The Hamiltons (2006)

Totally spoiler heavy.
Sorry, but I'm blowing this thing wide open.

My local film rental place is closing. It's sad but I'm a LOVEFiLMer, so it's partly my fault. Anyway, they are selling off all their stock, so I managed to pick up two films I was interested in seeing. The Hamiltons was one of them.

Slipped inside the case was a piece of paper, with this typed on it:

"Michael Recommends:
THE HAMILTONS
A rare beast this, with first-time directing team the 'Butcher Brothers' shedding new light on an old legend in a smart, uncompromising fashion.
While it's not exactly terrifying it is definitely original and unerringly brutal. Leagues ahead of 'gorno' pics like SAW and HOSTEL, this entwines its inherent nastiness with a web of American-indie smarts. The results are both surprising and strangely satisfying."

I don't know who Michael is - presumably an employee. What I do know, is that he's talking bollocks.

Having not paid attention when reading the above, the "new light on an old legend" went over my pretty lil' head. Therefore, I went into this assuming it was about a family of fucked-up homicidal teenagers - and this is how it is played, until the final reveal.

Before dealing with that however, let's talk about the film generally.

Four young adults - and whatever it is they keep locked in the basement - have to fend for themselves in a new town after both parents die (we aren't told how). David, the eldest, seems to have needlessly adopted a ridiculous side-parting in his hair since becoming the man of the house. The twins Wendell and Darlene, have an incestuous relationship which is only marginally more disconcerting than the girl's complete lack of acting ability. The youngest sibling, Francis, sees what is going on in his home and hates it, spending most of the film wandering around or laying on his bed looking tortured.

All of them know, if not are directly involved with the family's pastime of picking up people who won't be missed, taking them home and killing them.

However, within the household there are varying degrees of comfort with this arrangement. Francis wants to help the girls he finds strung up in the basement, David reluctantly goes about his murders with a sense of duty and the twins make their kills into games, enjoying and getting off on them.

This sounds like ample fodder, right? Wrong. The plot is paper thin, with nothing much of anything happening. The closest we get to tension is when Francis seems on the brink of going to the authorities... but then doesn't. Ah well!

And the closest we get to the "unerringly brutal" of which Michael speaks, is this shot:

I don't know about you, but that doesn't do an awful lot for me.

A lot of the worst crimes are committed off screen - which is fine, it's an indie film and the FX budget wasn't huge, I can understand that. Yet in order to make hidden atrocities work, the viewer needs to (a) care about what was happening, and (b) care about who it is happening to. Apologies, the Butcher Brothers, but this just wasn't the case here. It's not brutal, it's a series of faintly grisly scenes which punctuate an otherwise dull, poorly acted 86 minutes.

The most interesting thing about The Hamiltons, is the twist. Interesting in the sense that it made me yell: "WHAT?! Fucking vampires?!" as this happened...

Yup. They are a family of vamps. Or... humans with some kind of vamp/blood related disease. They aren't mindless killers man, they're just trying to survive. Oh jesus.

The big unveiling of "Lenny"? The thing that's been screaming and rattling the bars of its cage underneath the house for the entire movie? Well, judging by the heavily pregnant mother in early footage of the family, we assume it's the infant in some form. In what form though? I was hoping for some fucked up mutated foetus thing, some gooey effects if we're lucky. What did we actually get?

Aw, his little blood soaked bedroom.

Build build build aaaaaand...

Yeah, that's Lenny. I literally wrote "LOL @ Lenny" in my notes, which about sums it up I think.

So on a re-watch (NB: I wouldn't have bothered if I didn't have to cap it), the viewer picks up on Francis running his tongue across his teeth, being off his food and zoning out in a restaurant when faced with rare, bloody meat. Whereas previously we'd assumed he was in some kind of shock from the knowledge of what his family are up to, in hindsight it's clear he is undergoing a change.

Something like the vampire equivalent of puberty? I don't know, they don't tell us, we don't ultimately care.

