J*A*S*M

If only a strong wind from the mountains had blown to the land of oblivion all the actors and the creative team in the first minutes… Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

Well, what can I say… Unrealistic as a documentary, weak as horror, above average as a film, very successful as a controversial piece. Now it all depends on what you expect from Cannibal Holocaust. I wanted controversial horror and hence my rating: I was very surprised, but little scared → three stars.

In the competition of “horror” comedies with zombies, vampires, cannibals, etc., of which a couple pop up very year, this British addition is a fairly palatable alternative. It’s professionally crafted, doesn’t take itself too seriously, has a few successful jokes here and there, a crude tone and plenty of gore. But don’t expect anything more than that.

This cult movie brought Steven Spielberg worldwide attention. There’s no point in writing anything about Jaws, pretty much everyone has seen it already. There hasn’t been a better horror film with a shark in the main role, or rather, there still hasn’t been a better animal-horror film.

A group of beautiful young people go to enjoy their leisure time in a house on an island in the middle of a lake. They are having a lot of fun until the moment a shark (that a group of local psychopaths has released in the lake) bites the hand of one of them. From this point on, the script begins to resemble a farce – everything gets pointlessly complicated (people fall into the water, boats explode), the IQ of the characters falls to 50 (Sara’s behaviour towards her ex-boyfriend), etc., plus predictability at all levels. And on top of that, the film has a PG13 rating, this means hardly any blood, hardly any nakedness, hardly any vulgarity, which is terrible for a summer teenage horror flick with sharks. Four points out of ten for the good execution. If anything, you can at least notice that the creators have some experience with a camera. But that’s as much of consolation as if you were told that, instead of an utter ignorant, you would be operated by a student of medicine who’s just finished the first semester.

A film only for orthodox fans of animal horror. Since I’m not too keen on that, this TV masterpiece was an ordeal for me. Bad actors, illogic script and badly directed attacks (that are almost all the same) drown the few good moments in such way that they become irrelevant to the overall impression. By the way, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film with such a brutally excessive runtime, it could be half as long.

It might not be a terrifying cloak, but it is a cape of solid fear.

A cookery show with a cast like this must be the idea of someone very malicious. Great fun at the expense of the participants. I love you all.

51st KVIFF - completely off the mark. In a rational person, the “funny” sequences will probably arouse concern and fear. That psychopath commanding a radical, potentially terrorist cell in the forest should end up behind bars, instead of back in the family circle in the style of “we all love each other”. When it looks like the voice of reason will prevail (Frank Langella’s), it ends up being flushed down the toilet. I’m allergic to this alternative stuff, so I was hostile against this film from the beginning. The rating might be too harsh, but it comes from the heart. If you feel otherwise, you’ll be satisfied.

It’s certainly not a bad horror movie, but it’s a bit of a shame that it doesn’t get even close to gems like Martyrs or Inside. However, I really enjoy how modern Westerners see the mysterious Slavic elements from the south-east. The fourth, rather undeserved, star is for the protagonist, with whom I share an almost pathological fear of dogs, thanks to which a couple of scenes were very unpleasant.