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"The Last Horror Movie" : My 13th Favorite Horror Movie
The time has come again to take an in depth look at another of my 25 favorite horror movies. With this installment of the countdown, we leave the supernatural events of Indious behind and return to a breed of evil that is all-too human. The movie we're about to examine is not the eaest one to watch: it's brutal, uncompromingly realistic and raises questions that many horror fans might find to be uncomfortable. However, if you're up to the challenge, you're in for a truly terrifying and disturbing ride that is likely to keep you thinking for long after the credits have stopped rolling. I now present to you my 13th favorite horror movie of all time:The Last Horror Movie This 2003 British film from director/co-writer Julian Richards has flown under the radar of many in America, but it is abundantly worth seeking out. The Last Horror Movie is just one of a seemingly endless barrage of genre films to pilfer some aspect of the Scream premise. However, this one takes that premise to a deeper and more personal place while stripping it of virtually all the comedy relief that gives the Scream characters momentary respites from the carnage taking place around them.
The Last Horror Movie centers on a serial killer named Max (Kevin Howarth) who claims to have committed over 50 murders. Max has decided to make a movie about himself, his crimes and how he gets away with them, and has hired an amoral cameraman/ asstant (Mark Stevenson) to aid him in this process. The idea of an egocentric psychopath trying to justify murder by turning it into something they can think of as "art" is certainly nothing new, but The Last Horror Movie has plenty of qualities that make it better than most films of the sort. The most immediately obvious of these qualities is Howarth's chilling performance as Max, a man who is clearly violent, dangerous and detached from his own actions, but also quite smart and well-spoken. Max takes himself even more seriously than most make-your-own-movie type murderers - he's not actually aiming to make a horror film, Max views his efforts as more of a documentary. He's a psycho who really tries to make his victims feel included in his work, sometimes explaining his artistic vion for their benefit or attempting to interview them while murdering them, and subsequently expresng disappointment that they didn't have any thoughtful inghts to share.At this point you may be thinking "But wait...if Max is making a documentary, why is it called The Last Horror Movie?" Max himself explains the reason for that in due time, and it's actually a pretty clever one. The Last Horror Movie
is the title of a scary movie Max rented from his local video store, taped over, and then returned. We get to see the first few formulaic minutes of that film before it cuts out to reveal Max, our tour guide into a terror much more visceral and affecting. The juxtapotion is jarring at first. The poorly scripted young waitress from the "real" movie is suddenly displaced by an eloquent lunatic who plunges the viewer head first into an instant montage of quick, brutal kill scenes. The disparity between the studio gloss of the first few minutes and the home video graininess of everything that comes after Max breaks in draws an effective distinction between violence in the movies versus violence in real life. The trick this film pulls off so effectively is that it lumps itself into the latter category and then maintains a level of realism throughout that makes it damn easy to forget that's not true. Admittedly, a bit of the trick's potency can be lost these days, unless you are one of the approximately 4 people on earth who still has a video store in your area and still has a VHS player, both of which are necessary for Max's claims to be entirely true. However, presenting this film as so real that it doesn't even have a proper title was a stroke of genius on the part of Julian Richards and his co-writer, James Handel.One of the scariest things about Max is how normal he seems when he's not committing acts of horrific violence. He has an unfulfilling day job, a group of friends who think they really know him, and a family who feels he's not living up to his potential. He seems to delight in goofing around with his young nephew, who adores him, and no one seems to think there's any chance Max is serious when he says he wants to eat the little boy for dinner. This air of normalcy is easy for Max to maintain because, as he admits directly to the viewer, he feels no guilt over his actions. "I didn't ask not to care", he tells us. "I just don't." The frequent instances where Max breaks the so-called fourth wall, addresng the viewer, don't just allow him to make confesons to us, they also let him ask questions of us. Max knows there is something wrong with him, and he's more than okay with that. But what he really wants to know is whether or not there's something wrong with us. Whether or not there is something wrong with movie fans, and horror movie fans specifically. He wonders if we keep watching him because we think the whole thing will ultimately be revealed as a joke, or because the posbility of the murders being real keeps us even