I THINK THIS MOVIE WAS HALF-BAKED 'CAUSE IT WASN'T IN THE OVEN LONG ENOUGH...

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D (2013) Germany/US

Here's a new word to add to the new made-up words of the film industry to describe the crap being churned out at an alarming rate: mockbuster. This is of course a play on the word blockbuster and is mainly used by movie companies who see popular movies and immediately knock off their own copy. One main source of those kinds of movies is a company called The Asylum.

I'm not saying all their movies are crap, I have found a watchable movie or two, but mockbusters have made them some serious money. Okay, maybe not a ton, but some. Their version: Hansel & Gretel. Okay, not inventive but their catchphrase "A Classic Tale: Horrifyingly Real" is pushing it quite a bit. Real? The Brothers Grimm are twisting in their graves. And further down the movie evolutionary chain we've got Hansel & Gretel Get Baked. I don't think I have to explain that title, do I? Oh, and it's from the makers of Twilight - hey, where are you going? Get back here you cowards!

But we'll just talk about the witch hunters. You have the option of the 87 minute theater version, or the uncut 98 minute version that's supposed to have scenes "too intense" for the theater crowd. I saw both. My opinion is that there's a longer version so they can sell Blu-rays 'cause there's really no such thing as 'intense' CGI and that's what most of the effects were. 

Now I didn't watch the Avengers or any superhero movie made in the last few years (okay, okay I finally watched The Watchmen and it was awful) so although Jeremy Renner looked vaguely familiar to me, I couldn't place him so I looked around. Oh, he was Hawkeye. 'Kay. Apparently he was also in the Avatar crushing movie monster The Hurt Locker (didn't see either one). 'Kay. Gretel was played by Gemma Aterton who can be seen in Clash of the Titans or Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Or not.

So. We have what is supposed to be the BLOCKBUSTER movie version here, the one so successful they're already making (if they're not already done) a sequel to it. How does it hold up? You know what I'm going to say about it, don't you?

Even if I put aside all the anachronistic hardware the brother and sister team wield through the movie, the taking of the original tale and screwing it all to high heaven, and the (sorry guys) not very enthusiastic performance of the characters, this still wouldn't be a very good movie. Not a BAD bad movie mind you, just not as good as I was hoping.

We start with the story - daddy takes the kids out into the woods at the bidding of his wife and tells them to get lost. Okay, he doesn't do that, but leaves them and they DO get lost - until they find that famous candy house. After being there long enough to give Hansel the 'sugar sickness' for the rest of his life (their word for diabetes I guess) they overpower the witch and... well, this part everybody knows. Hansel says that they learned there's only one thing to do with a witch - burn their ass. Cute.

The movie is a continuation of their life story. Woof. What can you say about the adult life of two children who kill for a living? They keep killing, they keep collecting the money. That's... about it. But since this is the BLOCKBUSTER version of the story (for 2013 anyway) they've got to shove a whole bunch more plot 'cause they've got lots of time to kill (sorry). So how out-of-time was this anyway? Well...

The Brothers Grimm (why they say it backwards I don't know) were Germans who grew in poverty but still managed to get an education. Later in life they became fascinated by the many folk tales of German and Scandinavian origin and decided to put them to paper. This was somewhere in the 1800s but the stories were much, much older. These weren't bedtime stories you told your kids to be nice. They were often violent, cruel tales that were more like a threat of punishment of some kind to children who misbehaved - soon to be sanitized by the likes of people such as the good folk of Disney.

So let's talk about the anachronistic (not belonging to this time period) stuff. First, Hansel and Gretel look like Neo and Trinity from The Matrix. Both are dressed in black leather outfits (metal rivets and all) with Hansel wearing a full length black leather coat. Hmm, maybe he was a Neo/Blade mix and she was a Trinity/Emma Peel mix. He certainly LOOKED like Neo when he bent over backwards to dodge an arrow - that was a pretty obvious ripoff and stupid besides.

Their weapons are patently ridiculous - if you could even find that much metal material to make weapons that haven't been invented yet, would you then meticulously carve patterns into them? I mean hey, seeing a Gatling gun take down flying witches was funny but c'mon (done by 'good witch' and beautiful Finnish actress Pihla Viitala). And giving Hansel diabetes? Really? The concept of the pancreas creating insulin to regulate sugar levels wasn't even discovered until 1869 and it was many years after that before it was synthesized for human use. What the hell is he injecting into himself? Fairy juice? And the syringe? Maybe if this was after the 1850s or so.