By the end of the film Francis seems all of sudden fine with what he is, though. He's friends with his siblings again and they all pack up and move town. The last line is David greeting their new neighbours and introducing the clan as "the Thompsons". Please god don't let that be a set up for a sequel.

The Nights of Terror / Le Notti del terrore (1981).

Whoo, another Final Girl Film Club!

I had to buy the DVD from eBay as it doesn't seem to be widely available in the UK. Which is a shame, because it is some pretty great Italian sleazy silly horror fare.

The Nights of Terror was directed by Andrea Bianchi and also goes by the name of Zombie 3, one of three movies to do so in fact; the others being Zombi Holocaust (1980) and La orgía de los muertos (1973). The Zombi series of films all gets terribly confusing, but I hope I'm not being presumptuous here when I state that I doubt the two films mentioned above are quite as curiously entertaining as this one.

The set up is that a professor with an immense beard manages to reanimate the dead whilst working in a crypt. He finds a stone tablet with what looks to have Wingdings etched onto it...

...and the next thing he knows some reanimated corpses are advancing on him. Laying the foundations for all of the death scenes in this film, he doesn't run away or attempt to put up any real fight with the decomposing attackers. He pleads with them, tells them "I'm your friend!" and then gets eaten. Offal for everyone!

For a reason not explained, he had previously called a group of couples (and one very odd child) to the house, to tell them of his discovery. They have no idea what he was up to, and therefore no idea that as they frolic through the house and grounds, the undead are slowly but steadily closing in, bent on eating the flesh of each and every one. Who will survive and what will be left of them? Etc etc.

So the group of socialites arrive, oblivious to the impending doom that's shuffling up the hill toward them. They think nothing of the prof not greeting them when they get there, and set about making themselves at home in the gorgeous surroundings of the vast villa.

Making themselves at home involves having sex, of course. One of the women finds some raunchy underwear in a trunk(?) and parades around in it. Then her partner utters one of the more memorable lines in the movie:

"You look just like a little whore - but I like that in a girl."

Classic.

Evelyn (Maria Angela Giordano) checks on her son Michael (Peter Bark) before indulging in any bedroom antics. She finds him seemingly asleep - but is he really?

Anyone who writes about this film has to mention Bark. Due to the incest/oedipal subplot in this film, a child actor could not be used. Step up one Peter Bark, a midget thespian and, as many other reviewers have said before me, potentially far creepier than the zombies in this film. I mean, just look at the guy.

"Young" Michael (I think he's meant to be about ten or eleven?) has an unhealthy obsession with his mother. After escaping a zombie attack, he takes the opportunity to make a move on Ma.

He's rewarded with a slap in the face, and runs off, returning later as one of the undead - still holding a fascination with his mother's breasts. Deliriously happy to have her son back with her, Evelyn finally permits him a suckle. Bad idea.

This storyline makes an already crazy film one hell of a lot crazier. It's brilliant.

I can't go any further without a mention of the zombies. Artist Giannetto De Rossi was Fulci's favoured one, and you can tell. These zombs are of the "we are going to eat you!" variety, which means heavily decomposed, wormy, robed. They look like they are part clay, like they have merged with the earth somehow after burial. They totally rock.

My favourite is probably this one however:

I am a big fan of the one staring eye. He reminds me of Dr Tongue, too, I think it's the hair.

As an aside, one of the "newer" therefore less rotting members of the zombie horde in this film, really looks like my mate Rob.

 and

When any walking corpses meet a sticky end, the pleasing effects work continues. We have shotgun blasts to the head, making them explode in an unsettling dry, dusty manner; we have noggins being smashed in with rocks, disintegrating into large pieces. One assumes that the thick make-up was just being knocked off, but it looks amazing as it crunches to bits and falls off of the actor's head.

Watching these zombies has made me question how I do my make up for zombie walks. I think things are going to get much more putrefied in future. These guys are genuinely unsettling.

In many ways the zombies come across as somewhat smarter than the humans; as they surround the villa and relentlessly pick off victims. They are also adept at using tools. One scene involves the maid meeting a grisly end as a zombie wields a scythe...! In an excellent sequence, she is pinned and then beheaded from beneath the window she is leaning out of. Shadows are utilised to hide what the fx couldn't stretch to. Never mind that she probably could have escaped, had she really thought about it - it works well and was the best death scene in the movie.

