The Colony (2013)

"Forced underground by the next ice age, a struggling outpost of survivors must fight to preserve humanity against a threat even more savage than nature."

If you're Canadian, I'm sure you saw "The Colony" (and hated it!) when it was released theatrically back in April. It's not due to be released in the US for another four weeks, and it'll be October before it's available on DVD and Blu-ray. As usual, the pirates have already leaked it online, and it doesn't take much to find it on any of the major video streaming sites. Shame on you, pirates, but thank you too.

One thing which really aggravates movie reviewers is how some areas get to see movies before others. Even more irritating is the privileged clique of usually sycophantic movie reviewers who get access to new movies and can write their spoiler-laden critiques before anyone has even heard of the movie that they've written about. Such is the case with "The Colony" as it already has over 30 external reviews on its IMDb page, and it isn't even officially out yet!

Even some online Canadian friends of mine hadn't heard of "The Colony" before I mentioned it, yet it has a ton of negative reviews surrounding it for no apparent reason other than it was partially funded by Telefilm (or the Canadian equivalent to the BBC) and people feel that their taxes were wasted on it. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about the name of the company and their level of involvement because I only skimmed those reviews for obvious reasons.

The thing is, I enjoyed "The Colony" and have no reason to hate it whatsoever.

"I say we grease this rat-fuck son-of-a-bitch right now."

Okay, so "The Colony" is only "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004) with feral human cannibals in it, and superficially, it has a bit of a "28 Days Later" (2002) and "30 Days of Night" (2007) vibe to it as well, but there has never been an original Canadian movie in the entire history of movies, so it's nothing to get too upset about. In every case of a Canadian horror movie that I've ever seen in my life, all they've done is take three or four existing movies and mix them together with a big stick and some maple syrup.

Owing to the fact that I did read some of the review headlines accidentally, I will agree with the majority opinion that Bill Paxton is mostly wasted in his role as a power-hungry asshole, but he's still Bill Paxton, and he's awesome anyway. Laurence Fishburne also doesn't get to do a lot except for one very important action—an overused trope which is one of my biggest pet peeves in any American action movie ever—but again, Laurence Fishburne is still cool and always will be (apart from "Predators" which is best forgotten about). These two stars add some class to a movie otherwise filled with "no-name" TV actors, although to be fair, a few of us have heard of Kevin Zegers because of "Wrong Turn" (2003) and "Frozen" (2010).

I've never heard of Charlotte Sullivan before, but now that I've seen her—noting that she looks like a hybrid of Melissa George and Avril Lavigne—I wouldn't mind seeing a lot more of her. Yes, a pretty girl can save almost any movie that I watch, and I really am that shallow. She's a very good actress, and her chameleon-like ability to resemble so many other known actresses will surely help her career enormously. She doesn't have the biggest part in "The Colony", but her performance is nothing to be ashamed of.

Not Melissa George or Avril Lavigne when you get up close.

Cinematography-wise, "The Colony" looks fantastic. It was all filmed around an abandoned NORAD base in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, so the location is everything. It certainly looks the part, unlike some of the jarring CGI-effects and Dru Viergever who plays the feral leader as a pointy-teethed escapee from one of the "Mad Max" films.

Yes, I had to go there, and having gone there, I am now forced to mention the ever multiplying ferals who create all the lapses in logic possible. Breeding in bizarre numbers according to how many are needed in each scene is the least of their problems. How and why adults would turn en masse into cannibalistic maniacs who've lost the power of speech over presumably only ten years is a plot hole which doesn't even bear thinking about. Sometimes you just have to take things for what they are and ignore the lack of realism if you want to enjoy an action movie. At least it doesn't suffer from the magically reloading guns nonsense.

There's definitely plenty of action and a surprising amount of gore in "The Colony" which pleased me no end and is sure to please you. Having watched the movie cold (no pun intended but still acknowledged), I thought it was just going to be a predictable sci-fi movie about survivors in a frozen apocalyptic future such as a short story I read many years ago in one of the "Mammoth Books of New Horror" (sorry, I've forgotten the name of it, but it's not the Tim Lebbon one!), so I was extremely happy when the ferals appeared. Some of the scenes are rushed, but not enough to matter. You can forget about suspense or scares though because it's not really that kind of horror movie.

