Undomesticated Cannibals, Ghosts, Wildlife

Yep, four more new ones (as of this e-scribbling). It’s almost like there’s some sort of, I don’t know, “film factory” churning these things out night and day. And yet with all these market fresh movies on the docket, no one has made me a lucrative offer to cameo as a monster, first victim, or celebrity walk-on. (I’m not really a celebrity – but I do dress like one.)

So, in case you haven’t fulfilled your daily recommended dose of infomercials…

PROOL (aka, Prey / October 13, 2016 / Netherlands)
“When the police discover the bodies of a slaughtered family living on a farm just outside of Amsterdam, they are clueless as to what happened. Lizzy, an attractive veterinarian working in the Amsterdam Zoo, confirms their suspicions; there must be a lion on the loose. And judging by the wounds of the mutilated victims, the beast must be big, strong and vicious…”

If lion/tiger gone wild horror movies are your zootopia, try The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) and Burning Bright (2010). Both are quite good. I’m not lion. Heh.

HELL HOUSE (November 1, 2016)
“Five years after an unexplained tragedy on opening night of Hell House, a Halloween haunted house tour, a documentary crew travels back to the scene of the disaster to investigate the events of that night. During an interview with one of the original staff members, they are given never-before-seen footage taken by the staff of the haunted house. It reveals the terrifying truth about what really happened on the opening night of HELL HOUSE!”

Sounds like more tired found footage crap-o-rama, the tap water plot included. For a much better take on the “haunted house tragedy” tip, start at the top: The Legend of Hell House (1973), from which this movie borrows/pays homage to/rips off its title.

THE SHELTER (November 4, 2016 / VOD; January 3, 2017 / DVD)
“On a star filled night, widower and homeless man Thomas Jacobs finds shelter for the night when he falls upon a vast two-story house with the lights on and an inviting open front door. But soon enough, he realizes that the house won’t let him leave, as its doors are all locked while its windows cannot be opened or broken. Destiny has brought Thomas to this place. What does it want from him? Will he survive the ordeal?”

A widower AND homeless? Something tells me the evil house is a Tupperware™ party compared to what he’s already lived through. But hey, a warm and dry evil house with toilet paper privileges is still better than sleeping under a bridge next to hobos who are all probably evil and/or poisonous.

ESCAPE FROM CANNIBAL FARM (2017)
“The Harver family embark on an idyllic summer camping trip to the British countryside where they can bury past tensions and enjoy some family bonding. But when their camp is sabotaged by an unseen intruder in the night, they head to the nearby creepy old farm desperate for help, where vengeful farmer Hunt Hansen and his hideously deformed son aren’t farming animals. Caged and waiting for their limbs to be severed, cooked and eaten one at a time, the Harver family must overcome their differences and unite in order to escape alive.”

Not sure what this says about me, but I totally want to see the Harver family get turned into a Sunday buffet by Hunt Hansen. I never fancied those Harvers, what with their “past tensions,” “differences” and “family bonding.” This ain’t supposed to be Leave it to Beaver (1957 – 1963). Leave it to Cleaver maybe…

Boar Gore

You know how when you’re sitting in a bar having an excessive amount of refreshing adult beverages and talking to the hobo next to you, and the topic inevitably turns to giant razorbacks rampaging around the Australian Outback and eating people? Order another drink because a movie is being made with that same subject matter.

Boar, releasing in 2016, is the bloody and violent (i.e., heartwarming) story of a monstrous razorback with jagged tusks eating people. Yeah, it’s been done many times before (Razorback/1984, Pig Hunt/2008, Chaw/2009, Prey/2010, Hogzilla/2014), but infrequent enough to warrant another romp and chomp.

Here’s what will boar us: “In the harsh, yet beautiful Australian outback lives a beast, an animal of staggering size, with a ruthless, driving need for blood and destruction. It cares for none, defends its territory with brutal force, and kills with a raw, animalistic savagery unlike any have seen before. Believed nothing more than a myth, a legend brought to life by a drunken local, the beast ventures closer to civilization, closer to life, and ultimately, closer to death. It’s brutal, it’s bloodthirsty, it’s boar.”

What makes giant hog horror movies so compelling is the creatures really exist, with some weighing in excess of 1,000 pounds. That’s a lot of breakfast makin’s. Best to stay away from these ferocious beasts and let drunk redneck hunters with machine guns put ’em on the plate for us.

Zombie Pigs: Pork and Beings

Word of warning before you watch Proie, a 2010 French horror movie about zombie hogs. There are numerous, highly graphic and gory depictions of animal damage. If that kind of stuff goons you out, this is not the movie for you. (It’s double icky.)

Proie, or Prey as it was released in the States, finds a tempestuous family reunion gathering out in the French countryside (or “woods”), where there’s a lot of back story stuff to color the characters so that you feel emotionally invested in them. What ev. The family runs a pesticides business and is headed up by dad, one cranky and tough S.O.B. Have to be if the contaminates your slinging is your only source of income.

Several recent violent animal behavior incidents have the men in the family heading out to see what the fudge: panicked deer ramming themselves into electric fences and maddened feral pigs, rotting from the inside out, chasing anything and anyone who ventures out into the overgrown forest. (Even the flora looks mean.)

The men keep hearing ominous screech-y sounds, augmented by lots of heavy grunting. (Like my neighbors on date night.) Words are said, swearing exclaimed and the men are systematically being hunted by zombie hogs who are beyond rabid, violently hungry, mega-aggressive and double icky.

It’s determined that the contaminated pesticides leaked into a nearby lake. The area’s woodland creatures chug the water. Then they mate. (Who wouldn’t after loosening up with a drink or two?) Then they give birth to mutated offspring that pursue all things human with extreme prejudice.

Where Proie excels is when they don’t show you these animal attacks –you hear the pant-soiling growls in front, behind and on the sides of you and see the tall weeds indicating something is heading your way. And they do this at night. Nerve-wracking set-up to balance the food chain.

There’s so much goopy gore and blood gushing towards the end, you kinda feel the need to bathe after watching it unfold, which it does nicely. (Just when you think this madness is ending, it throws some more twists and gunk at you several more times.)

With that, Proie is subtitled, even the animal noises. Just wish I could read so as to get a much more satisfying movie experience.