more enraptured. In one particularly effective part of the film, we see 2 people tied up in chairs. Max kills one while the camera focuses on the reaction of the other. Then the camera focuses on the corpse of the first victim while Max murders the second. In both instances, we hear the knife puncturing flesh and the cries of the victims, but the murders themselves occur off camera. There is a point to this that Max reveals immediately after, when he asks the viewer "Was there any part of you that wondered what you were misng? That was craning to see just a little more?" Obviously, I don't feel there's anything wrong with any of us just because we love horror movies, and I am not about to abandon my pason for the horror genre just because this movie did a good job of raing some probing questions with disturbing implications. The vast majority of horror buffs are well-adjusted people who like movies from other genres as well and are able to enjoy horror because they love the adrenaline of being scared and understand the difference between fiction and real life. However, The Last Horror Movie does a surpringly thorough job of banishing those truths from the viewer's mind for the duration of the film. Once this film pulls you in, it stacks the deck in favor of the concluons it wants you to come to, and it's almost imposble not to let Max's dissection of your motivations for continuing to watch get under your skin just a little. The real reason you'll want to keep watching is mply because you're watching a unique, high-quality film, but if you give him an opening, Max will soon convince you that there must be something much darker, and more nister, going on in the dank recesses of your seedy, subconscious mind. Clearly, this is not an altogether pleasant feeling, and in the interest of fair warning, I should tell you that it can stay with you for a while even after the movie is over. But in this case, that's just even more evidence that it accomplished what it set out to do.For those horror purists who crave a movie experience that is truly disturbing and unrelentingly scary, The Last Horror Movie could well turn out to be a holy grail. This movie is a product of what I can only refer to as "horror integrity." By that, I mean that it is absolutely committed to being scary and only scary. It's not trying to scare you while making you laugh, it's just trying to scare you. Even when it tries to make you think, it only wants you to think specific, scary thoughts that allow it to nk its hooks in even deeper. This film is not merely the kind of scary that makes you yelp in surprise or flinch at a particularly inspired bloodspray pattern, it's the kind of scary that squirms into your brain and alters your perception of the world for a little while after. While definitely not for the faint of heart, in my opinion it is a high water mark for the horror genre and a triumph of undiluted artistic vion. Stay tuned for my next installment!
The Last Horror Movie centers on a serial killer named Max (Kevin Howarth) who claims to have committed over 50 murders. Max has decided to make a movie about himself, his crimes and how he gets away with them, and has hired an amoral cameraman/ asstant (Mark Stevenson) to aid him in this process. The idea of an egocentric psychopath trying to justify murder by turning it into something they can think of as "art" is certainly nothing new, but The Last Horror Movie has plenty of qualities that make it better than most films of the sort. The most immediately obvious of these qualities is Howarth's chilling performance as Max, a man who is clearly violent, dangerous and detached from his own actions, but also quite smart and well-spoken. Max takes himself even more seriously than most make-your-own-movie type murderers - he's not actually aiming to make a horror film, Max views his efforts as more of a documentary. He's a psycho who really tries to make his victims feel included in his work, sometimes explaining his artistic vion for their benefit or attempting to interview them while murdering them, and subsequently expresng disappointment that they didn't have any thoughtful inghts to share.At this point you may be thinking "But wait...if Max is making a documentary, why is it called The Last Horror Movie?" Max himself explains the reason for that in due time, and it's actually a pretty clever one. The Last Horror Movieis the title of a scary movie Max rented from his local video store, taped over, and then returned. We get to see the first few formulaic minutes of that film before it cuts out to reveal Max, our tour guide into a terror much more visceral and affecting. The juxtapotion is jarring at first. The poorly scripted young waitress from the "real" movie is suddenly displaced by an eloquent lunatic who plunges the viewer head first into an instant montage of quick, brutal kill scenes. The disparity between the studio gloss of the first few minutes and the home video graininess of everything that comes after Max breaks in draws an effective distinction between violence in the movies versus violence in real life. The trick this film pulls off so effectively is that it lumps itself into the latter category and then maintains a level of realism throughout that makes it damn