I'm going to rate "The Colony" as average, although it becomes a lot less than average once you factor in the $16,000,000 budget and wonder what it was spent on. There's been no big marketing campaign or buzz about this movie, so I really can't see how it cost that much to make a Canadian sci-fi/action adventure in the first place. I thought filming was supposed to be cheaper over the border even if you have some famous names attached.

I'll probably buy "The Colony" when it comes out on DVD, but I suggest seeing it theatrically (if you can), or as a VOD or Redbox rental, before going for a blind buy. If you like "The Day After Tomorrow" and "30 Days of Night", this is almost a sequel to the former and a half-way house to the latter. It's not very original, but it's not as bad as some people want you to believe.

Offspring (2009)

"Survivors of a feral flesh-eating clan are chowing their way through the locals. Amy Halbard and Claire Carey strive to survive their abduction by the cannibals and save their children. A subplot involving Claire's despicable husband, Steven, gives an opportunity to cleverly compare predatory civilized folk to the appetite-driven primitives."

There's usually nothing like watching the first film in a potential trilogy after the second one to really mess things up in my head. Fortunately, both Jack Ketchum's "Offspring" and "The Woman" work perfectly as standalone stories so it wasn't so much of a chore.

I intentionally skipped "Offspring" when it first appeared due to my healthy dislike of most of the crap on the "Ghost House" label but, due to having nothing else worthwhile on Netflix, I decided to finally give it a go.

Let me just tell you, before I begin my usual rambling, that both the Netflix and IMDb ratings are way out of sync with how good "Offspring" actually was. You probably already know that I barely even trust the IMDb for a plot synopsis anymore and certainly not the ratings or reviews there. In fact, on my blog, the only person whose critique of a movie counts is my own and that's the way it's always going to stay.

Even though "Offspring" seemed to be more of a crime drama than a horror story at first, it didn't stay that way. While there were certainly a load of cops in this film of various abilities, it became a reverse "Wrong Turn" (2003) or "The Hills Have Eyes" (1977) quite quickly. Here the cannibalistic feral tribe were nomads who preyed on the outskirts of rural civilisation rather than just lying in wait for victims to come to them.

I thought it was a very interesting idea and it prompted me to look up the inspiration for the story, the legends of Sawney Beane and Christie-Cleek, immediately afterwards. As much as the Scottish legends probably had about as much truth to them as this completely fictional movie update, they were quite fascinating to read.

Of course, what I liked most about "Offspring" was that it didn't pull too many punches with the violence or gore. While it was far from being the most graphic nastiness that I've ever seen, there were still enough moments to satisfy most lesser gorehounds and a surprising amount of it was done either by or to children.

I make no secret of the fact that I absolutely cannot abide kids so the more of them who I see getting shot, stabbed or eaten in a horror film, the better, especially if they all look like that little freak from "The Road Warrior" (1981) which these indeed did.

A couple of questions which were tied up for me, due to watching "The Woman" (2011) previously, were the first appearance of the titular feral leader played by Pollyanna McIntosh and the possible origin of the blind "dog-girl". Having never read any of Jack Ketchum's novels, I didn't even know that "The Woman" was a sequel to anything when I saw it. I'm awaiting an answer from Jack Ketchum (via Twitter) concerning the dog-girl which hopefully might clear things up further.

As for "Offspring" itself, there were a few flaws which some people have made too much of concerning the editing and/or pacing but I really didn't notice much wrong. Maybe I get a bit soft on the technical stuff when I'm actually interested in a story but that's actually a huge credit to the writer (Jack Ketchum) and the director (Andrew van den Houten) since, as I often quote from Aristotle, "Art is best when hidden". If I didn't notice it, then it was clearly okay.

Since I'm English, I didn't notice any of the geographical mistakes either but I'm sure there were some. It's still quite jarring for me when I remember David waking up in a hospital 200 miles away from the Yorkshire moors in "An American Werewolf in London" (1981) so it must be much the same for Americans who notice similar things. Having been all over the eastern side of America, it still all looks much the same to me but I've never been to Michigan where this was filmed nor do I even have a clue where it actually is.

