Bloodsoaked Ponderings: The Strangers

Horror movies that are based on purported true events always seem to catch us folks at a little more unease than others. After all, it is much easier to be afraid of the things that could actually happen to us than the more fantastical or make-believe. That is where this film draws its’ greatest strength; it’s sheer plausibility is what grabs us all by the jowls and shakes the life out of us. The film opens drearily, an awkward silence pervading a car ride between two lovers’. James, played by Scott Speedman of the Underworld series fame, and Kristen, played by Liv Tyler who played Arwen in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, had been enjoying a fine night at a friend’s wedding before James himself proposed to Kristen, with a night ahead planned of celebration at his family’s summer cabin. However, Kristen tenderly declines, leading to the current predicament; an awkward silence so biting, we can feel it ourselves as viewers across the screen. At times it feels like the ride will never end, however this interaction is crucial to the film, and it highlights something of note. By opening the film, and prior to any lunacy, with this display of emotion between the two characters, we have built legitimate sympathy for the characters, something that regularly does not happen in the genre of horror. Instead of a couple of sex-crazed, dim-witted teenagers; we have two young thirty-somethings attempting to deal with rejection and guilt about an extremely sensitive subject, which is hard to watch as they will need each other more than ever in a few short scenes. This is all before we even get to the madness that will soon occur. I thoroughly enjoy the build up this film really buys itself into. The tension that predicates the arrival of the mayhem is nearly unbearable. Without trying to spoil the fun bits, let’s just say that the scares aren’t cheap, will make you nearly empty your bowels even on repeated viewings and totally will deprive you of sleep for days. The scene of Kristen smoking a cigarette in the kitchen will go down as easily garnering the single most insane crowd reaction of any scene in any film ever, to me. Being there in the audience when this came out confirms my prior declaration, not to mention my own personal heart palpitations I was experiencing in a scene where zero physical or psychological horror was occurring to the characters. This film was purportedly inspired by the events of the Manson Family slayings, as well as the Keddie Cabin Murders of 1981. I own the Unrated Director’s Cut, and thoroughly enjoy the added scenes and dialogue put back into the film, it helps to flesh out the story, create another layer of sympathy and relation to the characters and only drives home the insanity of the whole thing. Arguably, The Strangers hits closest to home of all the ten entries. If you’re about home-invasion thrillers, especially a really well made one, check this out

A Cultural and Social Analysis of The Green Inferno

Here’s a piece I wrote for my college English course titled Horror in Literature, a contemporary cultural and social analysis of the film The Green Inferno, released last year in theaters by director Eli Roth.

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Newly released Eli Roth picture, The Green Inferno, is a tour-de-force and game-changing cannibal horror film that hearkens back to the days of the great Italian meat devouring flicks of the seventies. Horror films that immerse themselves in the cannibalism sub-genre are generally steeped in various forms of commentary, be it social or political or religious.The Green Inferno, released in the United States on September 25th of this year, follows the hellish journey of college freshman Justine, who gets caught up in the fast paced world of social activism. Here I think Roth’s addition to the subgenre is the most effective entry to date. The Green Inferno sets out to send a message; the “sexy”, “high stakes, high rewards”, and “get famous” life of being a social justice warrior can do more harm than good; achieving this point with a smattering of great, subtle messages imbedded in scenes, giving the audience a healthy dose of perversity and some great special effects to tie up the whole theme with a nice gore smattered ribbon.

Up to the director, social commentary is no stranger to cannibal flicks; each director, be it Roth or Deodato, has little messages about his contemporary society that he subliminally projects throughout the film be it in commentary, plot or effects. For Deodato, his film Cannibal Holocaust is as much a film on civilized versus uncivilized society as it is about a tribe dismembering and devouring a group of American filmmakers. For Eli Roth however, more relatable to us as well, his film The Green Inferno, is as much a commentary on young teenagers getting rent to shreds as it is a film on the dangers of ill informed social activism.

Our first minutes into the film, we’re introduced to Justine, a deer-in-the-headlights freshman at a New York university, seeing an activist group in protest, and becoming immediately caught up in the bravado and proceedings.  They’re on the campus ground, they’re getting people’s attention and they’re getting psyched up in their own frenzy of uninformed self righteousness and vindication; it’s quite the rush to be a part of something, and especially for a good cause, or so they think, Joining the group, after some dramatic fanfare, Justine immediately takes part in a huge advocacy mission; to stop deforestation in the Amazon that threatens to wipe out indigenous tribes that live deep in the rainforest. These “poor, innocent” people are being casually slaughtered, and sent off their land, by corporations seeking to gain the rich minerals and resources in the land beneath the tribes. As social justice warriors, they need to protect these tribes at any cost; finding funding from a local man named Carlos, who brings them to the rainforest to stop these companies firsthand. Dressing in the logging companies uniforms, and chaining themselves to trees, they think they’re making a difference, and they do, stopping the machines for the day and streaming it live for the world to see. Roth sets up this group to be almost sickeningly “goody goody”, they exude this self absorbed sense of doing the right thing and it nearly makes you want to watch them get eaten (whoops, this actually happens).

They’re on the way home. a successful mission in the books, celebrating their biggest triumph and counting Youtube views when disaster strikes. Their plane’s engines blow up, and they’re crash landing deep in the Amazon. Some of the passengers and crew die, but wait! Great news! The tribe they were protecting is here to save them! But wait, only one issue, they’re still in the uniforms, and that means trouble. They’re sedated, and brought back by canoe to the village, and mayhem commences. Roths’ film is so brilliant in that it effectively comments on just how sometimes, we can do more harm than good when helping others, even if we think what we’re doing is best. The remaining members of the group, captive in their cell learn from their leader that their sponsor, Carlos, who funded them money to save the tribe was actually a CEO of a rival deforestation company that sought to plow the land for his own company instead of the other corporation. This revelation is almost as shocking to the social justice warriors as their current situation. Jokes on them, and Roth’s reveal is a shockingly good one at that. All of their fanfare, protesting, and the deaths of some of their friends wasn’t for the cause they thought it was for. You’ve seen this type of social crusading before, whether it be Occupy Wall Street or Save the Dolphins or Down with The Patriarchy, where these college kids get so into the cause without really knowing what it’s about, but here, in The Green Inferno, these kids actually get in way over their heads and pay dearly for it. They get gorged on, devoured and dismantled for the cause; and truthfully, it’s oddly satisfying. Talk about perverse!

Roth’s picture excels at hitting the nail on the head when it comes to social activism, and gives it to us in the form of social justice warriors getting their due, one bite at a time. One interesting aspect of horror that this film, and all films in the subgenres get done right at a astoundingly great level is the idea of perversity. doing something that you know you shouldn’t do simply because you know you shouldn’t do it; in this case viewing the act of cannibalism, or by default taking part in it. The villagers regularly take one of the group for dismemberment and cooking, and by virtue of being bystanders, they are taking part in act that they know they certainly should not be a part of; involuntarily or not, they are acting perversely. At one point in the film, unbeknownst to them; the villagers feed them a stew with pieces of their dead friend, but one of them soon figures it out before slitting her own throat.

This film truly is a stalwart entry into the often controversial subgenre of the cannibal horror film, giving solid commentary on a modern issue while still playing up one commonplace trope of the horror genre, perversity. It’s truly a spectacle, living up to its’ tagline: “Redefining modern horror”; and it’s well worth checking out, it’s a personal favorite.