I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

FOREIGN MOVIES THAT DON'T SUCK





SL8N8 aka Slachtnacht (Slaughter Night) 2006 Belgium-Netherlands

Foreign films are sometimes hard to follow or understand - different customs, different things to be scared of,  trying to make sense out of sometimes poorly translated English - it all adds up to a headache unless the movie is particularly good. This was the first Dutch movie I've run into and I'm really glad I did. Foreign movies, in my opinion, sometimes try harder and this one really delivers.

On first look one might instantly think of My Bloody Valentine ('Nothing says love like a pickaxe to the face') but this one has a much more elaborate backstory which some may find slows down the beginning a bit but once it picks up the action... I've got to give this one props for good locations, neat sets, great makeup and effects and really decent gore. The fact that the poster chooses only to say 'A Whole Lot Of Gore' kind of cheapens the movie - there's a lot more to it than that.

Not exact, but you get the idea.

If you check the wiki you'll get a poorly translated (sigh) view of the movie. This is how it actually went down but first I had to check a story out to see if it was historically accurate because hey, I'm just twisted that way. But I struck out so if someone knows of a source to check I'd really like to know. In Belgium, early coal mining was extremely hazardous, with many explosions reported and high fatality rates by the 1850's because they had the deepest mines in Europe. That much I could find out. Now this movie claims that before the invention of a special lantern that worked without igniting the methane gas and the canaries that they kept around to keep check on whether there was a methane leak (since it is odorless), which are facts and was the case back then, they used convicted murderers as 'firemen' (the 'firemen' part was in the movie and I could not find a source to confirm that as fact).

The movie claims that when there were convicted criminals that were sentenced to death they had a choice - either execution or becoming a 'fireman'. If they chose the latter, they were dressed in wet rags to keep from catching fire and given a torch and sent on ahead to purposely explode all the methane before the miners went down. They usually died, but if they survived that, they would be pardoned. 

That sounds... yeah. But much as I tried to look I couldn't find anything to confirm or deny this. Sounds very... brutal but hey, if you wanted to go around killing people, at least your death could serve a useful purpose, right? Anyway, if you children can find anything about it, I'd sure like to know.

The reason is that our backstory is about a man in the 1800's named Andries Martiens (or Martins depending on which translation you look at) who was convicted of killing eight little girls, beheading them and putting their heads on poles. When caught and convicted he chose the latter punishment. The father of our heroine was researching his story for a book since he writes about serial killers.

Kristel, our smart heroine (there's always one) wants to go off with her friends and bum around Australia for a while. And despite the poster she is NOT blonde. Duh. One of her friends goofs and mentions that in front of her father (the author). While he drives her home they argue about that but it's cut short by a large truck hitting the driver's side of the car. She gets out and another driver works to get her dad out while the car starts to burn. Unfortunately, while the good Samaritan is half in the car, it explodes. Slight whoops here when it's very apparent there's nobody in the car while it burns and there's no body outside either.

Now Kristel is having strange visions which she keeps to herself and offers to go with a group of friends to gather her father's things. After she does a friend of his suggests she tour the mine where Andries was sent. He pushes a bit hard, another duh but hey, they're trying. So we've got our setup finally - four friends, three others who happen to be touring the same day and the guide. The guide knows his way around, he's been there for decades and tells everyone the Andries story, using corny props for cheap laughs.

And here we get our massive duh (on the part of the teenagers) and your lesson for today: Don't mix being stuck in a mine (conveniently the employees have gone home, not knowing they're down there DUH) with ecstasy and a Ouija board. Bad, bad little piggies. Of course this 'invokes' Andries spirit who's massively pissed - and through Kristel's vision we see why. Andries had nasty parents who tortured him and so he escaped by joining the Navy. After years he came back and they were dead - without telling him where they put the family fortune. All he has are some beans and... sorry, just kidding. They left a couple of trinkets including a very heavy music box (and if you all go AHA right about now good for you). 

So since he's been around the world and permanently pissed he gets into voodoo and finds out that sacrificing eight souls will get him into hell and back. Why go to hell? 'Cause that's where mummy and papa are of course, and he's gonna, uh, persuade them somehow to tell him where the gold is and then come back. Riiiiiight. But he got caught and chose the fireman's way out except he survived the flames. But he was double-crossed and they shot him anyway. I say good riddance the movie says injustice. Oh well.

So now we get the kill-them-one-by-one scenario which is a bit gorier than usual since all their heads have to come off so the spirit of Andries can come back (assuming with his belief that he's been in hell) and get that gold. And we already know where that is, don't we children?

Finally down to Kristel and... some guy who looked like a young Rutger Hauer. They rig up a trap, figuring that only fire, which was supposed to kill him the first time will 'put his soul to rest'. Okay that's a massive duh to the story but bear with me. 

He's been 'possessing' those not killed one by one (yet) so the body he's currently in finds their trap - a lamp and the music box which is made of - say it with me children - solid gold. He picks it up, the lamp falls and bursts and he (or rather whoever he's in) burns. Great pyrotechnics, assuming it's not CGI'd but as massive as it was, eh. As the two crawl their way out of the mine she sees the spirit of her father and knows she did good. Sort of.

Okay typing this out makes it a bit more stupid than I thought but for a foreign horror flick it was pretty good. It's always interesting to see that no matter what the language, there's always some English mixed in there (all the curse words for instance) and at one point a guy made an 'L' on his forehead and mouthed 'loser' and another says 'Nice idea.... NOT!' Okay they're a bit behind our sophisticated lingo, but it was still interesting, much better than the dreck I've been stuck with lately.