Borderland

Borderland: a movie that sucks and is shit. Not an acceptable horror movie, not a proper exploitation film, not a good crime drama. An hour and 45 minutes of annoying, bro-ish main characters, stiff and non-threatening antagonists, a dull and predictable story and less thrills than actually just driving across the U.S.-Mexico border.

The film starts out with a scene featuring a couple of Mexico City detectives (one of them, Ulises, played by the actually-decent Damian Alcazar) investigating a dark, horror-movie-perfect building. As they find themselves deeper entrenched in the building, they come across buried human remains and the remnants of what appear to be animal sacrifices. Eventually they're captured and beaten to submission by the building's occupants. Ulises passes out, waking up to find them torturing his partner, cutting off a hand and gouging out both of his eyes. They mutter some pseudo-spiritual crap, and then they shoot Ulises in the leg, telling him to go back and warn the rest of the police to stay out of their way, lest the same fate befall them. Decent beginning to a movie that quickly degenerates into utter crap.

Credits roll, and lights up on our stars, portrayed with all the skill of a wet rag by three endearingly-forgettable actors--Brian Presley as Ed, the "likeable" straight-man and eventual hero, Jake Muxworthy as Henry, the ever-smiling douchebag and leader of the pack, and the unfortunately-named Rider Strong as Phil, the naive Catholic-school boy and virgin looking for a prostitute to take his cherry from him--as three despicable college graduate frat-bros enjoying a last romp through a Mexican border town, where they hope to find nothing but booze, drugs and filthy whores for a weekend. Well, they do find all three, taking on an entirely unremarkable (though decently attractive, no doubt stepping out of the porno film set and into the bad horror film set once production wrapped on Squirting Sluts 87) woman named Valeria, drinking in pretty much every scene through the first 45 minutes, and taking mushrooms, leading to a too-long and too-intentionally-blurry scene of them having something resembling fun at a carnival. As the night at the carnival begins to wind down, Phil gets into an altercation (nothing more than a shout across a bathroom door) with a guy who's taking too long in the bathroom--the man just happens to be the horrifyingly bald murderer who tortured Ulises' partner in the beginning of the film. Later on, as Phil walks home alone from the carnival (with a teddy bear he intended to give to his prostitute girlfriend--17, with a child, and barely speaking any English,) he finds himself kidnapped, by the terrifying bald man, and taken to a strange mansion in the backwoods to be held prisoner by none other than Samwise Gamgee.

Sean Astin plays Randall, Phil's captor and an American redneck in Mexico, keeping a watch on Phil to make sure he doesn't escape or try anything stupid. Of course, something stupid is what he invariably does: in one scene, he attempts to make an escape by having Randall untie him so he can go to the bathroom, and as Randall is undoing his pants (after an expertly-groaned gay joke from the talented Sean Astin) Phil headbutts him, and then attempts to run out of the compound. Predictably, however, he doesn't escape, being lassoed and dragged back by a corpse-paint-covered man on a horse, who...we never see again.

The rest of the movie basically involves Ed, Henry and Valeria getting worried about Phil, looking for him, being denied help by the Mexican police and so on, until they find themselves in too deep and Henry gets killed by a mob of cultists, so on and so forth. You don't really miss Henry when it happens. There's one entertaining scene where Valeria finds her cousin slashed to death and decapitated on her bed, with a goat's head where hers should be. That scene, however, is ruined by the murky and oversaturated colors and the camera crew's inability or unwillingness to get a single steady shot throughout the film--all problems which plague the entire film. At any rate, Ed and Valeria eventually hook up with Ulises (the detective from the very beginning) to go after the cult who killed (regrettably) Ulises' partner and (thankfully) Henry, and are currently holding Phil prisoner.

Ed, Valeria and Ulises make it to the compound, stealthing their way through in best bad-action-movie fashion. Before they reach where Phil is being held, we do get to see a little bit of the cult's rituals. Apparently, the cult is led by a well-muscled and tattooed fanatic, and they practice some form of voodoo called Palo Myobe, for which they need a human sacrifice (for his screams, the cult leader assures Phil.) The cultists arrange in a circle, mumbling recitations and watching as Phil is cut, bound, tortured, strung up to the ceiling and, eventually, decapitated off-screen. The scene itself has little impact, likely because Phil means nothing to the audience alive and, ergo, means even less to them dead. Ed and Ulises realize that Phil has already been killed, and so Ulises sets about attempting to kill the leader while he's in the bathtub (no doubt some voodoo ritual!) Ulises manages to shoot the leader, but not before getting shot himself, and being stabbed in the back by one of the leader's concubines.

Basically, the three survivors escape the compound, and drive to the home of an elderly Mexican (who looks like some sort of mystic, but is more likely than not just a doddering old invalid) where they attempt to patch him up before he dies. He does die, obviously, and eventually Ed and Valeria discover that they've been followed by some cultists. Enter a pathetically-directed gunfight, including a pitiful and predictable scene in which Ed is nearly killed by the bald man, until (!!!) Valeria shoots the bald man in his evil bald neck at the very last second (!!!). Nobody's ever seen that before! That's sure to get the kids all excited!