I'm so glad I enjoyed this film. I feel like I have watched a lot of shit horror lately. Yes, the people are stupid, the acting is questionable and dubbed sex noises are one of the most un-erotic things ever. Yes, the closing quote has two spelling errors in it:

But I don't care. There's boobies, oedipal issues, quotable lines and amazing electronic music on the soundtrack. This film delivered. It's also as old as I am. Go team '81!

Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

How many Amityville films are there? Why do I keep putting emphasis on the wrong syllable of the word "Amityville"? Where do I recognise Rutanya Alda from? Is this a sequel or prequel to the original film? And if it's a prequel, why is it called Amityville II?

These and many other questions will not be answered in the following Final Girl Film Club review.

I confess I never "got" the first film. I caught it on TV once, and having heard of it thought it must be decent, surely? Ho, oh to be young and naive again.

This film tells the story of the family who lived in the house with the evil eyes beforehand (although different websites tell me different things) and what became of them. The "diabolical influence" inside the house, built on an ancient Indian burial ground(!) and how it possessed certain family members and led to their destruction.

The family are fairly riddled with issues from the get-go. Dad is abusive; mother is at her wit's end trying to keep the family together and turning to religion for guidance; the two eldest children get along way too easily for teenagers of opposite gender and the two youngest do this kind of thing for laughs:

I repeat: this was before any demonic intervention! So it's pretty much a finger buffet for malignant spirits in this household.

Lamentably, again, we have a case of the plot sounding promising but questionable acting, dodgy ill-advised effects and pacing problems taking most of the punch away.

Floating paintbrushes. More Mary Poppins than haunted house.

To my delight the 99mins didn't pass completely without its effective moments. My two favourites being the scene which sees the already tactile brother and sister get even closer in a way close relatives probably shouldn't.

Being an only child, depictions of incest do not disturb me too much, but this segment was surprisingly uncomfortable to watch. One of the most unsettling things about the scene itself is just how far the girl lets her brother go before appearing even remotely concerned about what is happening.

Afterwards we are shown her confessing her sin to a priest, uttering a line I thought was one of the best in the movie: "We do not love each other. He does it to hurt God."

My second favourite point was the way in which it was revealed who was killed in the massacre at the house. It is set early in the morning, looking bright and cold; the priest arrives too late to save anyone, instead all he can do is bless the bodies as they are removed by the police.

It must be the stark, hand-held documentary style in which this is shot, as there is something I found really quite heartbreaking about it, even though I wasn't that attached to the characters in question.

Despite these two nicely unnerving episodes, Amityville II unfortunately doesn't get elevated from mediocrity into anything scarier or more entertaining. Nor do the cheesy instances pack quite enough cheese to make this a fun schlocky horror. It's just maddeningly stuck in the middle somewhere.

It also feels like two very separate halves. The relatively subtle haunted house yarn and the far more OTT possession and exorcism conclusion. In the first half we have flying paintbrushes, spinning beds and popping electrical sockets (and all I kept thinking was The Money Pit), in the second we have licked crucifixes, rivers of blood and The Fly-like body horror.

The two don't sit completely awkwardly next to one another... but they don't exactly meld perfectly, either. It felt to me like a decision should have been made as to what kind of film this was going to be, and stuck with. The haunted house culminating in family tragedy could have been the entire plot, with the stark depressing body bag sequence ending it on a nice downer. OR it could have gone balls out from the beginning with all the fun of goo and bleeding walls. Both shoved together just feels disjointed and untidy.

The last glide through the destroyed innards of the house, and up to the attic where the priest sits bloody and exhausted is undeniably impressive. However even this is over-egged. It should have concluded with us simply reaching him - fade to black - end. Instead we are treated to needless pulsing latex effects to really hammer home what his fate will be. Argh, no! We get it!

One sentence to sum this film up? Okay then... It has given me a hankerin' for The Exorcist.