Dying Breed

Dying Breed (2008)

Dir Jody Dwyer

Written by Michael Boughen, Rod Morris

Starring Leigh Whannell, Mirrah Foulkes, Nathan Phillips, Melanie Vallejo

DYING BREED is one of those movies they made for those After Dark Horrorfests they used to have for a little while in the mid-2000’s, arriving the same year as FROM WITHIN and a year after BORDERLANDS. And “one of those movies” really is a pretty good description of it. Like the vast majority of AFTER DARK HORRORFEST entries (or, if we're being entirely honest, most horror movies produced in the 2000s), it’s generally competent without exactly being effective, serious-minded without exactly being interesting, gritty without exactly being scary, and based on a decent concept which never exactly develops into an actual plot. The kind of thing which is good enough that you wish it was either better or worse, instead of just sort of there.

I do like the hook, though. The film begins in Tasmania in the early 1800s, with infamous escaped convict and confessed cannibal Alexander Pearce (sporting what look to be straight-up monster teeth) killing a victim and then using the flesh to befriend the local predacious Thylacines (better known as Tasmanian Tigers). Though it’s executed without much elegance, this is clearly the opening to what can only be a pretty badass movie. Except that it then immediately abandons this setup and leaps forward in time to present day (2008), where Nina (Mirrah Foulkes, THE GIFT[ 2015]) is traveling to the Tasmanian wilderness in an effort to find proof that the Tasmanian Tiger (believe to be extinct since 1930) actually lives on, hidden, in the isolated countryside. Obviously this is a worthwhile endeavor, but she also has a personal flashback-related reason to do this: her older sister died doing the same thing several years earlier. I don't know about you, but when I have a friend or loved one die while doing something stupid and dangerous, I avoid doing that thing instead of rushing out immediately to exactly repeat the experience, but you know how it is in crazy mixed-up upside-down Australia-land. Along for the ride are her accommodating boyfriend (Leigh Whannell, COOTIES, at his most bland), his obnoxious crossbow-toting alpha male buddy Jack (Nathan Phillips, SNAKES ON A PLANE), and Jack’s cannon-fodder girlfriend (Melanie Vallejo, apparently star of one of the dozens or hundreds of Power Ranger variations). They will quickly discover evidence of the elusive Tasmanian Tiger, but even more quickly discover that the DYING BREED of the title is in fact not the elusive marsupial, but actually the backwoods inbred cannibals still indigenous to the area.

And that’s actually a shame, because there’s something genuinely intriguing going on here, thematically linking the gradual extinction of the Tasmanian Tiger (nobody ever calls it a Thylacine, because that’s the kind of movie we’re dealing with here) with the slowly dying Tasmanian wilderness village culture, killed off by encroaching modernity and a lack of fresh blood, and just as vicious as the Tasmanian Tiger when cornered. It could almost be a sort of ode to the feral outback culture which --like the Tiger itself-- became a key staple of Australian identity only as it was in its death throes (it's certainly part of the DNA of 2011's THE HUNTER, which also focuses on a hunt for the Thylacine). And tying the infamous Pearce into that history (it’s implied that he founded the film's community of inbred [spoiler] cannibals, though in reality he was captured and hanged less than a year after his escape) smartly weaves a bit of Australian home-grown folklore into the mix.

Writers Michael Boughen (Producer of THE LOVED ONES) and Rod Morris (second unit director here, in his only screenplay) and director Jody Dwyer (a few short films and nothing else) definitely seem to understand there’s something tantalizing going on here with these connections, which after all have no real narrative reason to be here and seem to be included purely for thematic purposes. Unfortunately, after having neatly assembled the raw pieces of an interesting theme, they're frustratingly unable to figure out how to actually weave them into something coherent, let alone do so within the context of a plot. And unable to think of anything interesting to do with the premise they’ve set up, they retreat almost immediately into an unexceptional HILLS HAVE EYES retread. All that stuff with the opening in 1822, the maybe not-quite-extinct Tasmanian Tiger, the talk of a dying culture… it never meaningfully informs the rest of the movie. Instead, all you get is four victims being gradually picked off by a clan of murderous inbred backwoods psychos in the most standard possible mode. It’s respectable enough as far as these things go, I suppose, but it’s not a genre I have a lot of affection for; like so many things from this era of horror, it’s too cruel and humorless to be much fun, but also way too silly and phony to be seriously disturbing. It wants to shock and horrify, it really does, and it doesn’t skimp on the sadism or the gore, but it lacks much imagination for either of those things and the merely adequate filmmaking can’t make up the difference.