One more then I'll shut up - the phonograph. The player may have been around, okay, but it should have played a wax cylinder that looks like a scroll - not a flat round thing that looks like your grandparents 78's. There's more but I promised to shut up.

I had to laugh though as they travel through this Bavarian village as they offer the residents of the town their services as many children had gone missing. No, not about that part - the part where they had quarts of milk in bottles with 'missing children' posters on them. Pffft.

Famke Janssen is always a welcome sight and was good as the head witch Muriel. I wish she'd been in more of the movie, it would have been more interesting and more fun. So H&G are determined to wipe out all witches. In a silly attempt to smush subplots into that, we've got a big ceremony by the witches coming up that will make them impervious to fire. 

Because even though H&G drag around an army's worth of weapons and ammo, the sure thing that kills them is fire. Which is funny 'cause in the movie they get shot, beheaded, cut up with wire, heads bashed in... I would have concentrated on body armor instead of worrying about fire but that's just me.

Oh yeah, the other subplot. According to the original story (there's about a thousand versions) H&G's mom and dad don't wanna do it, but they're starving so they make sure their kids are lost in the forest. Later it becomes a father and their stepmother who wanted him to get rid of them so they all wouldn't starve. Putting sex over love (Why else would he do it?) he leads the kids waaay out and leaves them. In most versions it takes a couple of times before they are really lost. 

They find the witch's house made of candy... from here it goes pretty much as you've read it. The ending varies a bit. This borrows from even older tales - sometimes it's a giant that's outwitted by the kids, sometimes since the stepmother is used it is suggested that she and the witch are the same person, etc.

This one presents it to you like a big sugary cupcake with a foot of frosting on top. See, H&G's mom and dad had to hide the kids to protect them. Mom was a white (read good) witch, a powerful one, but one who could never hurt a human being. The townspeople are perfectly capable however. While the children wander lost, the mother is burned at the stake, their father hanged. 

As adults finding their old home they also find their mother's secret lair (apparently all witches have to have one) and a book of spells against black magic. How convenient. How... dumb. So that's why H&G are immune to spells and curses - they're part magic themselves. Uh huh. With the help of a white (again, white apparently equals 'good') witch Mina they find a spell to 'bless' their weapons and ammo and go to kick some serious witch ass.

If this is the 'too violent' part - c'mon guys. While some of the effects and gore are decent before this (an ogre stomping a guy's head into spaghetti sauce was pretty good) this is so CGI'd it was almost comical. After some go splat and some go poof and some just... go, H&G try to find Muriel (Famke Janssen, don't forget her...) and they end up at... say it with me.... SAAAAAAY IT.... the original candy house they were trapped in so long ago. Of course sugar doesn't hold too well and it looks icky now but could there be a bigger, more obvious plot device and place for a final battle? The answer is NO by the way.

A fight to the death ensues. It doesn't last long. H&G get Muriel with a shovel (all that fancy equipment and they use a shovel... sigh) and pin her down. Hansel holds the shovel on her throat. Gretel uses her weight on it to behead the witch. Hansel grabs the head and throws it in the oven. Uh huh.


Our last scene is of H&G and their new friends Edward (the troll) and Ben, a fan and future witch hunter as they travel around killing more witches and getting ready for H&G 2 no doubt...

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BLOODBATH: A TWELVE MOVIE COLLECTION OF HORROR - SO THEY SAY. GET YOUR SEATBELTS ON KIDDIES, THIS IS GOING TO BE A VERY BUMPY RIDE PART ELEVEN

Twisted Sisters (2006) Germany/UK

Quick quiz: What do you get when you have Fiona Horsey, Paul Conway, Eden Ford and Director Wolfgang Buld? Answer: A guarantee that the movie you're about to see is about sexual mutilation and bad acting. I'm not kidding. Angst, The Chambermaid, Twisted Sisters - all had decidedly anti-sexual tones and extreme punishment for those who, uh, indulged in the act. This sorry mess was almost ALL about that. Don't know what Buld's problem is, but I hope he doesn't have a partner.

We get Fiona in a double role as Jennifer/Norah - twin sisters that were raised in two very different ways. Their mother was killed or killed herself, I can't remember which and don't really care, so the kids were put in foster care.

Jennifer got adopted, had great parents with money, got everything she wanted and is married and newly pregnant (Although that doesn't seem to prevent her from getting drunk and smoking - what is this, the 50's?) 

