Elite – UpcomingDiscs.com

Horror

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 25th, 2003

Synopsis

The plot unfolds with the logic of a nightmare, thereby defying linear description. Roughly,what happens is that a group of teens stage a violent escape from a rehab centre, and wind upat the house of our heroine (Lizzy Mahon). Here reality breaks down completely, as Mahon andthe others are tormented by one supernatural event after another, all of which seem to havesomething to do with the actions of Mahon’s father and grandfather. There are many strikinglybeautiful and/or …
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People From Space

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 2nd, 2003

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Synopsis

Two couples looking for something to do on the weekend decide to drive down to BeavertailLake and look for a UFO that supposedly landed there. (There’s a $100,000 reward if they findevidence.) Along the way, they squabble, meet odd characters, and get lost in the woods. Thisis another film with improvised dialogue. Improv is a tricky form to get right in films. It worksin films like Best in Show and The Blair Witch Project because a) the very forms of thosenarratives (pseud…
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Thirst

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 11th, 2003

Synopsis

Kate Davis (Chantal Contouri) is, unbeknownst to her, a descendant of Countess Bathory. Aninternational cabal of vampires kidnap Kate, take her to their industrial blood farm (wherepeople, called “blood cows,” are milked and the product is place in milk cartons). There Kate issubjected to extensive psychological conditioning, the purpose of which is to make her reclaimher heritage. The concept is interesting, taking the idea of the vampire as the upper class bleedingthe low…
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Puphedz: The Tattle-Tale Heart

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 10th, 2003

Synopsis

The story is essentially “The Tell-Tale Heart”: our protagonist, obsessed by an old man’sugly eye, kills him, buries him under the floorboards, but then loses it when he thinks he stillhears the beating heart. The short feature has a lot of affection for Poe (despite misspelling hismiddle name) and actually uses much of the actual prose from the original story, before divertinginto slapstick silliness. Not all of the jokes work, but the care and imagination that went into the…
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I Spit On Your Grave

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 30th, 2002

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Synopsis

Jennifer (Camille Keaton) leaves New York for a summer in the country. Four low-lifes rapeher, beat her, and leave her for dead. She strikes back most violently. This is the nec plus ultraof rape-revenge films, the yardstick against which all others are measured. The gang rape isharrowingly brutal, and goes on for almost half an hour. The film is cheap and raw, and has itsflaws, but is also searingly powerful in the unflinching realism of its violence. For this, and forits …
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