This was, after all, the heyday of what came to be called, fairly or unfairly, “torture porn,” and there’s certainly more than a little of that impulse on display here. Superficially, the Redneck Inbred Cannibal Killer subgenre has a lot in common with the Slasher subgenre: a group of victims get killed off one by one in gorey, over-the-top ways by a colorful villain in both of them. But to me, there’s a crucial difference between the two subgenres in the actual mechanics of the horror. Slashers tend to be structured, at their most fundamental level, as suspense movies; we know the killer is stalking the horny teens, but mostly they don’t realize what’s going on until the big climax, when the “final girl” has to confront and escape the killer in what is hopefully an exciting chase. The Cannibal Killer subgenre, on the other hand --taking its cues from HILLS HAVE EYES and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE-- tends to eschew suspense in favor of creating a harrowing experience. The victims typically know they’re in danger almost immediately, but are unable to do much about it. They spend the whole film being terrorized and brutalized by their tormentors, completely disempowered or at least only falteringly able to offer defense. Which really describes “torture porn” at its most definitional level too, no? The emphasis is on the victim’s suffering, not necessarily on the tension over how and if they will escape, since most of the time escape, or even defense, is simply impossible. I know there are people who go for that sort of thing, and certainly in a few select cases it’s resulted in real masterpieces (TEXAS CHAINSAW, obviously), but at least to me, grueling is a much less engaging mode than gripping. And grueling is definitely what’s on DYING BREED’s agenda, but it’s just not smart or creative or well-made enough to achieve the kind of visceral potency that approach requires.

I’ll give it this, though: it’s mostly pretty rote and uninspired, but it does have one thing that it’s just great at: bear traps. Its solitary two sequences of any real potency are both bear trap porn, the first being a journey through a long, black tunnel full of them which our heroes have to gingerly navigate (and will eventually have to flee desperately through), which is a fine, sturdy bit of cringe-inducing setpiecery. Later, the film’s only “good kill” comes from one of our victims stepping in a bear trap… and then falling face-first into another bear-trap. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this little antic before in some other movie (pretty sure they do that in PUMPKINHEAD IV, for example), but it’s definitely a good one, and this time I really noticed the appealing crunching sound a human skull makes when it attempts to resist the iron teeth of death. A good show, there.

Otherwise, though, it’s a film in search of a reason to exist. Despite the exotic location and the intriguing setup, there’s not much to distinguish it from any given WRONG TURN sequel, except that with only four victims it takes way too long to get going and suffers from a lack of potential victims. Most of it isn’t very well staged (the climax, in particular, feels clunky and fragmented and confusing, like maybe they couldn’t really shoot everything they wanted and just had to make do with the bits they had) and although it is appreciably gory in places, it’s just not interesting enough to make its sadism anything but a turn-off. Case in point: its idea of the obligatory dark final twist at the end is that [spoiler] Nina survives, but only to be repeated raped and used as breeding stock by giggling toothless yokels until her death. She’s barely even a character (the story seems to posit her as the protagonist, but inexplicably dumps her to follow the men once the genre stuff gets going) but even so, that’s just no fun. The movie seems pretty pleased with itself for going there, but I dunno man, maybe I’m just getting old, but sometimes going there simply for the sake of going there isn’t enough. You need a reason to go there, and DYING BREED never really comes up with one.

Still, a good bear trap death is a good bear trap death. I’d probably watch a sequel, I dunno.

There are no martini glasses in the movie, unfortunately.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2017 CHECKLIST!