Norah was taken in by relatives (wait, what?) and abused by both aunt and uncle. When her uncle raped her and impregnated her she stabbed him to death. She lost the baby and now can't have another one. She spent her life in an institution and was only recently released.

So Norah is out to get the life Jennifer has. Duh. This is the whole movie folks. They threw in, just for kicks (and because these guys only make gross movies) that Norah is a psychopathic killer who mainly kills men after sex by ripping out their crotch. How you ask? You didn't? Well, when she's not stabbing or cutting certain parts off, she's setting off fireworks in their, uh, lower regions. Nasty.

Two detectives (Conway and Ford) think Jennifer did the killings until her parents come forward and tell them about the twin. Natch they are now looking for Norah which REALLY pisses her off. She finds out by incredible convenient coincidence that Jennifer and her husband went to their vacation home that everyone has everywhere never. 

She goes out there to claim her... I mean her sister's life. She ties her up and puts her in the attic while she boinks the hell out of Jennifer's husband. Jennifer is working herself free when the detectives, figuring finally where Norah might have gone, show up. They see Jennifer with a knife and shoot her.

At the hospital they manage to save Jennifer's life. Her husband takes Norah, who he still thinks is his wife, home. But Norah manages to sneak out later and go back to the hospital. What she didn't figure on was that one of the detectives (Conway) is a major pervert and is turned on by the woman he thinks is such a viscious killer. As she looks on, the detective is feeling Jennifer up and saying he'd have to wait until she's conscious to rape her.

This makes Norah remember how she was treated and in a rage she goes into the room, grabs a scalpel and... well, you know... does her thing. Jennifer wakes up and sees what's happening. Norah, in a fit of conscience (or just because the movie's almost over) tells Jennifer she wanted to be just like her. She then cuts her own throat, dying on top of Jennifer. The end.

Wait - the end? That's it? That was the whole story? And why am I protesting - at least it's over.

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BLOODBATH: A TWELVE MOVIE COLLECTION OF HORROR - SO THEY SAY. GET YOUR SEATBELTS ON KIDDIES, THIS IS GOING TO BE A VERY BUMPY RIDE PART FIVE

The Haunting of Rebecca Verlaine aka Garden Of Love (2003) Germany

Do you know how many movies start with 'The Haunting Of'? Enough where I have to make up some nonsense word to save my reviews 'cause there's TONS. What was wrong with Garden Of Love? Okay, weird title for a slasher film but still better.

This is one of those movies you never remember watching but after 15 minutes in you slap yourself in the head and when you regain consciousness (you did it a little too hard stupid) you say, 'Oh yeah, THAT one, GOD it was dumb.' But of course now you're stuck because while you remember the reveal, you can't remember the ending 'cause you hit your head too hard. Anyway this is the movie:

Merry Chris... oooh, never mind.

A woman is in a coma 'cause her whole family was murdered and she was also stabbed but survived. It happened on Christmas Eve. Why? I have no freaking idea, stop asking questions. Oh, and this girl's 'family'? They were a commune her father put together after his success as a musician. He wanted to get away from it all and brought people with him, so her father was probably EVERYBODY'S father. Eww. We get some scenes that would have been pretty damned gruesome if it all didn't happen in the dark. So now you get some squish, some moans, some flashes of blood flying. Could have been worse. And the credits are still running.

Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare

Then we have one of the investigators doing that oh-so-irritating waking with a scream from a nightmare, going to the kitchen just to find out he's still asleep and wakes AGAIN from the nightmare. C'mon guys, once is bad enough. Besides, it has diddly-squat to do with either the story or anything else.

So the ghosties of this commune want her to wake up and find the killer. WAKE UP!!! Sorry, just trying to help. She's in a coma for two years but when she wakes up she not only remembers nothing she doesn't know who she is. So the little girl gets adopted by her aunt and uncle whom she assumes is her parents, and grows up into a woman in college. Studying shock trauma to the brain. Duh. And the ghosties keep coming at her all bloody and torn up. 

Daddy Dearest

Now, using simple logic, IF people became ghosts after death, would they scare the person they're supposed to love the most by showing up all effed up and dripping ooze? Would the ones who care for her and want her back show her how gross they all were when they were killed? Simple logic folks, think about it. She's getting messages from beyond - not from her loving family that she lost, that would be sad, not a horror movie so she's getting 'em from a messed up bloody dude who's scaring the crap out of her. Thanks dad. And the infomercial idea where the 'host' was her dad using knives to cut people's hands off was just... stupid. And him showing up constantly with  pieces of his face falling off... again, stupid.

