Tag Archives: Body Melt

House Music is EVIL’s Jam! “Rave” reviewed! (Scream Team Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Get High and Get Pumped for “Rave” on Blu-ray.

Free flowing Mimmi and her timid pal Lina are invited to an underground night club for one more illegal rave party before the building is vacated for unlawful occupation.  As the two dance the night away, Lina becomes steadily ill and as she tries for the bathroom, she begins to bleed from her skin.  Other rave goers begin to feel the same effects, spewing blood, dripping skin, and a melting away existence while the strobe lights unceasingly flicker and the deep house music pulsates into a fixed one-note bass.  Mimmi and another friend escape the party before even the first signs of the illness, hiding away to do a line cocaine, but when they’re followed by those turned into slow walking bags of oozing flesh, no longer resembling something human, her friend is brutal killed and she barely eludes the ill-fated ravers, becoming trapped inside by those liquifying creatures and a pair of masked individuals seemingly unaffected by what’s occurring around them.

Often times there comes a film that sneaks under the radar and may warrant a second watch for it to sink under the skin or into the recesses the brain’s grey matter.  For writer-director Nils Alatalo, his Swedish melt horror “Rave” is the epitome of context.  The 2020 released independent production, known as “Svartklubb” in the Swedish language, is Alatalo’s debut feature that catapults the filmmaker into the same melt movie categories held in reverence by fans of “Body Melt” or “Street Trash” while kissing the outer edges of vintage and cult iconic eurotrash from the 80’s.  “Rave” will be our consecutive watch, analyze, and review into body horror, following the more gore-gorging merge of man and machine of Davide Pesca’s “Re-Flesh” released last year.  “Rave” proclaims a more stylized and abstruse approach compared to Pesca’s grossly unconcealed transgressions of the body.  Haveri Film is the production company behind “Rave.”

“Rave” asynchronously follows two central characters beginning with the rave-reserved and dry-hesitant Lina before a switcheroo into dipping into the carefree, go-with-the-flow, drug-positive Mimmi.  Played correspondingly by Tuva Jagell (“Girls Lost”) and Isabelle Grill (“Midsommar”), the main principals are a dichotomizing pair of personalities mutually connected to each other by friendship and though Alatalo ultimately decides not to fully explore the intimacies of a cherished bond in post-climax, there’s certainly a relatability audiences will be able to understand amongst their own friendship terms, such as seemingly tired of the meekness or revel in being the dominating friend, as being fostered with empowerment, or on the opposite side of the spectrum, needing a friend to take charge, provide reassures, and be a beacon of exuberance.   However, all the letting go on inhibitions come at a cost, a deadly one at that, and when they essentially are the peak of being identical for perhaps the first time in their lives together, the closeness of Lina and Mimmi become mortally unraveled by what could be described as pure, unadulterated Hell.  What also unravels is their friendship in the midst of drugs coursing through their bloodstream and their minds have shutoff with the trance rhythm of the house music, both aspects of which put up walls to deflect the danger from within and around them, making them clueless to the clues.  Jagell and Grill’s performances have more physical importance than whatever come be extracted from their slim dialogue written for the characters and the two young actresses convert themselves into the roles of psychedelic terror. “Rave’s” partygoers round out with Victor Iván, Sophie Lücke, Ebba Gangoura, Sebastian Norén, Christer Wahlberg, and Celina Braute.

“Rave” is a flash of brilliance tightly confined and bottlenecked to not be bigger than needed by squeezing to contain its claustrophobic purgatory that’s wrapped like a nightmare on molly.  “Rave” is also not a straightforward line of coke, glow sticks, and fleshy fluid fiends within what is an ambiguous narrative that requires an open mind to its reverence for elder Euro horror.  That’s what I suspect Alatalo was shooting for here, an immense adoration and respect for European horror peppered with inspirations from American filmmakers as well.  Soft brilliance of Dario Armento lighting, silhouette eeriness of Lamberto Bava cinematography, and the slow bloodletting of Lucio Fulci’s gore represent the best qualities of same continental yore while including a John Carpenter story-ingrained synth score and paying homage to American melt horror filmmakers, such as J. Michael Muro, Gregory Lamberson, and Philip Brophy to name a few, with his own rendition of what it means to have skin slink and blood secrete from inside the body out.  While the first viewing doesn’t quite stimulate immediately the senses with its slow burn dread, ambiguous cause and effect, and dialogue adverse script, “Rave” glues itself to the psyche and lingers in that cranial netherworld that nags and gnaws at the subconscious and does it enough that a second viewing becomes necessary.  Instantly, piecing together the puzzle through a second visual overlay can jumpstart the engines on what exactly we’re witnessing – Alatalo’s patience with the structure, meticulous details in the scene, and admiration for the genre.  “Rave” is also an indie picture on a budget but considering the composition of the final product, “Rave” strongly accomplishes a persistent uneasiness without exposition that parallels subtle strikes of sharp, startling dread only seen by a handful of filmmakers.    