The Discreet Charm of the Killing Spree

TAGLINE	Every BODY has different taste, emphasis theirs. Also, Some Species Are Better Off Dead, which seems unnecessarily harsh.
TITLE ACCURACY	Accurate
LITERARY ADAPTATION?	No
SEQUEL?	None
REMAKE?	No
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN	Australia
HORROR SUB-GENRE	Inbred Cannibal Psychos (just a hair’s breath from CABIN IN THE WOODS ‘Zombie Redneck Torture Family’)
SLUMMING A-LISTER?	None
BELOVED HORROR ICON?	Leigh Whannell counts, I think.
NUDITY?	Just as a dismembered corpse.
SEXUAL ASSAULT?	Yeah, pretty bad scene there, even if it’s not graphic
WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK!	Animals figure heavily into the plot, but tend to be victims instead of perpetrators of violence. Think there might be a jump scare with a growling dog, though.
GHOST/ ZOMBIE / HAUNTED BUILDING?	No
POSSESSION?	No
CREEPY DOLLS?	No
EVIL CULT?	No
MADNESS?	Some
TRANSMOGRIFICATION?	No
VOYEURISM?	Someone is said to be watching this couple bone
MORAL OF THE STORY	If your sister died a horrible painful death while doing something incredibly dangerous, stop for a minute and ask yourself if you should now do the exact same thing which just killed her.

Reincarnation

Reincarnation (2005) aka Rinne aka "No, not the one where Snoop Dog finds out that there's a religion where you get to smoke week"" aka 輪廻 

Dir. Takashi Shimizu

Written by Takashi Shimizu, Masaki Adachi

Starring Yuka, Karina Nose, Kippei Shiina, Marika Matsomoto

From the director of THE GRUDGE and JU-ON (THE GRUDGE) and THE GRUDGE 2 and JU-ON (THE GRUDGE 2) not to mention JU-ON: THE CURSE and JU-ON: THE CURSE 2 comes an actual movie which is not the exact same horseshit, and hey, whaddaya know, it’s pretty good. I make fun, but actually I liked both JU-ON and it’s American remake, THE GRUDGE, pretty well. They’re well-directed, sporadically legitimately scary Japanese ghost stories with a strong American horror influence. They’re a little short on imagination (particularly when it comes to the horror, which is pretty much always just a long-haired pale-faced Japanese ghost standing somewhere creepy) but I appreciate the way that both films approach the intersection of past and present.

I mean, all ghost stories do, in a way -- ghosts are by definition the echo of some past life which continues to haunt the modern day. Many ghost movies have a flashback scene where we can see events in the ghost’s prior life. But the GRUDGE films go a little beyond that concept, giving us little vignettes where a living character has ghostly experiences, and then goes on to be a ghost which haunts the next character. It’s not (as you might expect in an American ghost story) simply an unnatural intrusion of the past into the present, but rather the continuation of the long cycle of death and horror which stretches back, presumably, into antiquity.

These are not helping hands.

I like those qualities in the GRUDGEs*, so I was particularly glad to see them reappear, in slightly different form, in a more recent Shimizu effort. REINCARNATION is even more literal about the relentless power of the past over the present (hence the title, which is not a metaphor) but it also has a nifty postmodern angle which pleasingly adds a new dimension to the whole dynamic. As you know, I generally regard postmodernism as the last refuge of a scoundrel who doesn’t have any genuinely interesting ideas. But here, it works because it subtly informs the movie’s other subtext, strengthening both.

Allow me to explain: What we’ve got here is Japanese Horror Film director Mr. Matsumura (Kippei Shiina, SHINJUKU TRIAD SOCIETY) deciding to make a film based on the real-life murders which occurred at a rural hotel 35 years in the past. Apparently, a college professor went a little off reservation and murdered his family and a 8 others before committing suicide himself. Rumor has it that he filmed the murders, but mysteriously the footage was never found. Obviously this sounds like a really cheerful production, so it’s no surprise that dozens of identical, peppy young actresses audition for the role, including one particular go-getter who effusively chirps that, having been murdered in a previous life, she’d be the ideal choice to realistically portray a murder victim (talk about your method acting!). Only, once our heroine Nagisa Sigiura (Yuka, just one name like Prince) accepts the part of the professor’s daughter, she finds herself experiencing strange events and remembering things she shouldn’t be able to know. Is she cracking up or is she somehow becoming possessed by... aw fuck it, I think we both know what’s going on here. Things go from bad to worse when the cast visits the scene of the crime, and return back to the studio to find that the director has meticulously reconstructed the entire hotel inside a giant studio set. Pretty soon, the line between the set and the real crime scene start to blur; sometimes things seem to be happening in both places (and maybe both timeframes) at once.