But the acting job of the now-aged investigator of the murders made me laugh. The way he delivered his lines as he sat on his desk, I was convinced they were printed on a piece of paper in front of him or something. He describes to the now-cognizant of her identity Rebecca and her psych boyfriend in a total deadpan voice that they were 'completely slaughtered'. 

Well, that's a relief. We don't want any partially slaughtered people wandering around, do we? I know I don't like it when my hamburger's only been partially slaughtered. Sheesh. And how could a guy get stabbed 46 times but nobody knew it and were killed in their beds 'later'. Later? Like what, minutes, hours? We're starting to get into serious duh territory here and it ain't gonna get any better.

Sorry, I ate superglue as a kid - nothing moves now...

He takes a good five minutes of deadpan delivery to expound on what 'no clues' meant. FIVE MINUTES. No suspects. No witnesses. No criminal activity. No reason. No rhyme. No psycho killers. No Satanic rituals. No marijuana crops (what the hell does that... nope, never mind). No copycat killings. No rhythm and blues. Sorry, made that last one up - are you yawning yet? Then he ends his speech with this: It's as if the Devil crawled out of hell. Umm, what? There's a psychiatrist sitting right in front of you dummy. He's in a perfect position to get your ass kicked off the force for that kind of thing.

This was a guy... or maybe a girl... umm, a dog?

Then he tells Rebecca 'We do have a video - would you like to see it?' Okay time out idiots. A little girl's family is 'totally slaughtered'. Years later she tries to remember and THEY'RE GOING TO SHOW HER THE VIDEO OF THE BLOODY MESS? Oh this just gets better and better. After telling her there's absolutely no clues, evidence, etc. he THEN tells her oh yeah, we do have the murder weapons. And fingerprints. Um, what? That's NO evidence? But one problem (actually tons but never mind) - the fingerprints are Rebecca's. Uh huh.

Then it completely jumps from dull as a stump to a bloodfest that was gorier than most whole movies. After seeing the tape she takes one cop to look at the farm. The dead 'family' quickly dispatch him and tell her they need the 'right ones' in order to, uh, stop splashing blood everywhere. She calls for help and cops go into the farm. Major boo boo on her part, she forgot they're gonna... oh well. 

He just lost his head for a minute...

Ghosts and cops alike are torn apart in almost cartoonish fashion. Wait, ghosts are getting torn apart, blood and guts flying. That's right folks - even if you're dead it doesn't mean you can't squirt blood and guts clear across the room. Why? This movie said so, derrr. So for the next couple of minutes the movie becomes Dead Alive all up in there and people's heads, limbs and guts spray everywhere until you can't tell who's a goopy ghost and whose a goopy cop. Fun, eh?

After all this fun she runs back to the boyfriend. And gets her just reward - namely he drugs her and she wakes to find a noose around her neck. He tells her she's gonna kill herself. Why? She's a very rich lady, since her dead father left her tons of money she didn't know about and he had 'faked' a will that left everything to him. Ah. 

A little home improvement project..

So he proceeds to haul her up but guys always forget about the gonads and she doesn't so he's rolling on the floor and the drill he was flashing at her for some reason she uses for a little impromptu dental work as well as taking out an eye and generally making him not-so-pretty. She escapes to the deadpan speech maker (aka the cop) and finds her adoptive parents there (they're actually her aunt and uncle). And the truth comes out.

The aunt and uncle had HATED her dad for having all that money 'without doing anything' (that's what people think about musicians - they don't do anything). They had asked him for money but nope. So they devised a plan together with the investigator and the psychologist who later became Rebecca's boyfriend (to keep an eye on her I guess). And the family got slaughtered and they purposely let Rebecca live (umm, she was stabbed twice in the chest how the hell... sigh) so that she would be suspected. And now they'll just say she was crazy and since the boyfriend's dead, the aunt and uncle are gonna clean up.

Thank your father Rebecca. "Thanks dad."

Conveniently the investigator has a girl about eleven or so, and Rebecca grabs her as a hostage and draws all of them to the farmhouse. Oh boy, here we go again. Splat, rip, squish, slop, slip - any other gross words I can use? After they're all dead and Rebecca and the little girl get injured, the daddy appears (still gooped up, nice) and she has a vision of all of them dancing in the sun. Awww.