If I were Valeria, I'd have let the guy kill Ed.

Anyway, after being saved by Valeria, Ed proceeds to go on a murderous rampage, killing every other cultist in sight, by way of a machete and some lousy acting. The movie ends with Ed on his knees, sweaty and covered in blood, panting and displaying his best oh-god-what-have-I-become face for the camera. A boring, predictable ending for a boring, predictable movie.

I'm sure it could have been a good film if the production wasn't so nastily slick, if the editing wasn't so purposeless, if the acting was better, if they didn't try to play to the action movie crowd, if the main character was the police officer character, if the three douchebag bro characters were gone, if everything wasn't so damn predictable, and if they made the ritual and torture scenes more disturbing. They claim that it's "inspired by true events." Perhaps if they stuck to those true events, the movie would have been more disturbing and less pedantic. That, however, is simply too many "if"s for me (I count nine ifs! A new record!) and I must accept that this will simply never be a good film. Despite Sean Astin (who, don't get me wrong, is actually wonderful in this movie) and Damian Alcazar (who is a fantastic actor who gets shamefully underutilized by this heap of trash), the movie simply never gets off the ground. It doesn't know whether it wants to be a horror movie, a crime drama, a coming-of-age story or an action movie, and for that you get a film that satisfies none of those niches. Nor does it satisfy any other niche, really. I feel nothing for any of the characters--I don't relate to them while they're alive, but I can't bring myself to cheer their deaths, either, because their deaths are simply too boring. Henry gets stabbed to death in a scene that's too dark to see, Phil gets decapitated boringly, and all of the cultists get shot or stabbed by Ed, a guy I wish hadn't been in the movie in the first place. There's nothing satisfying about this movie, save for the performances of two very fine actors (Astin and Alcazar) whose talents are wasted (and I CANNOT stress this enough--their talents are WASTED) on this bland, uninspired piece of shit movie.

Now, I can't say it deserves nothing--after all, I was (just barely) able to watch all of it, despite how absolutely boring it was. Maybe there are redeeming qualities to it that can't be picked out on a first viewing. I will say that the captions in the end credits (where they describe how over fifty human bodies where exhumed from a mass grave at the ranch) truly sent a chill down my spine--which is why I believe, if they had made the movie more based on facts and without all of the action movie tropes, it could have been a truly scary and impressive film. They could have even kept Sam Gamgee in it! I'm going to give it a low rating, but I'll rate it nonetheless, because there is potential here...it's just that the potential begins right when the movie itself ends.

Final Verdict: 1/10

Murder-Set-Pieces (2004)

Some films, regardless of their content, come with a certain degree of built-in credibility. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, for instance (an undeniable classic, don't get me wrong) is largely seen as one of film's greatest masterpieces, and it is characterized as a masterfully-crafted psychological thriller, distinguished by its artful cinematographic signature, its talented and sensitive cast, and the writing and realization of Norman Bates, a character whose distinct personality and harrowing believability have made Psycho an iconic horror film. Some films, on the other hand, come fresh from the studio with a big label pasted right on the front, saying, in big block letters, one word which perfectly describes Nick Palumbo's 2004 exploitation film Murder-Set-Pieces:

SCHLOCK.

The basic premise of Murder-Set-Pieces takes very little explanation: a psychotic neo-Nazi German immigrant, struggling with deep-rooted psychological issues, takes to habitually kidnapping young women, engaging them in rough sex and then brutally murdering and eviscerating them, taking pictures throughout the process. In the midst of all this stands the younger sister of this killer's girlfriend. From the very start, our young protagonist recognizes something strange about her sister's boyfriend, but can she manage to make her sister listen to her worries before it's too late?

I'll spare you the 82 minutes of eye-rolling and impatient sighing that you'll undoubtedly engage in should you watch this movie: no. The little girl's friend gets kidnapped, the little girl goes to the murderer's house (presumably to kill him?,) the little girl finds the man covered in blood, a fight ensues and she stabs him with a pair of scissors and runs away. Cut to an incredibly vague and confusing ending where the murderer sits on a bus and makes eyes with a young woman before raising his camera to his face, suggesting to the audience that he will kill again. Done.

If it sounds painfully derivative to you, then you've seen enough slasher movies to know that there are really few surprises to be had here. The film has nudity, bloodshed, and plenty of terrible acting (mostly from the young Jade Risser, the protagonist of the film, who seems to read her lines without fully understanding what's going on around her,) which is all par for the course with exploitation films such as this, and frankly, there's very little here which makes it special. There is gore, but it's presented in such a way as to make the violence especially mundane, and the themes which underscore the plot (mostly revolving around the psychology of a killer, and the done-to-death exploration of the supposedly-inexorable connection between violence and sexuality) are both predictable and underutilized.

