Regular Columns

Last week, I offered my paean to King of the Hill. Today, another recent European horror film, which also has a mountain setting: the Norwegian Cold Prey. If King of the Hill was related to the slasher in terms of the idea of the characters being stalked through the countryside by a killer who could strike at any moment, Cold Prey fits far more comfortably within the slasher subgenre. It is, after all, ultimately the story of a group of young people running afoul of a giant masked maniac. Hardly original, I know. But it is how Cold Prey handles its familiar material that produces a delightful gust of fresh air.

Two couples and a fifth wheel head off to the mountains for some off-trail snowboarding. The fifth wheel breaks his leg partway down the slope, rather inconveniently in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately (or so our heroes think, since they don't know what kind of movie they're in), there's a mountain resort nearby. It turns out to be abandoned, but it's shelter, and they can make do. But then, of course, it further turns out that it is not completely abandoned, and one by one they come to gruesome ends.

The European horror revival continues apace. Today's entry in the please-don't-remake-it category is the 2007 Spanish entry King of the Hill, directed by Gonzalo López-Gallego. It's another case of a simple premise worked out rigorously, and with great skill. Leonardo Sbaraglia plays Quim, a man on his way though the Spanish countryside. Stopping at a filling station, he has a quickie encounter with shoplifter Bea (María Valverde) in the washroom, after which he discovers that she has lifted his wallet. Catching sight of her vehicle heading up a mountain road, he takes the detour in pursuit. Then, once he is well off the beaten track, nicely far away from civilization as he knows it, he sees a glint on a mountain peak, and then a bullet hits his car.

From that moment on, things very rapidly become much more bizarre and much, much worse. Before long, he and Bea (whose car has also been disabled by the mysterious sniper) are on the run through mountains. They don't know why they are being targeted, and they cannot see their attacker, and therein lies the simple brilliance of the premise. Sure, we've seen many a rural stalking film, be it Deliverance, Rituals, Friday the 13^th, or even The Edge (where the stalker is a bear instead of a person). All of these films play on the vulnerability the urbanite in particular will feel in the wilderness. All directions look the same, there are no landmarks, there is no shelter, there are no means of calling for help, the human form is dwarfed in the chaotic immensity, and danger can come from anywhere. King of the Hill takes this idea a step further in that the killer doesn't even have to be anywhere near his victims to strike them down. His reach is infinite.

A few days ago (and with my advancing age and failing memory, I cannot now recall precisely where), I read a commentator who essentially bemoaned the fact that every single piece of celluloid dreck ever to hit the grindhouse, drive-in, or VHS remainder bin is now being repackaged as a “Cult Classic” on DVD.  There is something to this criticism, but I would argue that, in the final analysis, this is no bad thing.

First, though, let me acknowledge the validity of the point. There is no doubt that many of the films being released with this description are certainly no classics, and just as certainly not the subject of the adoration of any cult worthy of the name. For instance, one of the Welcome to the Grindhouse double-bills is a combo of Policewomen and Las Vegas Lady. Now, maybe, maybe there is someone (or more than one someone) out there who was pining for these titles, someone for whom these were formative viewing experiences (or, which might be a teensy, eensy, weensy bit more likely, whose posters were formative viewing experiences). Maybe. But not likely. Honesty forces me to admit that I haven’t viewed the disc yet, so take my comments with a suitable amount of salt, but by all accounts, the films don’t even rank as decent sleaze, but are rather mere filler.

This past weekend, the Goya Awards were handed out. These are Spain’s equivalent to the Oscars. And during those awards, there was a moment that, for followers of mainstream film, must surely portend the End of Days, but which for fans of psychotronic or paracinema is tantamount to the Raputre itself: the lifetime achievement award was presented to Jess Franco.

Check out the YouTube video. There are no subtitles, but a longer version of the clip montage is available as “The Life and Times of Jess Franco,” and it has (somewhat dodgy) subs. Some of the highlights of the Goya footage are as follows. As the montage rolls, the audience is being told:

Not one to let being late to the party get in the way of verbiage, allow me now to add my voice to the chorus of praise for Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In. Though it has, in some quarters, been referred to as the anti-Twilight, but such a designation does no justice at all to a film as complex, witty, moving and gloriously horrific as this one.

Scripted by John Ajvide Lindqvist (based on his novel of the same name), and set in a dreary 70s Sweden that would have Ingmar Bergman nodding in appreciative recognition, this is the tale of Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), a shy, sensitive 12-year-old. His divorced parents have little time for him, but Conny (Patrik Rydmark), the school bully, has plenty. Life is thus pretty miserable, and Oskar spends many an evening hanging around the sad-looking playground of the apartment complex where he lives. One night, he meets Eli (Lina Leandersson), who appears to be a young girl his age, even though she feels no need to wear winter clothing. Eli is, in fact, a vampire, and is accompanied by Håkan (Per Ragnar), her aging Renfield figure, who is having increasing trouble harvesting blood for her. His attempts are both horrific in their detail, and hilarious as they start to go wrong. At any rate, the two outsiders soon bond, and Oskar begins to blossom and find inner strength, even as he penetrates deeper into Eli’s dark world.