Any Columbus horror fan will tell you that North Campus Video is the only place to go for movies about slashers, monsters, zombies, and cannibals. Many of the local Blockbusters have gone so far as to eradicate the horror section altogether, peppering the Drama and Action sections with whatever lonely vestiges remain from the erstwhile genre (it's always strange to see a stately snoozer like House of Sand and Fog buttressing a glorious atrocity like House of 1000 Corpses). Lucky for us, North Campus is here to supply the goods to horror aficionados across central Ohio.
But despite the store's fine collection of mainstream, cult, and foreign horror movies, it's always a challenge to find a winning film beyond the universally-appreciated Horror 101 classics (The Exorcist, Night of the Living Dead et al). Critical hivemind sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes can be helpful when selecting a good documentary or independent film, but since critics are usually woefully off-the-mark when it comes to horror, trial and error is the only way to separate the wheat from the chaff. To make matters even worse, an alarmingly high percentage of horror movies are terrible and only a small number of those are so terrible that they're actually good.
So every time I rent a semi-obscure horror movie from North Campus, bad or good, I'm going to write a quick review of it in hopes of building a solid catalog of the scariest/funniest/weirdest horror movies. We'll start with a French repulser called Frontier(s) that came to me via my friend John Liberatore, a veritable guru of disgusting shit. Sadly the movie was not very good. And your guess is as good as mine in regards to the parentheses.
Director: Xavier Gens
Sub-genre: Torture/Slasher
Pedigree: Selected as one of 8 Films to Die For at Horrorfest 2007 but removed from the slate due to its NC-17 rating.
Synopsis: Four young Parisian robbers exploit the confusion of a political protest gone awry to pull off a heist. They retreat to the countryside to hide out for a night at a secluded hostel run by people who I can only assume are France's equivalent to American white trash (I'm not sure if "French hicks" actually exist, or if the filmmakers just wanted to make sure their film bore as many misguided similarities as possible to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a movie the vast majority of their intended audience has already seen). The backcountry hostel owners (who are later revealed to be neo-Nazis) attempt to torture, kill, and eat the photogenic urban protagonists with varying degrees of success until, after 108 minutes and 20 gallons of blood and entrails, the film mercifully ends.
The Good: Fans of pure gore won't be disappointed as Frontier(s) is the kind of movie that wears its NC-17 rating as a badge of honor. Also, the opening Parisian riot sequence is an interesting attempt by Gens to address the civil unrest beneath the surface of France's faux-idyllic baguette-noshing culture.
The Bad: Both the concept and the plotting owe way too much to Texas Chainsaw. The only major difference is in setting and let's face it: a European hostel isn't exactly the most original venue for a horror movie these days. Even the gore itself is little more than an extension of Eli Roth's Hostel (the most cringe-worthy scene involves a couple severed Achilles tendons). And as for the director's stabs at social commentary, what arch message is Gens trying to impart? That you can complain all you want about police brutality and urban strife, but count yourself lucky that you don't have to deal with all those farmboy psychos in the countryside? If we're to believe that Gens really aspires to address legitimate socio-political concerns, then the film is practically an endorsement of fascist cops as the lesser of two evils.
Verdict: Even horror fans who judge their movies largely on how many buckets of blood are spilled can probably avoid this one. There's nothing here in terms of gore, narrative, or theme that hasn't already been covered by Hostel, High Tension, The Descent, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
D -
But despite the store's fine collection of mainstream, cult, and foreign horror movies, it's always a challenge to find a winning film beyond the universally-appreciated Horror 101 classics (The Exorcist, Night of the Living Dead et al). Critical hivemind sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes can be helpful when selecting a good documentary or independent film, but since critics are usually woefully off-the-mark when it comes to horror, trial and error is the only way to separate the wheat from the chaff. To make matters even worse, an alarmingly high percentage of horror movies are terrible and only a small number of those are so terrible that they're actually good.
So every time I rent a semi-obscure horror movie from North Campus, bad or good, I'm going to write a quick review of it in hopes of building a solid catalog of the scariest/funniest/weirdest horror movies. We'll start with a French repulser called Frontier(s) that came to me via my friend John Liberatore, a veritable guru of disgusting shit. Sadly the movie was not very good. And your guess is as good as mine in regards to the parentheses.
Director: Xavier GensSub-genre: Torture/Slasher
Pedigree: Selected as one of 8 Films to Die For at Horrorfest 2007 but removed from the slate due to its NC-17 rating.
Synopsis: Four young Parisian robbers exploit the confusion of a political protest gone awry to pull off a heist. They retreat to the countryside to hide out for a night at a secluded hostel run by people who I can only assume are France's equivalent to American white trash (I'm not sure if "French hicks" actually exist, or if the filmmakers just wanted to make sure their film bore as many misguided similarities as possible to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a movie the vast majority of their intended audience has already seen). The backcountry hostel owners (who are later revealed to be neo-Nazis) attempt to torture, kill, and eat the photogenic urban protagonists with varying degrees of success until, after 108 minutes and 20 gallons of blood and entrails, the film mercifully ends.
The Good: Fans of pure gore won't be disappointed as Frontier(s) is the kind of movie that wears its NC-17 rating as a badge of honor. Also, the opening Parisian riot sequence is an interesting attempt by Gens to address the civil unrest beneath the surface of France's faux-idyllic baguette-noshing culture.
The Bad: Both the concept and the plotting owe way too much to Texas Chainsaw. The only major difference is in setting and let's face it: a European hostel isn't exactly the most original venue for a horror movie these days. Even the gore itself is little more than an extension of Eli Roth's Hostel (the most cringe-worthy scene involves a couple severed Achilles tendons). And as for the director's stabs at social commentary, what arch message is Gens trying to impart? That you can complain all you want about police brutality and urban strife, but count yourself lucky that you don't have to deal with all those farmboy psychos in the countryside? If we're to believe that Gens really aspires to address legitimate socio-political concerns, then the film is practically an endorsement of fascist cops as the lesser of two evils.
Verdict: Even horror fans who judge their movies largely on how many buckets of blood are spilled can probably avoid this one. There's nothing here in terms of gore, narrative, or theme that hasn't already been covered by Hostel, High Tension, The Descent, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
D -
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