Film Reviews
VAMPIRE DRAMA THIRST (18) 133min ●●●●●
The success of Twilight has inevitably paved the way for a glut of vampire- themed movies of varying merit. But Park Chan-wook’s Thirst is well worth sinking your teeth into. Admittedly overlong and occasionally disjointed, the film nevertheless offers a bold new take on the genre that’s wickedly amusing and strangely moving. When Father Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho) volunteers for a medical experiment designed to eradicate a killer virus sweeping his homeland, he becomes infected and requires a transfusion that turns him into a vampire. Once home, he must juggle his dependence with a newfound sexual appetite for Tae-ju (Kim Ok-vin), the wife of a childhood friend who is seeking her own escape.
Just as he did with his Oldboy
trilogy, Park has created an involving human drama out of a dark, violent premise. Song’s conflicted priest provides a fascinating anti-hero, juggling issues of faith with survival, while Kim’s Tae-ju steals the show as she transforms from mild-mannered innocent to all-consuming vamp. Not every idea is fully realised and
the film takes some odd directions but a killer final third ensures that this vampire tale lives long in the memory. (Rob Carnevale) ■ General release from Fri 16 Oct.
SPOOF DOCUMENTARY LE DONK & SCOR-ZAY-ZEE (15) 71min ●●●●●
After the relative extravagance of his 80s-set skinhead film This is England, Shane Meadows returns to his roots with this mock-rockumentary road movie made in the spirit of the low-fi, no-budget shorts with which the Midlands-born filmmaker began his impressive career.
Meadows’ latest was actually made to launch, by example, a new five-day filmmaking scheme being set up by the director in conjunction with the new-ish film production arm of Warp Records. In keeping with the working week shooting schedule, Meadows and his mate and regular lead Paddy Considine started filming with nothing more than a character, loutish rock band roadie Le Donk, and the idea of making a moc-doc (in which Meadows plays himself to nice self-referential effect). As filming commenced in the boys’ home turf Meadows chanced on local rapper Scor- zay-zee (as in the guy who made Goodfellas), who turned out to be such a musical and comic gift they used him to shape a storyline involving Le Donk taking the lad on the road to an Arctic Monkeys concert with the hope of combining roadie-ing with breaking a new talent.
In a fortunate turn of events that further blurs the line between fact and fiction, Alex Turner and the rest of the Monkeys caught Scor-zay-zee performing a cheeky pre-soundcheck rap and ended up asking him and Le Donk to open their show.
All of which is wonderfully serendipitous, but nevertheless is no guarantee of a good film. Thankfully, another enjoyably eccentric characterisation from Considine, here playing an obnoxious tosser with delusions of grandeur, a few priceless moments from the strangely sphinx-like Scor-zay- zee, and Meadows’ sure sense for improvisation and natural gift with daft humour makes this mock-rock-doc a real laugh-out-loud pleasure. Comparisons to This is Spinal Tap are wholly justified. (Miles Fielder) ■ Selected release from Fri 9 Oct.
PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER TRIANGLE (15) 98min ●●●●●
Christopher Smith’s CV so far comprises the lamentable Creep and the far better Severance. Triangle, his third film, falls somewhere between the two. A psychological thriller with supernatural elements, the film is designed to chill and keep you guessing but is ultimately sunk by a repetitive plot that struggles to grip or stand up to scrutiny.
When single mother Jess (Melissa George) is invited to join Greg (Michael Dorman) for a day aboard a yacht with friends she agrees. But following a sudden and violent storm, which causes the vessel to capsize, she’s forced to board an ocean liner she feels she has visited before . . . with violent consequences.
With its obvious mix of The Shining and The Twilight Zone, Triangle has plenty going for it and certainly maintains the tension during its clever build-up. But once Jess is forced to keep chasing previous incarnations of herself in a bid to save her friends, the film hits choppy waters.
The numerous plot holes strain credibility, performances suffer and the intrigue
begins to waver until the final act reveal offers only a moderately satisfying outcome. By then, however, the film’s ability to shock has been severely dampened. (Rob Carnevale) ■ General release from Fri 16 Oct.
48 THE LIST 8–22 Oct 2009
www.list.co.uk/film ALSO RELEASED
Couples Retreat (15) 110min Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn are all grown up since Swingers and are now here, buddying it up as a part of four couples who hit their 40s and end up mistakenly entering into a compulsory couples therapy retreat on a luxury island resort. Cue lots of daft slapstick and a smearing of schmaltz, barbed with plenty of acerbic one-liners. The Creek (18) 85min ●●●●● Formulaic no-budget horror in which a group of friends are forced to reunite by their dead friend’s ghost. They return to the scene of his death but strangely start being offed, one by one. Love Happens (12A) 109min ●●●●● Jennifer Aniston adds fuel to the fire that she’s a one-hit wonder with this muddled, befuddled not very rom and not very com mess with Aaron Eckart. The nonsensical title (Love Happens – is that equivocal to ‘shit happens’?) should be enough to set alarm bells ringing. Zombieland (15) 80min ●●●●● Zombieland is pitched somewhere between From Dusk Till Dawn and Anchorman with a nod of the stetson to George A Romero’s zombie flicks. Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin are four disparate characters hell- bent on surviving a world overrun by Zombies. It lacks the wit of Shaun of the Dead, but is big, dumb and fun anyway. Ong-Bak: The Beginning (15) 98min ●●●●● Master martial arts star Tony Jaa shows his chops in considerable style – a style that has found him compared favourably to Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li – in this action packed tale of an orphan brought up by a gang of thieves who trains to avenge the deaths of his parents by a fearsome warlord. Halloween II (15) 105min ●●●●● Rob Zombie makes his own sequel to his own remake of the horror classic where he puts putrid flesh on the bones (and gives him a mother. What?) of that ultimate senseless killing machine Michael Myers. A potentially pointless exercise in some ways perhaps but he beefs up the backstory and Zombie’s singular stylistic flourishes are still well worth a look.