in homesteads far removed from civilisation. When a young family goes missing, a band of misfit idealists and gruff men of the land set out on a journey into the Dakota wilderness to find them. For Fergus Coffey (Karl Geary), the mission is personal - he was to marry the beautiful Maryanne (Jocelin Donahue); Will Parcher (William Mapother) and John Clay (Clancy Brown) are experienced Indian fighters, convinced the local natives have abducted and murdered the family.

At first relying on the sociopathic leader of the local army battalion, Henry Victor (Doug Hutchison, a veteran of similar monster-movie madness, having starred as ‘Eugene Tooms’ in The X-Files), the group soon break away to travel the open plains alone. But it is when night falls, and the long grasses near their campfire hum with the drooling evilness of the creatures from beneath the earth, that the film takes flight as a monster movie of shuddering effectiveness.

Petty adapts his own episodic internet series with many of the same cast, including Brown and Mapother (cousin of Thomas Cruise Mapother III). He knows these characters very well and fleshes them out to terrific comic and dramatic effect. But best of all, he knows what scares us. His sinewy monsters, stalking the unaware on all fours, their boney elbows and knees protruding like those of bats scurrying across open ground, are very effective. He keeps them and the mystery of their existence hidden for much of the film, finally unleashing their physicality and true horror in a final reel shocker.

Though shot on a measly US$7million budget, The Burrowers recreates the early West and envisions pure evil with an A-grade attention to detail. As a throwback to the great B-movies of years gone by, it echoes the middle America-vs-monster movie Tremors (1990), the astronauts-vs-monster movie Alien (1979) and the lost campers-vs-monster movie Prophecy (1979). Like those films, The Burrowers is a choice example of this paranoid, claustrophobic, tummy-tightening genre.

THE COLLECTOR: A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW

Pulled from its planned Australian cinema run by a tentative distributor, Marcus Dunstan's 2009 horror opus The Collector has gone to find much favour amongst DVD cultists. With the announcement at the San Diego Comic-Con this week that Dunstan is nearing completion of post-production on its sequel, The Collection, SCREEN-SPACE examines where the collecting began in the first of our new Retrospective Review series.

 

THE COLLECTOR

Stars: Juan Fernandez, Josh Stewart, Michael Reilly Burke, Andrea Roth, Madeline Zima and Karley Scott Collins.
Writers: Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan.
Director: Marcus Dunstan

Rating: 3.5/5

Bestowing any worthy words upon the repellent genre known as torture-porn immediately induces stomach- twinging pangs of guilt, but it is impossible to deny that Marcus Dunstan’s The Collector is a film of considerable style and effective story-telling.

Our reluctant hero is petty crim Arkin (Josh Stewart), whose job as a security-systems installer for wealthy home owners allows him to case mansions, aiding his true vocation – burglar. Late one night, he returns to the isolated country home of Michael (Michael Reilly Burke) and Victoria Chase (Andrea Roth), assuming the house to be empty. To his growing horror, however, he realises he has stumbled upon a full-blown nightmare of carnage and sadism, as the Chase family has been made playthings for the sick mind of The Collector (veteran character actor Juan Fernández, unseen behind a leather mask).

The Collector has wired the house with a variety of brilliantly malicious booby-traps, all designed to a) ensure that escape for anyone inside the house is impossible, and b) provide the most cinematically-graphic means of support-character disposal as possible. Initially, Arkin just wants out but, having bonded with the youngest daughter Hannah (Karley Scott Collins) and learning of her presence in the house of horrors, he turns saviour; he also met teen-vixen older daughter Jill (Madeline Zima), though her sexually-aggressive antics condemn her under horror film rules, so little time or effort is invested in her character.

Writer/director Dunstan, emerging from the ‘creative’ team behind a bevy of the Saw films, takes this relatively simple conceit and milks it for maximum chills. That said, much of the film’s gut-level effectiveness comes from his staging of some truly hideous moments; scenes involving fish-hooks, cockroaches, Alsatian guard dogs and bear traps go pretty close to crossing the line, as does the involvement of pre-teen actress Collins, who is party to several particularly heinous acts. (And cat owners...trust me, avoid at all costs).

There’s a 1980s ‘video-nasties’ nostalgia about the horrors on show in The Collector. Dunstan relishes in the details of his villain’s handiwork – a notable trait from a time when the likes of Friday the 13^th’s Jason Vorhees, Halloween’s Michael Myers or ...Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger were who the crowds came to root for. Unlike those films, who cast support roles based upon how loud auditionees could scream, The Collector has a strong co-lead in Josh Stewart; empathy for this wayward character and a depth that some deftly-handled backstory provides is very welcome. 

Collaborators on the film all seem at the top of their game – the film benefits from atmospheric, dreamlike lighting; Jerome Dillon’s music nods to electro-soundtrack maestros, Tangerine Dream; and restrained, precise editing, especially of scenes shot in slow-motion, adds to the overall ‘waking-nightmare’ impact.