I've got to say something about the acting though as it wasn't fantastic. It was borderline adequate and varied. Since I have absolutely no idea who any of them were without looking up their IMDb profiles, I'm assuming that they were mostly TV actors and not very famous ones at that. I didn't hate any of their performances but nobody really stood out apart from Pollyanna McIntosh.

Anyway, hopefully I haven't given away any spoilers as "Offspring" is probably one of the few horror movies on Netflix which I would actually recommend. It's slightly below average in some ways but still great entertainment for a rainy afternoon.

The Woman (2011)

"When a successful country lawyer captures and attempts to civilize the last remaining member of a violent clan that has roamed the Northeast coast for decades, he puts the lives of his family in jeopardy."

I really don't know where to begin with reviewing "The Woman" because, although it's quite unlike anything that I've seen before, it's still somewhat derivative of a lot of other dysfunctional family stories in places.

With anything written by Jack Ketchum, you know it's going to be a little bit "out there" and, by having Lucky McKee direct it, it's likely to be even more so. Paradoxically, everything is extremely very well reigned in here and doesn't ever become bizarrely unrealistic or comical. I find that to be a very welcome and refreshing change.

Now as much as I want to say that "The Woman" is unique, it isn't. If you've ever seen "The X-Files" season one episode called "Jersey Devil" then the idea of a feral human being won't be much of a surprise to you. It was even done more recently in "Shiver", a Spanish film from 2008.

Demented, dysfunctional families aren't all that new either. You only have to look up "Spider Baby" (1968) to see how that all began. But, as I've said, "The Woman" is no comedy or, at least, not a comedy that I can categorise as one. It's amusing in places but there really aren't any major chuckles to be had out of it unless you are as sick and twisted as I am.

Combining the two elements by having a dysfunctional family kidnap a feral woman, and then to have their characters being further revealed by their interactions with their captive, is an ambitious idea which actually works fairly well. Of course there are flaws and quite a few moments which are too reminiscent of Dario Argento's "Jenifer" (from the "Masters of Horror" series) for comfort.

One thing which I'm puzzled over is whether or not "The Woman" is a kind of feminist movie or a totally misogynistic one. I wondered the same thing about Lars Von Trier's "Antichrist" (2009) although I gave up ever trying to analyse that director's mind a long time ago.

If I had to pick a side, I'd say "The Woman" is very feminist yet it shows misogyny in all its ugliness. I'll leave all the stuff about whether the message of the film is that women can only survive against men by reverting to their animal natures to people who actually give a damn plus I don't want to give away any spoilers.

For me, the nudity, torture and gore are far more important when rating a horror movie plus the effect that the characters have on me. "The Woman" isn't the most brutal movie that I've ever seen but the effects are certainly worthwhile and the acting is pretty decent too.

Angela Bettis stands out (as she always does when directed by Lucky McKee) but Sean Bridgers isn't too shabby either. Think of "The Stepfather" (1987) but take it up several notches and you have Chris Cleek. Although none of the characters are very much more than caricatures, it's how the full extent of their relationship is slowly revealed that makes the drama so engrossing.

The star of the whole thing though is, of course, Pollyanna McIntosh as the nameless feral woman. She may not look as pretty here as she did in "Exam" (2009) but she certainly knows how to pull off a purely animal look. Getting to see her completely nude is a bonus too.

Neither Pollyanna McIntosh or Angela Bettis are the best looking women in this film though. That honour belongs to Carlee Baker whose acting, unfortunately, is so bad that she can't even pronounce her own character's name properly. You never know with Lucky McKee so the bad acting and mispronunciation may well be intentional.

If you've already seen "The Girl Next Door" (2007), "The Lost" (2006) or "Offspring" (2009), Jack Ketchum's style will be quite familiar. Although I don't think that "The Woman" is nearly as controversial as any of those, it still continues the same style of dealing with taboo subjects in a more horrific format than some people will be used to.

You can read as much or as little into "The Woman" as you like but it won't change the fact that it's an immensely satisfying experience.