Luuuuke, I am your father... oops, sorry - wrong channel...

But this is a horror movie - no happy endings. So in the end, the little girl is traumatized and has amnesia. This may happen constantly in movies and especially in soap operas, but amnesia actually only happens very rarely. So she adopts the kid and things are well and good - until the little girl's dad appears to her in the TV set and tells her things have just begun. Oooh, they usually say that when there's a sequel to be had. Meh, I think we're safe.

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OW OW OW MY FREAKIN' EYES C'MON YOU CAN'T DO THIS OW OW OW!!!




Robin Hood: Ghosts Of Sherwood 3D (2012) Germany/USA

I pity the poor idiot who watched this horrible piece of drek in 3D. It shouldn't be seen in 2D! Okay people, we're talking bottom of the barrel here and I'm not exaggerating. It is 116 minutes of excruciating cardboard acting, an 'action' film where the action seems to be to run from the forest to the castle back to the forest to the castle run to the witch back to the forest to the witch back to the forest to the castle... For 200,000 euro (that's $267,459.90 American) they obviously had to raid some beginners acting class for the cast so they could spend the rest of the money on Tom Savini and Kane Hodder. As for the 3D part, usually you can tell what shots they set up for it but in this one... nothing.

I'm seriously rethinking my position on watching any movie if a certain actor or actress I really like is in it. This horrid thing had Tom Savini playing the Sheriff of Nottingham which is the ONLY reason I plodded through it like a horse that knows it's on its way to the glue factory. This was actually in Netflix's 'horror' category although it it classified as an action/adventure/comedy. COMEDY??? It wasn't even horror much less comedy. The voices were obviously dubbed and the people read their lines like they were on thorazine. And here's how it went - briefly because just writing about it is giving me the same nauseous feeling I had watching it:

Robin, filthy hippy of Sherwood...

'Whether you're rich or poor, you're not leaving the forest.' With that witless tagline we learn that Robin Hood, although he tries to be sort of good is really an idiot and his merry men seem to keep more riches than they distribute around. Oh, and Robin Hood sucks with a bow and arrow - he can't even hit the ground. So he meets Maid Marian, kills her bodyguards and she's okay with that as long as he doesn't take their gold. She makes him promise to bury them with it. Of course he doesn't but after a small hissy fit she forgets it and supposedly they fall in love.

Maid In Japan Marian...

But Robin just plain sucks and he gets killed, almost - his friends are killed all the way. Hey, I didn't write this, stop complaining at me young ones. He ends up with a witch and since he was almost dead he gets a healing potion but his lifespan is now three years. His friends, dead under 24 hours get revived - the witch told him any time after 24 hours they don't come back - at least as humans.

Tom Savini actually thought he was attending a convention in Paris...

And she gives Robin a potion so that he becomes a master archer. Doesn't help him a bit though, he gets killed - AGAIN. So do all of his merry men. Except for some reason Little John (Kane Hodder) who just shows up out of nowhere. He provides the only comedy in this thing when he explains to Maid Marian that he WAS ugly but took one of the witch's potions to make him handsome - but he took too much so he's stuck being handsome. WAHAHAHAHA. That's it.

I am handsome! My mommy said I was!

Marian runs back to the witch with Little John but the witch knows the men will have been dead more than 24 hours and so refuses to give them anything so they just kill her and take it. These are the GOOD guys folks. Run run run and back to the bodies they give all the potion and wait. Sure enough, each wakes up, spitting up a ton of milk (not a whole lot for special effects here) and these dead-for-only-a-little-over-a-day men are now ravenous, nasty, rotting zombies - including Robin Hood. And Maid Marian is sooo heartbroken that she just cries and cries and cries...

Nope, I'm kidding with that one. Maid Marian DOESN'T GIVE A CRAP. Now she has to cover her ass so she and Little John sort through the potions they stole (which apparently are conveniently labeled) until they find a containment type of potion. Invoking it, it will keep all the zombies within Sherwood Forest. Maybe. They beat cleats out of there but not until Little John puts all the potions in his bag because, he says, if he has it he's an exalted wizard - if she's caught with them they'll burn her as a witch. That seems fair.

I'm the Sheriff - I don't wear helmets...

On their way back to the castle (And exactly why would they do that?) they meet up with the Sheriff and his pack of men. He asks if they've seen Robin Hood. They say sure, he's in the woods. Off they go and are never seen again - in this movie. Maid Marian runs the castle now and Little John is the Sheriff. Roll credits thank you God...