The ending, staged with a wildly-indulgent sense of Grand Guignol, certainly points to the forthcoming sequel with visions of a multi-episode slasher franchise featuring the hooded torturer a very likely home-video prospect.

FREAK ME OUT AT SFF 2012

The Sydney Film Festival’s resident ghoul Richard Kuipers, curator of this year’s Freak Me Out horror movie strand, has programmed six cutting-edge works from diverse corners of the globe – the US, UK, France and Japan (as well as shorts from Australia and Spain). We take a look at what to expect from the world’s most warped visionaries.

HAROLD’S GOING STIFF

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL Screenings – Wed 6 Jun 8.30pm; Wed 13 Jun 8.15pm.

What the SFF Program says... - Fashioned in the style of a BBC regional documentary about a sensitive local health issue, Keith Wright's very funny and surprisingly touching tale investigates 'Onset Rigors Disease', a mystery illness turning men in the north of England into something resembling bloodthirsty ghouls. Complete with a hilariously inept vigilante squad of gormless gits whose members are more brain-dead than the monsters they're hunting, Harold's Going Stiff is a truly original horror gem.
What the critics say.... – “Harold’s Going Stiff plays out the anxiety surrounding ageing in a bittersweet, engaging story, as embodied by professional actors and non-actors who really make you care about their characters.” Keri O’Shea, Brutal as Hell.

KILLER JOE

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL Screenings – Thur 7 Jun 9.00pm; Thur 14 Jun 9.10pm.

What the SFF Program says....- Veteran director William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) gets down and very dirty with this juicy crime noir. Sleazy, salacious, darkly comic and with jaw-dropping scenes of conduct unbecoming even the low-lifes depicted here, Killer Joe is killer stuff.
What the critics say.... – “The William Friedkin of The French Connection and The Exorcist may be but a distant memory, but Killer Joe proves that at 76 the Academy Award-winning director is certainly no back number.” Neil Young, The Hollywood Reporter.

LIVID

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL Screenings – Fri 8 Jun, 8.45pm; Fri 15 Jun 8.30pm.

What the SFF Program says... - Vampire ballerinas and some particularly nasty ghosts run amok in this scary and visually stylish slice of gothic horror. Filmmaking duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo weave a tingly atmosphere of dread around Lucie, a young homecare nurse whose decrepit and apparently comatose patient is said to have hidden a fortune somewhere in her creepy old mansion. Evoking the classy Euro horrors of past masters Mario Bava and Jean Rollin while dishing up a very modern helping of carnage,  Livid is primed to please gorehounds and arthouse buffs alike.
What the critics say....- “LIVID feels poetic and entirely drenched in the nightmare logic of more stylistically-concerned foreign horror. It’s exciting and enthralling, and showcases some of the best imagery, production design and art direction you’re likely to see this year.” Samuel Zimmerman, Fangoria.

OK, GOOD

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL Screenings – Sat 9 Jun 9.00pm; Sat 16 Jun 9.15pm.

What the SFF Program says... - Director and co-writer Daniel Martinico constructs a riveting and suspenseful portrait of a performer whose growing inability to communicate in situations where there's no script is turning him into a ticking time bomb of inner rage. With a powerhouse central performance from actor and co-writer Hugo Armstrong, this slow-burn portrait of isolation and alienation achieves maximum results from its minimalist structure.
What the critics say....- “Through the slow, steady accumulation of seemingly random but increasingly portentous details, helmer Daniel Martinico fashions a riveting portrait of an actor on the verge of a nervous breakdown -- or, quite possibly, something worse.” Joe Leydon, Variety.

EXCISION (pictured, above)

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL Screenings – Sun 10 Jun 9.00pm; Tue 12 Jun 8.30pm.

What the SFF Program says... - Psychodrama, melodrama and surreal shock-horror collide memorably in the story of Pauline, a very bright and very disturbed high school student who isn't kidding when she says, "I have borderline personality disorder." AnnaLynne McCord (pictured, left) is a knockout in the lead, and Traci Lords proves yet again she's the finest actress ever to emerge from adult films with her spot-on performance as Pauline's stitched-up mother. Look for Malcolm McDowell as a teacher and cult film kingpin John Waters as a church minister (!) on a hopeless mission to help this most difficult of young parishioners.
What the critics say....- “Ms. McCord's consistently unhinged performance...makes Excision so much offbeat, creepy, challenging fun.” Scott Weinberg, FEAR.net.

THE WARPED FOREST

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL Screenings – Mon 11 Jun 9.00pm; Sun 17 Jun 9.30pm.

