Posts Tagged ‘Dennis Iliadis’

The Last House on the Left (2009)

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

WARNING: This review contains spoilers for LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT remake, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT original, VIRGIN SPRING, CHAOS, THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake, and URBAN LEGEND.

Well well well, what do we have here? Looks like a remake of a Wes Craven movie, already unofficially remade as a Demon Dave DeFalco movie, itself based on an Ingmar Bergman movie based on a 13th century ballad based on a legend of why a particular Swedish church was built. I’m not sure the modern moviegoer is concerned with the origin story of the Kärna church, so we gotta wonder what exactly the reason is for this remake. The answer, of course, is that the original movie was first called KRUG AND COMPANY, they didn’t call it LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT until it had been traveling around for a while. They made it up after the fact, it didn’t really mean anything, so in the movie they never mentioned the location of the house. I saw the trailer for the remake where somebody’s driving down a road and says “it’s the last house on the left.” This is the reason to remake it, you can finally go back and establish that!

Well, actually that line’s not in the movie, and come to think of it there are no other houses in the area at all. “Last house on the left” is not an accurate description of this house. It should be called ONLY HOUSE ON THE STREET. So I guess geographical accuracy is not in fact the reason for the remake. The reason is because they’re going through IMDb and just remaking every god damn movie that ever existed. (more…)

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Posted in Horror, Reviews | 2 Comments »

Hardcore

Saturday, June 9th, 2007

This is not the George C. Scott/Paul Schrader movie HARDCORE, this is the 2004 Greek movie HARDCORE that I only rented when I read that the director, Dennis Iliadis, was hired to do a remake of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. So this is kind of a review and kind of a scouting mission.

This is the story of two teenage prostitutes, told from the POV of the less crazy one. They are in love but they are always fucking other people, especially the crazier one Nadia, who loves to manipulate rich older men to get what she wants out of life. Along the way there is some blood, some cocaine, some suicide, lots of depression, lots of disturbing passionless fucking and dildoing.

It reminds me of plenty of junkie-chic and crime movies, where the heroes are fucked up in a way that you’re supposed to feel sorry for them but also think they’re kind of glamorous and sexy. Because of how fucked up they are. The tone is very hip and trying to offend sensibilities, but there’s also a little bit of HEAVENLY CREATURES in there with the way these two are kind of lesbians, kind of little girls who play together, kind of homicidal.

I don’t know how bad the world needed another movie like this, but maybe Greece needed one. I am not real familiar with their film scene, by which I mean this might be the first Greek movie I ever watched in my life, I’m not sure. So this might be a more original type of subject matter in the context of Greek film than if you compare it to American or British movies.

Either way, if you can get into that type of thing this is a well made movie, I thought it was pretty good. This guy is clearly a music video director, but not in the quick cuts and flying cameras sense. More in the a guy who would be friends with Spike Jonze sense. It’s pretty calm, not too hyperkinetic, and with more quiet moments than even a non-music-video-director usually gives you. There is more than one crucial moment where the song on the soundtrack is doing just fine but it abruptly cuts off so you can just hear the quiet, maybe some breathing, maybe some sobbing. (more…)

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