Good thing women's lib isn't for another couple hundred years...

Oh hell no! We're back into the movie with Sheriff Little John - he has a beginner witch in stocks and says she's gonna make potions for them or he'll burn her. These, I repeat, are the GOOD guys. And our horrid movie finally ends.

Horrid horrid horrid... this was released in Germany and straight to video in the USA - should have been straight to the müll.

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THE VENGEFUL AND THE FILTHY PART TWO

Deathwatch (2011) UK/Germany

Unless I purposely go and make a list for one of my zombie fests or some other craptacular I really don't assemble lists of movies - sometimes I just get a couple in a row. While this one is set in WWI, it still is mud and blood and death. Instead of plague, they just had the simple things like rain, cold, mud and nerve gas. Easy. <insert massive sarcasm here> I usually stay away from war movies (unless there's zombies) but this one sounded - unusual. 

The description says an 'unidentified and otherworldly' enemy slowly picks off this group of English soldiers. Like war isn't scary enough. Being in a trench and being told to 'go over the top' even though you know that probably means you're gonna die in the next ten seconds is not my idea of a good time.

And this is what happens as mainly seen through the eyes of 16-year-old Private 1st Class Shakespeare, who had lied about his age to enlist. He's scared spitless and that's totally understandable, especially, when among constant barrages of explosions, the rain, the mud and the barbed wire they are commanded to go over the top. He freezes but is pushed on and finds a place to cower as shellfire is all around them.

Then night goes away. It is day and the men wear their gas masks as a thick fog surrounds them. They find out by accident that it IS only fog, and they can take off their masks. And find themselves right in German territory - before them is a maze of German trenches with a handful of seemingly terrified German soldiers hiding within. 

It's war so they shoot several, the rest scattering. The surviving English soldiers go about securing the trench - in the constant rain, mud and weirdly messed up bodies piled here and there. Some seem torn apart, others burned, others... don't even look human anymore. Everything is completely covered in thick mud.

No this is not a pleasant movie. It gets worse. A... thing seems to be tracking them and even the mud and barbed wire seem to be coming alive. They set off charges to blow... whatever is outside the trench. They hear a deep growling and don't notice that the earth itself seems to bleed.

This is also a movie that does not try to wrap everything in a neat package. War is hell and so is this movie. About hell I mean. For them. They die off one by one by... horrible means from an unseen enemy. The one German named Friedrich they've kept as a prisoner can't help them - he speaks some French as does the 16-year-old Shakespeare but there's not a lot to tell or learn except that they will kill each other because there is 'evil in the trenches'. They find a radio but cannot communicate - the only noise they can hear is another company saying that the listeners have been killed. They scream into the radio that they are still alive - but are they?

In their frustration, they all torture Friedrich - all except for Shakespeare, who hates what they're doing and tries to stop them but of course no one listens and they continue to abuse the German. Night comes and they hear the sounds of war but see nothing and no bullets or people try to enter the trenches. Convinced it's the Germans they again set off charges to destroy parts of the trenches - again, unseen, blood spills from the ground.

The rest of the group get seriously paranoid (for good reason) and they indeed begin to turn on each other. And torture Friedrich. Finally as they are about to kill him Shakespeare manages to cut him loose, but not before being forced to go against his own company - just as Friedrich told him. He hands Friedrich a gun to defend himself and eventually he is the last English soldier standing - then a big sink hole appears where they piled the dozens of bodies found and made and barbed wire moves to block off every exit. 

Shakespeare cannot escape, and is sucked down with all the others. In a scene they don't explain, he sees his whole company, including himself, quite alive - and while they look at him they don't speak or acknowledge him. Screaming that he is still alive he manages to get back to the surface where he finds Friedrich, with the rifle he gave him pointed in his direction. 

He shouts at the German in English and French that he tried to help him. Then Friedrich says, in perfect English, that yes, he was the ONLY one who tried to help him and tells him to leave. He turns to leave then looks back at Friedrich, who has disappeared. He gets out and goes off to... we don't know what.

The last scene is of a group of German soldiers appearing at the lip of the trench, shouting at Friedrich, who is facing the camera. They tell him to surrender which he does, with a knowing look.

Make a lot of sense? Maybe not. Show that war is hell? Oh yeah. Interesting? Yeah, pretty well made actually.