A whole new version of neon dead arrives onto a special edition Blu-ray of Nils Alatalo’s “Rave” from Scream Team Releasing.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high definition, BD25 presents the film in a widescreen 1:78:1 aspect ratio, scaled down from the original aspect ratio of Univision 2.00:1 causing some minor compressed looking scenes.  Not to be deterred, the range of scene setups under the cinematography trio of Jakob Ivar Ekvall, Amelia Finngåård, and Gustav Råström offer an eclectic mix often in the humblest of fashions, such as using just a camera flashlight in a windowless room or the red and blue neon lighting through fog machine.  Silhouettes delineate nicely on screen with the use of backlighting and camera angles.  Framing is a hit or miss coupled with energetic editing, but the overall atmosphere is agreeably chafed with tension.  Minor banding and some aliasing creep out as artifact side effects of a dark-laden story with some of the quicker moments evading the slimy-secretors through the building trying to keep up through the decoding of data.  The compression issues are not terribly invasive during viewing, but they are annoying consistent and notifiable.  The Swedish uncompressed LPCM 5.1 surround mix has lossless binding and sounds really good environmentally albeit many of the tracks are done in post, such as some of the exterior dialogues, which sound natural but softer in the scene, and the itemized milieu ambience.  The Joakim Martinsson and Christer Wahlberg house music and soundtrack are the real victors here integrated into “Rave’s” overall sound design of having the discordant industrial rhythms and irregularities become an antagonistic competitor breathing through the back and side channels, reminiscent of how intrinsic Giuliano Sorgini’s score heightened the intensity of the impending zombie attack.  English subtitles are optionally available.  Bonus features include an English commentary by director Nils Alatalo providing insight on nearly every shot, a soundtrack featurette alternating between Joakim Martinsson and Christer Wahlberg discussing and sample their individualized tracks, a making of montage with soundtrack only, and the film’s trailer.  The physical characteristics of the release contain a beautifully macabre composite in neon coloring and lace slipped into a standard Blu-ray snapper with latch.  Front cover is reversible with a more disheveled and strung-out Isabelle Grill looking blankly upward, which has a variation of her facial posture on the factory-distributed cover.  Disc art contains one of the gloppy ghouls bathed in red with a black background.  “Rave” release comes region free, not rated, and has a runtime of a brisk 72 minutes.  A slow burn melt movie capturing the essence of “Rave” to the grave.

Get High and Get Pumped for “Rave” on Blu-ray.

When EVIL Isn’t That Black & White. “Choir Girl” reviewed! (Nexus Production Group / Digital Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Eugene lives a lonely, pitiable existence.  Residing with his ailing father in a slum neighborhood, his photography background captures the crime and the desolation that surrounds him, snapping pictures without ever interceding with his crime-riddled subjects, in an attempt to hold an exhibition or sell his work to a high profile magazine, Slipstream, as his ticket out of the despair that engulfs him.  When Eugene stumbles upon young teenage girls being drugged and held for prostitution, he becomes fixated on Josephine when a low-level editor, seeing her as a professional stepping stone, prods him for more pictures that evoke hope out of her situation, but when he finally intervenes, helping her escape, Eugene falls into a world of a massive prostitution ring with doctors, cops, and major organizations on the payroll and a kingpin named Daddy at the helm.  The deeper the debt placed upon him for showing compassion to Josephine, the more the lines blur on whether he’s become his muse’s lone savior or just his meal ticket out his current life.

How far will your moral principles take you to save a teenage girl when you’re locked into a no-win situation?  That’s the theme explored to a shocking sexual assault conclusion in John Fraser’s 2019 unscrupulous Australian thriller, “Choir Girl.”  Introducing Fraser’s first credited written and directed full length feature film, shot entirely in black and white, the Melbourne arthouse and a goose egg-fairytale version of “Pretty Woman” speaks volumes toward the perceived illegality of immigration, the horrors of sex-trade, and the touch-and-go balance act between doing what’s right and self-serving opportunities with a 15-year old girl’s fate dangling at the end of a line.  “Choir Girl” is produced by Ivan Malekin under his Melbourne based label, Nexus Production Group, along with Lucinda Bruce serving as co-producer.

