We Are What We Are (2010) ROB

The hype is what got me stoked on this one. Every horror movie website I read was raving about it when it was running the festival circuit and finally it hit VOD. I put it off for awhile, waiting for the right time to watch a coming of age cannibal family drama. Oh, does that sound weird? fuckin aye..

A creepy old dirty dude is wandering aimlessly down the sidewalk of a strip mall, he stops at a display window of two mannequins in bikinis and gawks halfway like he's never seen such a thing and halfway like a weird pervert who can just see this sort of thing, touch the glass and whambamthankyama'am. He continues on his path and before you know it he's on the ground dying, dying, dead. Give the custodians and coroner a couple minutes and this sidewalk is back into shape for the regular, well off bunch to grace it with their feet.

Enter family: two young men, a young woman and their mother getting ready for the days work and wondering where the hell their absent father is. I'm guessing if you know how to read then you can guess who creepy old dude was and through a series of strange communication the daughter finds out about the fathers demise. They panic, not unlike a regular family with the recent news of their passed father/husband, but also very differently; They question and try to promote a new head of the house before the day is even over. See, there's something that needs to be taken care of within the next day and while the father always took care of it before, a new member of the family must step up to the plate and assume responsibility and care and provide in the strangest way for the family. Saying much more might spoil the fun of this insanely delightful piece of Spanish film.

Their really isn't much bad I can say about this film, it's terrificly paced and keeps you invested and interested in the characters throughout its running time and delivers a couple twists and gut punches that make you smile and make you cringe. I won't say it's scary, kinda creepy. It's gritty in a realistic 'holy shit, this probably happens' kind of way.

One one of the covers or one sheets for this I saw a quote that said something like "A cannibal gore-fest", which is a hugely inaccurate way of selling this (though I'm sure it'll bring in some unlikely fans) because I don't exactly remember much, if any, gore. Sure, there is violence and blood aplenty but this is no gore fest. It's exactly what I explained it as, a coming of age cannibalistic family drama, and if that sounds like something you're into and you enjoy all the fixins that accompany a great film like an amazing score, great acting, direction and an original story.. Well, fork over the $7 and get this while it's still on VOD and not waiting in DVD purgatory waiting to be seen by the blockbuster folk.

I was WOW'd come end..

5/5

Wake Wood (2011) ROB

The most common comparison I've seen while anticipating this films release has been Pet Semetary and while that's not way off base I think this bad boy is in a different league.

We start on Alice's birthday, her parents are showering her with gifts and confetti before she walks to school. Somewhere along the way the little girl decides it's a good idea to give a rather savage looking dog in a cage a piece of lunch meat from her sandwich. She opens the cage and it leads to one of the more gnarly on-screen child deaths in recent memory.

Enter grieving couple driving down a foggy, very Irish countryside road to their new town of residence, Wake Wood, where Louise is the new town pharmacist and Patrick is the new veterinarian. Right off you get the vibe that things are not right. There is some freaky shit going on with the residents that I won't really explain because it's most fun to go into this film without a complete knowledge of what it's all about. I think it kinda sucks I went in knowing what I knew and hell, I guess I kind of spoiled it for you too in a way. But hey, this is a creepy, well filmed chiller that isn't short on the gore (not in a cheesy, slasher way) and despite it's similarities to earlier mentioned film, is very original and it did freak me the fuck out at some points..

No complaints, this delivered everything I ask of a horror film. It lacks all that I despise from the modern day bullshit we're churning out. Thanks Ireland.

5/5

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009) THUGGY

Most people that know me have heard at one time or another that my dream in life is to strike it big, buy a tricked out double wide with all the fixings, and move into a trailer park somewhere. I’m not sure how or when I began having this urge, but I assume it has something to do with my early childhood. Though I have never officially lived in a trailer park, my family did have an eight acre ranch in Albuquerque, NM that I spent a goodish amount of years at when I was a young whipper-snapper. This property looked like a mix between a junkyard, and a machine-part graveyard. Rusted out hulls of old cars and various unidentified metal was stacked haphazardly everywhere. So nowadays whenever I see places like that it gives me that familiar nostalgic kick in the cod-piece. For example, I am a big fan of “American Pickers” for such reasons. Uncle Douvee’s house from Van Damme’s “Hard Target” and "Old Lady" Hackmore’s place from “Earnest: Scared Stupid” also come to mind. Bottom line is that I want a lot of scary looking junk lying around, and I want the “Man” to stay off’d mah property!!!