THE VENGEFUL AND THE FILTHY PART ONE



Black Death (2010) Germany/UK

I hate war movies, I really do. I'm not that interested in history, and let's face it, war is mud and blood and death. But back in the 1300's in England it was also the plague. This movie was made and released really close to the Nicolas Cage movie Season Of The Witch. Tell you what, if you can only see one, see this one. 

Save yourself the specter of Nicolas in greasy long hair trying to act concerned for anybody but himself. Besides this movie has the oh-so-watchable Sean Bean (Lord Of The Ring's Boromir and favorite victim of the ever popular meme) and a pleasant surprise that makes me wonder how I can forget what happened five minutes ago but hear a voice and I can place it no matter how long ago I heard it. Stupid brain.

So we're in the middle of England as its population is getting decimated by the plague. Of course then they had no idea what caused it, so talk of witches and sorcery flew and people suffered and died for that as well. The story revolves around a young monk named Osmund who is very naive and confused - he has sort of forsaken his vows by falling in love with a young (and still healthy) girl, Averill. Stealing some food, he gives it to her and asks her to wait for him in the forest and he'll be there and they can get away. He searches for a sign from God to help him. He thinks his prayers are answered when a group of knights, led by Ulric (Sean Bean) shows up needing a guide just by the place he was supposed to meet her. He goes with them.

Things fall apart, of course, rather quickly. These knights are tired, they are to the point where they would rather just wipe out anybody with even the taint of evil than see if they really are - in a word, their morals have fallen along with many of the dead in the horrid plague. Osmund is shocked to see their seeming brutality as he travels with them - their goal: a village has been reported to be free of the plague and so of course it must be because of a witch and a necromancer they believe to be keeping the disease out and also raising the dead (don't know quite how that got mixed into it) and so death must come to all.

Osmund is desolate - passing through the forest he has found bloody bits of Averill's clothing, and knows now that she is dead. They finally reach the vilage by the marsh and find it run by a woman - which of course back then instantly meant 'witch' because she didn't know her place, right? Oh, and everybody's healthy. So the knights declare war on this village with its pretty blonde leader Langiva (Carice van Houten) and her, uh, partner or whatever Hob (Tim McInnerny who, hearing him speak his first sentence had me running for my Blackadder DVDs... sure enough he played Percy in the first two installments and Captain Darling in the fourth) and their utopian-like village (they were the only ones who looked like they ever bathed). Soon though the soldiers are imprisoned and told they will be set free if they recant (deny God).

Osmund is staunch even seeing the supposed 'resurrection' of his beloved Averill by the witch. He finds her seemingly without thought (good almost-zombie behavior without all the makeup) and knowing she is an abomination, he kills her quickly. As the others are taunted to recant or be crucified, Langiva tells Osmund that HE killed his love - she was never dead, only drugged. Despite being tortured, only one recants and is set free - long enough to be hanged. Nice.

Ulric shouts that his men will never renounce God and for that he is prepared to be drawn and quartered. Ouch. But in pure Sean Bean style he stands, umm I mean kneels his ground and refuses to the end to recant. He asks Osmund, who was also released to open his shirt and reveals to the village that he has had the plague for some time and kept it secret. He dies a hero.

Through a series of coincidences that were a little too easy, the rest of the men get loose and go about slaughtering all they can catch. Unfortunately, although Hob is caught and put in some kind of see-through iron maiden to take to the Bishop as proof of their victory. It's not clear whether Langiva is a witch or not or whether she just knows a lot about medicine and is very intelligent (Intelligent women back 'in the day' were often thought to have evil powers 'cause hey, we women don't have brains, do we?) but what she does know better than they is the swamp and despite their chase, she escapes.

So now it is revealed that this utopian village had NOT been protected by a witch - it was just that it was an isolated place and thus free of the disease - until the knights came, especially since they spilled Ulric's blood all over the place. So they start to die. And the movie doesn't wrap in a pretty little package either - Osmund, knowing now that he killed a very much alive Averill now spends his days seeking revenge on the 'witch' Langiva - he becomes a knight and spends his time going from village to village to seek out and burn witches. Problem is, now in his eyes almost every woman IS Langiva and so he has no mercy towards anyone and kills without thought.

So this is one of those thinking type movies - these knights are supposed to be on God's side against Satan yet they rape, kill and pillage at will - the so-called Satan worshipers had a clean, healthy village (until the knights showed up) so who was more righteous? Who was more devout? And wash your hands.

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