To carry “Choir Girl” through the muck of it all, a strong performance must arduously burden the gravity of the content and Peter Flaherty astounds with an ingloriously flawed and unlikely hero, Eugene.  “The Butcher Possessions” and “KIllervision” actor masts a greasily haggard with bordering neurodevelopment issues, disheveled in his attire, and walks with a noticeable limp, made intentionally noticeable when as he walks away from characters and situations.  Though Eugene seems meek, the shutterbug aches to improve himself by seemingly exploiting others as a freelance photographer and being persistent in that pursuit until becoming engrossed into a 15-year-old prostitute’s life struggle blossoming before our eyes a rather unsettling grown man and teenage girl relationship that assumes a pedophilia ideology of adoring the child to the extent of protection, but also falls in to grooming and sexual exploitation.  The film introduces audiences to Sarah Timm, playing Eugene’s muse, Josephine, an Eastern European illegal immigrant who literally has nothing left that is her own, this including her body, when forced into sex slavery so when Eugene and other characters call her diminutively by Jo, she immediately corrects them to call her Josephine in order to keep the one thing left that is still hers, her name.  In her first feature role, and a mightily demanding role it is with the amount of discomfiture of playing essentially an abused child, the German native will have audiences overlooking the fact that she’s portraying a teenager in the sordid sultriness of sex-trafficking with crafting Josephine’s war-torn history and pre-adolescent childhood stories as always the girl in the background, the unpretty forgotten girl that blended in and no one noticed, until she’s a part of a much larger, more ferocious, uncompromising system that Daddy (Jack Campbell) dictates with CCTV live feeds of every sleazy, scummy hotel bedroom in his syndicated footprint.  The cruelty that Jack Campbell reins savors every facet of Daddy’s being on screen with an intent to be a immovable roadblock in Eugene’s advanced for progress and for John Fraser’s “Choir Girl,” the character development and personalities find justification from the cast with the exception of one, the low on the totem pole and self-absorbed Slipstream magazine editor, Polly.  Krista Vendy imposes on Polly’s rabid  narcissism with an incredibility that becomes the underbelly amongst a bloc of solid performances.  Andy McPhee (“Wolf Creek”), Lee Mason (“The Caretaker”), Jillian Murray (“Body Melt”), and Kym Valentine fill out supporting roles. 

I love the juxtaposition opening of Eugene in his dark room in the middle of photographic processing his oblivious subjects, including a drug abusing child with a hypodermic heroine needle sticking out of his arm, a blowjob being serviced between a wall and bushes, or the aftermath of man being beaten with his assailants walking away from his leveled body, and then the title fades in from black and the next scene is of a framed magazine cover with the cover title “It’s All Back and White.”  The sequence sets up perfectly the entire premise driving “Choir Girl’s” gray area circumstances that nothing substantial, meaningful, or controversial can be black and white. Plus, the entire film is shot in black and white furthering the contrivance of the theme. The gray area challenging Eugene is a tightrope walk when squeezed for payment for snatching Josephine by the amoral organization claiming property theft, making him submit to the idiom of pulling his strings like a marionette or shooting at his feet to make him dance for insatiable perverse satisfaction. Eugene rarely displays remorse in his demeanor, face, or actions for the things he does and doesn’t do when faced with adversity in a slither of sociopathic idiosyncrasy, but when outright criticized for his inaction, he’s able to right wrongs with deplorable methods like a toddler trying to mop up a grape juice spill with mother’s expensive, white dress. There’s a bit of innocence or naivety in Eugene’s mind as you can almost see the gears slowly spinning when confronted but in the defense of the man who no really gave the time of day, those gyrating mice wheels of delicate thought snuck past every contingency against Eugene surviving Daddy’s deadly game, leading to an unsavory solution that puts the viewer in an awkward spot to either avert the eyes or remained captivated to see it through.

 

I, for one, remained seated, steadfast to the end, hypnotized by audacity of John Fraser in his feature film directorial, “Choir Girl,” that has arrived onto Apple’s iTunes. The unrated film is presented in it’s original aspect ratio of a widescreen format and will have an English language Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound availability. Though derided as kitschy at times, the black and white veneer works here inside “Choir Girl’s” vascular system of catch-22s and director of photography, Mark Kenfield, rides a consistent straighten arrow style with steady cam shots, decent framing, and some tracking shots without pushing the envelope in regards to angles or oscillation. There were no bonus content or additional scenes during or after the credits. “Choir Girl” sings no praises of hallelujah. Offers no solace in time of hardship. If you’re looking for a movie that touches you, then you’re in for a rude awakening as “Choir Girl” obliterates the moral standards, leaving faith outside, with a severe penance in abetting the Devil’s work, selling their soul to do what’s right.