Free doll, seems legit.

The possession angle isn’t the freshest horror cliche around, but there is a genuine mystery as to what exactly is happening. There are a bunch of menacing ghosts lurking around, but what’s their end game? Nagisa is being taken over by the past life of the character she’s playing… but to what end? And if he’s the daughter… who is being possessed by the killer? You’d think the actor playing him, right? Well guess what, there is no actor playing the killer, part of the gimmick for Matsumura’s horror movie is that we never see him! It could be anyone! So what does that mean for our poor doomed actresses?  To the movie’s credit, a lot of stuff which seems like throwaway horror early on ends up making more sense at the end, when things come together in a surprisingly unexpected and satisfying way, and there’s even a ridiculously creepy scene where the daughter’s bizarre wall-eyed doll menaces our heroine, DEEP-RED style.

The nifty thing, though, is the way the “making a horror movie” conceit informs the more traditional “posession by past life” plot. There’s no jokey SCREAM postmodernism here, just the interesting acknowledgement that these people are giving life and permanence to a tragic event which we would maybe be happier forgetting about. It’s admirably subtle, thankfully, and no one mentions it, but of course the killer himself was filming his actions at the time, and now even though that footage has been lost they’re going back and finishing the job for him. Are they memorializing the dead, or are they just precipitating the same sad cycle of loss by forcing a new generation to relive it? Or, do they even have any choice in the matter? What exactly is being reincarnated here, and can we resist it? These questions flitter around the fringes of the story without needing to be explicitly asked, which is always for the best in a good horror story. You can certainly watch the whole thing without ever directly being confronted by these themes, but it adds some interesting texture to an otherwise engaging but standard ghost story.

I'm ready for my closeup.

Shimizu shoots with a pretty restrained style, and the film suffers from a cast of characters who aren’t especially well-developed or interesting when they’re not being menaced by ghosts. But on the other hand, there’s a real sense of disorientation and unease which permeates much of the proceedings, lending them a surreal otherworldliness. Combined with it’s unique subtext and a few unexpected twists on the standard ghost story (not to mention a really, really creepy doll), this adds up to a pretty worthwhile effort. That’s one cycle I wouldn’t mind seeing continue. But let’s lay off the sequels for awhile, OK guy? Don’t be a Don Coscarelli here, Jesus.

*Fookin ‘Groodge.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2013 CHECKLIST!

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No
• SEQUEL: No, though it's part of the 6-part "J-Horror" cycle and the After Dark Horrorfest.
• REMAKE: No
• HAMMER STUDIOS: No
• SPAGHETTI NOCTURNE: No
• MORE (PETER) CUSHING FOR THE PUSHING? No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: Yuka is supposedly a big deal singer in Japan, I don't know, though. Wikipedia says she did the end credit songs for DRAGONBALL Z movies, I'm not sure that exactly qualifies you for the A-list.
• BOOBIES: No
• DECAPITATIONS OR DE-LIMBING: Nah, plenty of stabbing, but I think limbs stay on.
• ENTRAILS? No
• CULTISTS: No
• ZOMBIES: Not quite, more like ghostly possessions.
• VAMPIRES: No
• SLASHERS: The original killer, but he's not in here much.
• CURSES: Nah, not really.
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS? Hell yeah, what the fuck is that thing!?
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: high-mid. After Dark Horrorfest deal.
• ALEX TOMMY MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Yep, and hungover as hell, too.

From Within

From Within (2008)

Dir. Phedon Papamichael Jr.

Written by Brad Keene

Starring Thomas Dekker, Elizabeth Rice, Rumer Willis, Adam Goldberg, Jared Harris

This is a nicely assembled little horror film which takes elements from other horror movies (Doppelgangers from THE ABANDONED, inexplicable suicides from THE HAPPENING, psychopathic Evangelicals from JESUS CAMP, attractive misunderstood supernatural teenage outcasts from everything) and does nothing particularly innovative with them, but still manages to be worth your time by virtue of generally not bungling a good thing.

