Nov 21
Directed by Fred Cavayé, Point Blank is a taut and well-made French thriller that has many of the standard genre conventions. The main selling feature here is a series of heart-stopping chase sequences that rival some of the best scenes in the Bourne trilogy. The whole everyman thrown into an extraordinarily dangerous situation notion has been done to death, but Cavayé’s picture has enough pop and sizzle to make it worthwhile.
The vampire mythology is one of extraordinary popularity, especially with the Twilight series and other narratives getting the kids going these days. Indeed, vampires have never really faded from popularity and have gone through a lot of transformations since Bram Stoker diagnosed vampirism as a sort of disease. In his narrative, vampirism was a sort of condition. It sprang to popularity in a time of tuberculosis and syphilis.
This is an insane film. Directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura, Tokyo Gore Police is a Japanese “gore film.” Nishimura is mostly known in Japan for his contributions to the horror and gore genres, so this one is right up his alley. He worked on Noboru Iguchi’s The Machine Girl and Media Blasters asked him if he wanted to do a feature. Tokyo Gore Police was born. It’s actually a remake of Anatomia Extinction, an indie film Nishimura made years ago.
Vittorio de Sica’s Marriage Italian Style has a lot going for it. For starters, Sophia Loren. Not only is the Italian actress dazzling on a completely superficial level, she manages a range of performance here that’s well worth checking out. Marcello Mastroianni is her opponent and her love interest. The two collaborate beautifully and have done so several times in de Sica’s films.
Chang, a music video director, makes his filmmaking debut with Death Bell. A 2008 South Korean horror picture, Death Bell is sort of a Saw movie set in high school. It’s a stylish piece of work, without question, and it features a pretty decent pile of elements that offset the gory killings quite nicely. There’s a lot at work under the surface of this one and it really is a picture worth more than the sum of its parts.
Death Bell features some pretty sleek HD cinematography and looks every bit the contemporary horror feature that its astronomical budget calls for, so that’s a start. Throw in the appearance of K-pop star Nam Gyu-ri and actor Lee Beom-soo in his first horror role and you might be thinking Death Bell is the perfect set-up for a well-financed disaster. Chang ably juggles the elements, though, and manages to control the film well enough to run it through its bloodied paces.