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia is a movie that I skipped over for months before this recent watch. Because I don’t have a new-fangled flat screen HDM whatever the fuck T.V. it’s next to impossible to read the new Netflix formats screen text. So I rather innocently assumed the movie was about some West Virginian prison and their Aryan Nation population and subsequently blew it off… Jokes on me.

The Dub and Dub Dubs of Dub V is actually about a legendary Boone County family that gained prominence in the mid-1980’s because of D. Ray White, the family patriarchs unbelievable talent in Appalachian “Mountain Dancing”. For those of you who don’t know what Mountain Dancing is (Don’t worry, I had to look it up myself) It is a sort of mix between clogging and tap-dancing that has been popular in Appalachia and other southern nations since this countries inception.

In the early eighties The Smithsonian Institute bankrolled a PBS documentary titled “Talking Feet: Buck, Flatfoot, and Tap in which D. Ray White was featured prominently, touted as the best Mountain Dancer in the United States. Unfortunately D. Ray was killed in a shootout before the movie was completed… He was fifty-eight years old… Amazing… This man was a G.

In 1991 PBS did a follow up documentary called “The Dancing Outlaw” on D. Ray’s son Jesco White who assumed the mantle of “Best Mountain Dancer in America”, instantly launching the White family into the type of fame only two PBS documentaries can provide. Hahaha.

“The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” a Dickhouse production (Jackass) opens with various Boone County officials commenting on the families’ colorful and notorious nature. We are then introduced to Mimi White the self-proclaimed “Biggest and Baddest” of the White family, followed by Bertie Mae White(D.Ray’s Wife)”The Miracle Woman” because she raised thirty some-odd kids, Susan Rae White A.K.A. “Kirk”, then on to Sue Bob White, Bo White and so forth. Hank Williams III a close family friend comments on their legendary family throughout and provides much of the films soundtrack. Apparently The White family has been the subject of countless famous country and bluegrass songs and it is made quite obvious in the film. I loved this movie; I put it on around 3:00am and had Too Much Fun watching it. The family is outrageous, they smoke “the pot” around children of any age, and they snort prescription pills wherever they please like it’s going out of style. Cousins steal husbands and tear up each other’s houses; nephew’s shooting uncles, women talking about chopping people up and throwing them down mine shafts, and the flare with which they do all this is literally incredible. The Taco Bell scene needs to be seen to be believed and “The Boone County Mating Call” is priceless.

In all honesty, these people seem dysfunctional to “normal” folk, but in my humble opinion I feel like they might just be more sane then the majority of American families with all their resentment, deceit, and depreciation of self-worth. This family is going to hell as they themselves say, but they’re going to have a fuck-all of a time on the way there…

Clydesdale Scale: 2 Star…. I fucking loved this movie!!!

Rhipt Fuel: Afgoo Purps

Rhipt Viewing Rating: 1/5

RUBBER (2010) ROB

How the fuck can I begin to explain a film like Rubber? For anyone who doesn't know, Rubber is the story of an inanimate tire who has been abandoned in the desert in shit knows where for.. No reason. After a pretty fucking brilliant monologue explaining that this film is a tribute to no reason, we follow Robert as he rolls through the desert experimenting with his power of psychokinesis to explode heads.

And why else would a tire explode heads? No fucking reason..

The best way I could explain a film like this is "an adult Disney film." It just makes sense, from the score (extremely well done by Gaspard Auge and Mr. Ozio) to the fact that it has some weird, feel good attitude. Try not to smile as you witness this tire clumsily make his way through town and develop a strange interest in a beautiful European woman and blow up whoever's head he deems necessary.

It's a beautiful film that never slumps to a dull moment, constantly giving you the elbow in the ribs saying, "Get it? Get it?" which sounds ridiculous but it never stoops to the level you think it might and maintains a certain integrity throughout.

I feel awful, I'm going to bed. Rubber is on VOD and makes a limited theatrical run on April 1st, it's really just something you need to see to believe.