It starts, like so many great horror movies do, with Rumer Willis. She’s kicking it with this tubby Jack White looking dude who blows his brains out, and next thing you know she’s offed herself, too. But when her dad Jared Harris (briefly stopping in on his way to the next movie set) also kicks off, the town’s stereotypical evangelical lynch mob types start to get a little suspicious of the local broody dreamy misunderstood mystery outcast (Thomas Dekker, Fievel Mousekewitz in AMERICAN TAILS III-IV, Littlefoot in LAND BEFORE TIME V-IX… man, this guy is the Larry Drake of Don Bluth DTV cartoon sequels). Stepping into this powderkeg waiting to go off in an explosion of cliches is Elizabeth Rice (Boy #1, Kid #2 in DIGIMON: THE MOVIE) who is some girl who seems to know everyone, I don’t know. Anyway, turns out people keep seeing mysterious doppelgangers who compel them to commit suicide in some impressively gristly ways (the lady who drinks a bottle of drano is a personal favorite, although the movie disappointingly avoids anything too gimmicky.) Turns out there’s a curse or something, they need to resolve it using magic.

I'm going to let you guess who is the dreamy sensitive misunderstood outcast and who is the murderous Jesus freak.

So the plot’s pretty standard for this type of thing, but like a number of these “After Dark Horrorfest” deals it’s done with surprising competence and even the occasional flash of artistry. The cinematography looks great, for one thing; I know, all these Platinum Dunes remakes look pretty and shiny now, but this one is different, it has real careful framing and a well-considered palette to subtly evoke atmosphere and tone. Turns out that although this guy Phedon Papamichael (he’s Greek, not Thai as I first assumed) is not too well known as a director, he’s been DP on a ton of great movies, including POISON IVY and BIO-DOME*. He knows how to get the most from his locations and his death scenes, which serves him well here. Surprisingly, he also does a fine job with the actors, getting solid, textured work from everyone (even, and maybe especially, the villains). Although they’re all nakedly shameless tropes, they don’t come off that way at all. Even the unlikable ones end up feeling nuanced and truthful**. And hey, Adam Goldberg gets to have his Keanu Reeves in THE GIFT guy-you-wouldn’t-expect-to-play-a-scary-redneck-asshole-but-is-actually-pretty-good moment.

FROM WITHIN is probably too pat and derivative to really fawn over, but it’s a respectable enough attempt, and easily in the top tier for After Dark Horrorfest. Its theme --which I guess is about identity?-- is a little muddled, but its direction is crisp, its scare scenes effective, its acting a cut above, and overall there’s plenty to like. Just be sure it’s really you enjoying it, and not your evil doppelganger trying to bring you down.

*I’m making fun, but he has also worked with Oliver Stone (W), George Clooney (IDES OF MARCH), Gore Verbinksi (THE WEATHER MAN), Alexander Payne (SIDEWAYS, DESCENDANTS) and Wim Wenders (THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL). So he’s the real deal.

**special high-five to Margo Harshman (THE EVEN STEVEN MOVIE?) who plays broody dreamboat’s snarky cousin. She’s an antagonistic character narratively speaking, but she heroically packs her performance with a mix of pathos and great character moments. There’s a scene where our attractive protagonists are moaning about whatever are they going to do about this curse, and she’s sitting in the background, passive aggressively playing horror movie chords on the piano. I love it.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2013 CHECKLIST!

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No
• SEQUEL: No
• REMAKE: No
• HAMMER STUDIOS: No
• SPAGHETTI NOCTURNE: No
• MORE (PETER) CUSHING FOR THE PUSHING? No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: Hmm. Jared Harris shows up again, he was in SHERLOCK HOLMES, A GAME OF SHADOWS. But still, not exactly a marquee name.
• BOOBIES: No
• DECAPITATIONS OR DE-LIMBING: No
• ENTRAILS? No
• CULTISTS: Well, fuckin nutty evangelical Christians.
• ZOMBIES: No
• VAMPIRES: No
• SLASHERS: No
• CURSES: Yeah, it's an explicit curse.
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid-high, After Dark Horrorfest pic but no wide release.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A