easy to forget that's not true. Admittedly, a bit of the trick's potency can be lost these days, unless you are one of the approximately 4 people on earth who still has a video store in your area and still has a VHS player, both of which are necessary for Max's claims to be entirely true. However, presenting this film as so real that it doesn't even have a proper title was a stroke of genius on the part of Julian Richards and his co-writer, James Handel.One of the scariest things about Max is how normal he seems when he's not committing acts of horrific violence. He has an unfulfilling day job, a group of friends who think they really know him, and a family who feels he's not living up to his potential. He seems to delight in goofing around with his young nephew, who adores him, and no one seems to think there's any chance Max is serious when he says he wants to eat the little boy for dinner. This air of normalcy is easy for Max to maintain because, as he admits directly to the viewer, he feels no guilt over his actions. "I didn't ask not to care", he tells us. "I just don't." The frequent instances where Max breaks the so-called fourth wall, addresng the viewer, don't just allow him to make confesons to us, they also let him ask questions of us. Max knows there is something wrong with him, and he's more than okay with that. But what he really wants to know is whether or not there's something wrong with us. Whether or not there is something wrong with movie fans, and horror movie fans specifically. He wonders if we keep watching him because we think the whole thing will ultimately be revealed as a joke, or because the posbility of the murders being real keeps us even more enraptured. In one particularly effective part of the film, we see 2 people tied up in chairs. Max kills one while the camera focuses on the reaction of the other. Then the camera focuses on the corpse of the first victim while Max murders the second. In both instances, we hear the knife puncturing flesh and the cries of the victims, but the murders themselves occur off camera. There is a point to this that Max reveals immediately after, when he asks the viewer "Was there any part of you that wondered what you were misng? That was craning to see just a little more?" Obviously, I don't feel there's anything wrong with any of us just because we love horror movies, and I am not about to abandon my pason for the horror genre just because this movie did a good job of raing some probing questions with disturbing implications. The vast majority of horror buffs are well-adjusted people who like movies from other genres as well and are able to enjoy horror because they love the adrenaline of being scared and understand the difference between fiction and real life. However, The Last Horror Movie does a surpringly thorough job of banishing those truths from the viewer's mind for the duration of the film. Once this film pulls you in, it stacks the deck in favor of the concluons it wants you to come to, and it's almost imposble not to let Max's dissection of your motivations for continuing to watch get under your skin just a little. The real reason you'll want to keep watching is mply because you're watching a unique, high-quality film, but if you give him an opening, Max will soon convince you that there must be something much darker, and more nister, going on in the dank recesses of your seedy, subconscious mind. Clearly, this is not an altogether pleasant feeling, and in the interest of fair warning, I should tell you that it can stay with you for a while even after the movie is over. But in this case, that's just even more evidence that it accomplished what it set out to do.For those horror purists who crave a movie experience that is truly disturbing and unrelentingly scary, The Last Horror Movie could well turn out to be a holy grail. This movie is a product of what I can only refer to as "horror integrity." By that, I mean that it is absolutely committed to being scary and only scary. It's not trying to scare you while making you laugh, it's just trying to scare you. Even when it tries to make you think, it only wants you to think specific, scary thoughts that allow it to nk its hooks in even deeper. This film is not merely the kind of scary that makes you yelp in surprise or flinch at a particularly inspired bloodspray pattern, it's the kind of scary that squirms into your brain and alters your perception of the world for a little while after. While definitely not for the faint of heart, in my opinion it is a high water mark for the horror genre and a triumph of undiluted artistic vion. Stay tuned for my next installment!
ImmortalSidneyP
Monday 5/21/2012 at 09:49 AM | 93165
Really enjoyed this film. Picked it up on a friend's suggestion, and it quickly became a favorite. Great review!
dew
Tuesday 5/22/2012 at 04:34 PM | 93194
Hey, thanks for the support, Dew! I'm a fan of your work here, so it means a lot coming from you. :)
ImmortalSidneyP
Tuesday 5/22/2012 at 11:32 PM | 93203
Man, I got to find that movie, sounds totally awesome.
Thanx for the posting, and by the way, I've read almost all your post here..it's like a bloody sopa opera; what's coming up the next time?..thumbs up man!
UberJason78
Sunday 6/03/2012 at 09:43 PM | 93431