All of this isn't to say, however, that there isn't fun to be had during the movie. First of all, despite the dreadful acting from the protagonist (and we ought to forgive her, because she's young and the part wasn't written particularly well anyway,) I must say that Sven Garrett, the too-insane-to-not-love antagonist, is a lot of fun to watch. His performance is over the top and entirely sincere, and so it's hard not to be compelled by his scenes--and luckily, he gets the majority of the screen time. He portrays his character (who has a tendency to make horrific objets d'art out of his victims, Ed Gein style,) as a metrosexual psychopathic photographer with an obsession with Nazism and physical fitness, and he pulls it off with genuine intensity and a believability factor that is surprisingly effective. Tony Todd (most famous for his role in Candyman, as the antagonist) also makes an appearance, here as the owner of an adult bookstore, where the Photographer stops to request a copy of a film called The Nutbag (an earlier film by Palumbo, and here portrayed as a genuine snuff film,) right before a shootout in which everyone, save for the Photographer, dies. It's a fun scene, and Tony Todd is great as always.

I also have to point out that the cinematography in Murder-Set-Pieces is genuinely great, especially for an independent film shot on such a low budget. The camera work is purposeful, artful, and effective, and there are points in the film where actual tension is genuinely felt--this is helped very much by the exquisite cinematography. The soundtrack, also, is great, and makes great use of industrial and hardcore music. The soundtrack really helps to give the film (especially the scenes which follow the Photographer through his fetishistic exploits) a gritty, midnight-movie atmosphere, and I commend the filmmaker for his use of incidental music.

In addition to these qualities, I'd also like to commend the filmmaker for making a film which is, frankly, somewhat ambitious. In most films in this genre, we tend to follow the protagonist around for an hour and a half while she (and it's almost always a young woman) watches her friends die all around her. In Murder-Set-Pieces, we spend most of the film following the antagonist, getting a view on his mind and his history, and getting a unique take on the psychology of a serial killer. Thus, Murder-Set-Pieces really is, in a practical sense, more of a psychological thriller than anything else, although the copious gore (which, by the way, is produced masterfully by Toe Tag Productions) really sends home the message that, at heart, it desperately wishes to be a splatter picture. The story-telling itself also tends to be rather experimental and non-linear: we see the Photographer killing a woman in his basement, followed by a trippy flashback to his youth where he (as a very creepy little boy) watches a young woman (and this plot point is never explained) make seductive gestures towards him. Cut to footage of the 9/11 attacks (this, too, is never explained). Cut to the little girl, struggling through her lines again. Cut to the Photographer, working out in his killing-room. The editing is spastic, fast-paced and non-linear, and this, I'll admit, is fairly ambitious. The pacing in general, by the way, is very good, and you will not be bored throughout, even if you do find yourself alternating between cursory laughs and heavy sighs throughout.

In general, Murder-Set-Pieces is schlock. It maintains a pretty shallow profile throughout, even though it may suggest depth at some points. The acting is terrible (even from Sven Garrett--I said he was fun to watch, that doesn't mean his acting was good.) The story is trite and predictable, and executed in ways we have all seen before, too many times. Despite these points, I will say that it's a fun movie to watch, as long as you refrain from taking it too seriously. What I see here is a fairly ambitious feature from a relatively young independent filmmaker, with some interesting ideas and some very good cinematography. It may be shallow and predictable, but there is still a lot of entertainment to be had.

5/10

Day One

Welcome, readers, to The Movie Geek's Hideout. My name's Jon, I am a current freshman at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD, and since I was young I've loved three things very, very much: rock music, hamburgers, and the cinematic arts. I can't say for sure what it is that first sparked my love affair with film (except for the obvious fact that most of us love movies--they're an integral aspect of contemporary culture, and have been throughout the 20th and 21st centuries) but for as long as I have had the capability to spend my time watching and enjoying movies, I have done so quite vigorously. Growing up, (and to this day,) some of my favorites have included the original Star Wars trilogy, Gremlins, the 1933 King Kong, the Back to the Future trilogy, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Over time, my tastes expanded quite rapidly and I developed a fairly eclectic and open-minded taste for movies. Some of my current and long-standing favorites, in addition to the ones listed above, are Dirty Harry, Pulp Fiction, The Big Lebowski, Apocalypse Now, Sleeper, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Forbidden Planet, Cool Hand Luke, Rear Window and Double Indemnity. I have also never been one to shy away from exploitation films, monster movies and various other "guilty pleasures," and so I am also an avid fan of the Godzilla (or Gojira, for the sake of inclusiveness) series of films, and pictures such as Reefer Madness and The Last House on the Left. Lately I have also developed a passing interest in horror movies, and I have always loved oddball comedies, chase movies, detective movies and science fiction. In all, I have seen many movies, and to list all of the ones I have liked would certainly take more time, patience and space than I have on hand right now. At any rate, below is a tentative list of reviews and features to come, and I hope that this most recent venture of mine will come to be fruitful for me and for you, my readers. Assuming that I end up having readers. Which is not a definite outcome.

Anyway, and in no particular order, here is what you should be looking forward to as a reader of The Movie Geek's Hideout:

-Review of Patton
-Review of Bullitt
-Review of Raising Arizona
-Review of Friday the 13th
-Review of Phantasm
-Review of Event Horizon
-Review of Dragonslayer
-Review of Suspiria
-Review of Heavy Metal
-Review of The Last House on the Left (1972)
-Review of From Beyond

~Jon