Sunday 3 April 2011

Horror: UK vs US

Sod it, this is going to contain spoilers. On the other hand, these are horror movies I'm talking about, it's not like the plot it overly complicated...

First up is the entry from the lands of the English: Spiderhole. This features four friends (I presume, they don't actually seem to like each other that much) who decide to kick off the carefree life style of squatting, with no sign of food, electricity or adequate plumbing. But that's all right because they've interrupted some crazy person intent on killing them because... meh, we only get some thin excuse for it really, something about the killer saw his father tortured, so now he's an insane doctor or something... What it comes down to is they get picked off one by one, and then are butchered or... die anyway, the exact method isn't always clear. And, ultimately, no-one cares. This is not a good movie. No sense of tension building, no interest in seeing anyone get out alive, and when she gets the chance, she doesn't bother trying to kill the guy... bah...

On the other hand, from across the waves from the land of the freedom fries, we have: Husk. A car of friends encounters a bird strike on their windscreen and they crash into a corn field. Immediately, they separate and head into the field... only they fail to get killed straight away. Instead they find a house and some scarecrows, and the scarecrows get more numerous as they are turned into them. Because... there's some supernatural menace around because some kid didn't like doing his chores... or didn't like his brother... or who the smeg knows. Unlike the above, this is a decent movie, they actually do set up atmosphere, and the supernatural element lends a lot to the creepiness of it, especially in the sewing room. There is one annoying moment of this big set up that is completely failed to be paid off, but otherwise this is quite watchable.

And so this time the winner is... the colonials...

[END]

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