Hot Wax Zombies on Wheels (1999)

PLOT:

---

A body waxing business opens in a seaside California town, run by the evil, cape-wearing Yvonne (Gwen Somers). Apparently, a side effect of the waxing is becoming a mindless, sex-crazed zombie, which starts cutting into the business of lingerie store owner Sharon (Jill Miller) and barbers Mick (Jon Briddell) and Sven (Trevor Lovell). After Mick visits the waxing salon, it's up to Sharon and Sven to travel to Beverly Hills and stop Yvonne's maniacal plot to take over the world (or at least California).

PLOT:

---

Hot Wax Zombies On Wheels is a pitiful entry into the already bloated horror/comedy field, and will elicit groans from the audience for both the juvenile humour on display (often in the form of wacky sound effects) as well as the technical ineptness that fills every frame. It's the film version of a wacky morning radio show, and the result is simply annoying when it's not flat out boring.

It's difficult to not be hard on a film which obviously had the resources, meager though they appear, to be better than it is. While the acting is amateurish, the production values are fine in a straight-to-video soft-core porn kind of way. It's the lame script and often incomprehensible plot which really drag things down, as well as a director who seems to honestly think fart noises and Bennie Hill-style sped up film are the height of comedy.

On the commentary, Jill Miller mentions a scene where her character is simply having a conversation but appears to be staring into space. She's right to question it, as the choice is both bizarre and distracting and, despite some awkward explanation from director Michael Roush, seems indicitive of the problems with the film as a whole. The best low budget films turn their obvious liabilities into strengths, while this one seems to desperately be trying to convince the audience that obvious errors or weaknesses are on purpose.

It also makes the usual error of spending it's (scant 80 minute) running time winking at the audience in recognition of its badness. From the lurid, drive-in title to the hammy acting from the leads, it's obvious that nobody is meant to take this material seriously, but it serves only to push away those who might be lured in by the title. There are no zombies here, only people wandering around mumbling about getting rid of "pesky body hair". Gore is completely non-existent, and the only real exploitative element is the copious amounts of nudity. However, even that is ineptly included as the director shot most of the scenes after the fact, tacking them in randomly throughout.

Miller gives a competent performance as the lead, and while the execution of the plot is pitiful, there's no doubt that it's at least original. In fact, in more capable hands a similar plot might have been massaged into a decent satirical horror film. The few gags that do work in this film work in spite of the direction, often because of the efforts of an obviously game cast.

The film is presented by Pathfinder Home Entertainment in a perfectly watchable full-screen transfer. Most of the film was shot in a single house, and though the settings are generally bland they look fine on the DVD.

The DVD features a Commentary with director Michael Roush, actress Jill Miller, actress Catherine Brewton, and actor and producer Bill Blum. It's good natured, featuring some fun stories from the cast, but everyone involved seems to be under the impression that the film is better than it actually is. Miller states at one point that she interprets the film as a feminist statement, and I may have missed the last twenty minutes from the constant eye-rolling caused by this remark.

Also included are cast and crew bios, as well as a short photo gallery.

If you're a fan of the genre, you've seen many filmmakers do much better with much less available to them. Hot Wax Zombies On Wheels is not fun, not scary, not entertaining, not gory, and not worth the time of anyone who might think of picking it up based on the title.

Ils (2006)

As I mentioned before in my review of À l'intérieur, it appears that the Europeans have been on a roll when it comes to making sure that the horror genre stays viable.

For once, the French are leading a charge. The resurgance in Euro-horror seems to be primarily fueled by a modern revival of the Grand Guignol, now popularly known as De Nouvelles Brutalités (literally, the New Brutality).

The titles that seem to spring up in discussions of French suspense movies and horror films worth watching include À l'intérieur, Maléfique, Sheitan, Haute Tension (which I wasn't particularly fond of), Calvaire (which I found to be more weird, surreal, and disturbing rather than truly frightening), and of course, Ils.

Ils (English title: Them) is a 2006 film co-directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud, and featuring Olivia Bonamy and Michaël Cohen.

The film takes place in Romania, where we're introduced to Clementine (Bonamy), a young teacher who has recently relocated from France to a rural area somewhere near Bucharest. Her erstwhile lover and semi-successful novelist, Lucas (Cohen), has come along with her presumably to find inspiration for future material.

One fateful night, Clementine hears noises downstairs and Lucas decides to investigate. A poor choice, as the pair soon discover that their house has been invaded by a group of hooded teens that are interested in more than valuables.

Ils carries the ever misleading "based on true events" tag with it, as does it's apparent US remake, The Strangers.

