OctoBOOr 23rd: XTRO, dir. Harry Bromley Davenport, 1982 (United Kingdom). 0.5/5 pumpkins.

“…”

I should be thankful for XTRO. I got quite a bit accomplished while watching it: checked my e-mail – both personal and work, wrote a blurb or two for the blog, gchatted with some friends, went and heated up some Pop-Tarts…it’s too bad that being engaged by it wasn’t one of them. If the previous night’s selection, Sleepy Hollow, proved how vital the British studio Hammer was to horror, XTRO goes to show how far the state of horror across the pond was after Hammer stopped producing films in the early ‘70s. It lacks any character development, discernible plot, subtlety, or class – the film’s only claim to fame are its admittedly gross special effects, including an alien proboscis rape and a full-grown man being birthed by the unlucky rapee. There’s absolutely no verve to the direction, the dialogue is stale and the acting even more so, and the soundtrack is grating in the extreme. Future Bond girl Maryam d'Abo gets naked, so if you spent an early adolescence oogling her in The Living Daylights, that’s a treat. The film takes a decidedly surreal turn around the climax, which is incomprehensible and signifies nothing, but at least provides a break from the constantly bland shots of a pasty English kid manipulating toys with his mind. I’m doubly disappointed by this one, because XTRO was one of those VHS covers I longingly gazed at as a kid, wanting to rent but forbidden to do so by the parents. I should have known they had my best interests at heart all along.

OctoBOOr 20th: Dog Soldiers, dir. Neil Marshall, 2002 (United Kingdom). 2.5/5 pumpkins. 

“I'm still not convinced these things didn't just escape from the local nut-house and forget to shave or trim their nails.”

Pity the werewolf. He’s been saddled with sub-par films for years now. You could count on one hand the number of truly great (or at least enjoyably pulp) lycanthrope films released over the years. The debut effort from Neil Marshall aims high, but ultimately falls very short of entering the pantheon. The plot very much resembles that of 1981’s Southern Comfort, where a routine training mission in the middle of nowhere (bayou country for Comfort, the Scottish highlands here) quickly spirals out of control when the team encounters hostile locals, with both films eventually ending up in claustrophobic environs. Marshall’s follow-up film to this – and the one his reputation deservedly rests on – The Descent, was very much a film about female empowerment, which makes the sausage-fest of this film feel oddly out of place. To be sure, Marshall makes outwardly “guy” films, but the lone female character in this film is oddly inserted and ends up only confusing and muddling the plot. The plot promises more than it can realistically deliver, parceling out bits of intrigue that never add up to anything, and the revelations leading directly to the climax inspire reactions of “Huh?” rather than anything approaching satisfaction. The acting is usually strong enough (it’s a shame Christopher Eccleston was too old to play a private, because the lead role was basically written for him), dialogue consists of mostly standard guys-ribbing-on-each-other quips, and most of the werewolves themselves seem to have been done practically instead of being CG creations, which garners a lot of goodwill. That said, Marshall clearly has the training wheels on this time out – the noose-tightening command of suspense and the suffocating claustrophobia that characterized The Descent are sorely lacking here, and his action setpieces are nowhere near as well-orchestrated as future efforts such as Centurion or Game of Thrones. It’s a long way from here to the Battle of Blackwater.