What the SFF Program says... - Dreamt up by Japanese cult figure Shunichiro Miki (Funky Forest: The First Contact) this beautifully designed and photographed exercise in unrestrained imagination is frequently hilarious, sometimes grotesque and constantly compelling in the very strangest and most delightful of ways. Highly unlikely to ever pop up in multiplexes, but is sure to linger long in the memory of anyone willing to approach its wonderfully eccentric charms.
What the critics say....- “This one-of-a-kind pic makes no apparent sense, but is compelling in the strangest of ways.” Richard Kuipers, Variety.

CANNES CRITICS MAUL DARIO'S DRACULA

The Croisette ran red with the blood of Argento's Bram Stoker redux, so cutting were the critics reactions.

The latest opus from horror legend Dario Argento was met with jeers and walkouts at the 65^th Cannes Film Festival. Revered for his horror classics Suspiria, Deep Red, Inferno, Phenomena and Tenebrae, the Italian ‘Maestro of the Macabre’ has spent the last 36 hours on the media merry-go-round, fielding questions regarding the dismal response to his latest work, Dracula 3D.

A lurid adaptation of Bram Stoker’s literary classic shot in the rich reds and blacks for which the director is famous, Argento corralled a cast that includes Rutger Hauer as vampire-hunter Van Helsing, the director’s daughter, screen siren Asia Argento (left, with her father at the Cannes premiere), as Lucy and respected German actor Thomas Kretschmann (Below, clowning with his director) as The Count. Shot in ‘Stereoscopic 3D’, the grand production is a French/Spanish/Italian co-production budgeted at Euro5,000,000.

In the film’s festival press-kit, Argento somewhat abstractly states “I was very faithful to the story, but not to the character of Dracula as we’ve come to know him all these years. In fact, I added many aspects to his personality from my imaginary world.”

The internet was buzzing with negative feedback to the trailer, but any work from the Giallo master is keenly anticipated and the film had been afforded the first Midnight Screening slot at the 2012 event – a prestige placement reserved for significant genre works.

But it was soon clear that Argento’s latest was far from his best. In one of the first reviews published, David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called it “risible gothic trash.” Observing that Argento was “a director stuck in stylistic gridlock for well over a decade now”, Rooney went on to observe that Kretschmann “heads an old-school Europudding cast – an orgy of different acting styles, poorly post-synched into stiff English” and that “the 3D serves mainly to make the whole sad, cadaverous enterprise more ludicrous.”

Soon, the wave of negative opinion in the wake of the screening surfaced. The horror-friendly site Film School Rejects was gentler than some, saying “In short, it’s shit, but that doesn’t mean people won’t still love it;” Chris Haydon of Filmoria.com said it was one of “the most boneheaded, preposterous and inane versions of the story I’ve ever seen;”

Movie.com’s Eric D. Snider was amused, suggesting the film would be “laughable if it were the first film by a Hollywood producer's nephew.” But he soon sharpened his critical claws, stating “As the twenty-first feature by a 71-year-old genre veteran, it's embarrassing.”

Dracula 3D’s theatrical fate remains uncertain. So fiercely underwhelming was the response from the Cannes media, it is unlikely the film will travel into foreign cinemas. That is an pricey predicament for the producers of the relatively expensive film and particularly dire given the full effect of the 3D technology will be lost as a home video item.  

DIRECTOR JAMES ISAAC PASSES AWAY

At age 51, director and renowned special effects technician James Isaac has passed away, finally succumbing to corporeal cancer.

(Pictured, Isaac, left in red, with Pig Hunt producer Robert Mailer Anderson)

Only 20 when hired by the Return of the Jedi production team as creature technician (he was integral to the scenes aboard Jabba the Hutt’s barge), Isaac quickly established a reputation as one of the most talented visual effects men in the business, especially in the pre-CGI realm of creature design. Under the mentorship of the great Chris Walas, Isaac’s talent would be utilised on such films as Gremlins, Enemy Mine, Deepstar Six, House II and Virtuosity.

Isaac would work closely with the man he credits as his inspiration, David Cronenberg, on The Fly, Naked Lunch and eXistenZ. Overnight, Cronenberg told genre bible Fangoria magazine, “Jim and I became very close friends collaborating on my movies, starting with THE FLY in 1985 and ending with his directing me in JASON X in 2000. He was funny, friendly, insightful, inventive and a great comrade-in-arms. It’s hard to believe we won’t get to play together again.”

Isaac was thrust into directing when he replaced David Blyth on the troubled production The Horror Show (aka House III), but it would be 12 more years before he would take full duties on his best known work, Jason X. Staying within the horror genre, he would helm only two more films - the cult werewolf tale Skinwalkers and what would be his final film, the wild-boar thriller Pig Hunt (“Fans tired of rote remakes and ripoffs will appreciate the pic's idiosyncrasy,” said Variety).

Isaac is survived by a wife and young family. Due to ongoing treatment for his disease, no projects were listed as in-development.