While it's probably true that it's highly likely that Ils does indeed draw inspiration from several high-profile home invasions (ie. the Tate-LaBianca murders, the murders in Holcomb, Kansas that were the centerpiece of Truman Capote's novel, In Cold Blood), films like these are so visceral that they should be able to stand on their own without such unnecessary gimmicks.

The events in films with such tags only add to the urban legends that surround such occurrences rather than factual accountings, and it distracts from Ils's own worth as a perfectly fine suspense movie.

Ils presses it's finger on your pulse to make sure it is racing through nearly the entire seventy seven minute runtime. Ils also follows proudly in the footsteps of Cronenberg's The Brood, by providing a setting where the most brutal acts imaginable are perpetrated by children.

As adults, we usually assume that children are incapable of such inhumanity, but the truth is that we've probably absolved ourselves of the memory of amoral playground politics.

Even in the best slasher movies, the most menacing dismemberer of teen victims isn't the adult that knows right from wrong and chooses wrong; it is the killer whose mind is trapped inside a child's rudimentary understanding of laws and society and commits murder with no sense of pity or remorse.

The dealing of death is little more than a game of Hide & Seek to them, and they can't be reasoned with or dissuaded from their appointed task.

So far, I am three for three when it comes to enjoyment of the new crop of Euro-horror movies. Here's hoping I can keep the streak alive through Halloween.

À l'intérieur (2007)

It seems like it wasn't too long ago that horror fans counted on the influx of Japanese angry ghost movies to resurrect the horror genre from oblivion. Nowadays, our beloved European allies are picking up the slack for a lazy Hollywood machine that appears to have run out of ideas.

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed that brilliant, micro-budget Spanish pseudo-zombie mini epic, [.REC]. If you're in North America and are not tracking down a torrent of this movie to tide you over until a proper DVD release, then shame on you.

This time around, it is the wonderfully unapologetic French splatterfest, À l'intérieur, better known to North Americans as Inside and co-directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury.

The plot of À l'intérieur is stripped down and built for speed.

Maury and Bustillo have the gall to set this story near Christmas and set the stage by introducing us to Sarah (Alysson Paradis), a lonely pregnant woman mourning the loss of her husband to a terrible car accident. Poor Sarah plans on spending Christmas Eve alone and then checking herself into a hospital on Christmas Day to give birth to her child...

...or so she thinks...

Unfortunately for Sarah, she's being stalked by a completely psychotic woman (Béatrice Dalle) suffering the incredible delusion that Sarah's unborn child somehow belongs in her womb instead of Sarah's. In the fashion of proper movie psychos like The Shape from John Carpenter's horror masterpiece, Halloween, Dalle's character is referred to in the closing credits only as La Femme or The Woman.

So there you have it: One extremely vulnerable woman, one batshit insane stalker without a name, one unborn child, plenty of unlucky bystanders, and gallons and gallons of blood.

A twice-blessed event (Christmas and the birth of a child) transformed into as brutal of a struggle for survival as you'll ever see on film.

I've always maintained that movies with psycho killers frighten me the most because of the lack of a substantial amount of willful suspension of disbelief allowed to me. It's easy to wave off vampires or werewolves, but it doesn't work so much for "insane person with a pair of knitting needles lunging for your jugular." Chosing not believe in the existance of a homicidal maniac doesn't necessarily keep the homicidal maniac from believing in your existance, and if they do then you might not be existing for very long.

À l'intérieur is absolutely bone-jarring. Normally the gratuitous amount of over-the-top violence would tend to shove a movie towards the campier side of the spectrum. In this case, the violence coupled with the ruthlessness and relentlessness of Béatrice Dalle's character, La Femme, only serves to shock your senses more than usual.

As much as Sarah is determined to do what is necessary to save her life and the life of her unborn child, La Femme is even that much more determined to possess a life that she honestly believes rightfully belongs to her. The alchemy that occurs as these philosophies collide is nothing short of astounding, and Maury and Bustillo have enough faith in their script to let the action go where it will with no safety catch whatsoever.

The result is arguably one of the most memorable bloodbaths in modern horror cinema. It is Haute Tension done the way Haute Tension should've been done in the first place; all of the evil with none of the overdone melodrama.

I had to really work hard in order to track down a copy of this movie. Fortunately enough for the readers of this beloved blog, I've made pretty good time with the sales girl at Borders of Utica, Michigan and she spared no effort in transferring a copy of this DVD to her store.

Usually a film with this much notoriety or infamy is destined for a Holywood remake but personally, I can't see Hollywood touching this one with a ten-foot cattle prod.

Ironically, given the love / hate relationship that Americans have with the PG-13 rating, I don't think it's the amount of blood that would keep US audiences away from an R rated remake. I just don't think we're honestly ready for a premise this mean spirited.

Then again, if Hollywood bothered to remake Michael Heinke's Funny Games then perhaps anything is possible.