Movies
Razor Eaters (V)
“RAZOR EATERS isn’t really a new film. It’s almost 5-years old at this point. But it’s finally making its way to DVD here in the states. The film is really an Australian version of NATURAL BORN KILLERS.”
Australian cinema has put out some provocative films over the past few years. Films like CHOPPER or Mark Savage’s underground flicks DEFENCELESS and SENSITIVE NEW-AGE KILLER. But even in the extremity of those last two productions those films have been missing that certain immediacy that seemed set to explode off the screen back in 1992 when Geoffery Wright and Russell Crowe stormed across the pacific and landed ROMPER STOMPER into the laps of an unsuspecting American audience. The truth is, when I saw ROMPER STOMPER during its theatrical run, I really hadn’t seen anything like it in terms of violence. It was a film that arrived at almost precisely the same time as Quentin Tarantino’s RESERVIOR DOGS and the French film MAN BITES DOG. Combined, those 3 films blew independent cinema out of the water with regards to extreme violence on screen. It would only be a scant few years before U.S. screens everywhere were inundated with TRUE ROMANCE, TRAINSPOTTING and Oliver Stone’s NATURAL BORN KILLERS. The French went on to bring us IRREVERSIBLE, BAISE-MOI and all manner of new millennium torture films from FRONTIER(S) to HAUTE TENSION. But what happened in Australia? Well we’re about to find out.
RAZOR EATERS isn’t really a new film. It’s almost 5-years old at this point. But it’s finally making its way to DVD here in the states. The film is really an Australian version of NATURAL BORN KILLERS. It tells a tale loosely based on The Hedge Burners gang, which terrorized the Melbourne area committing a series of crimes and videotaping their exploits. In the film, the Razor Eaters are committed to “Organize, Traumatize, and Immortalize” and are lead into suburban battle by their leader Zach (Richard Cawthorne). Their goal is total anarchy, book deals, T-shirts, fan clubs, and copycat killers—nothing less than full-frenzied media exploitation and pop culture immortality. Their victims are Drug Runners, Bad Drivers, Arms Dealers, Egomaniacal Soccer Stars and Corrupt Politicians. They’re modern day demon Robin Hoods being lead about by Zach—who seems to be channeling Robert Carlyle’s TRAINSPOTING performance as Begbie into a whole other realm of sheer madness. The public is split on their support of the Razor Eaters leaving Police Detective Danny Berdan (Paul Moder) even more at a loss as to how to apprehend these maniacs who are actually ridding his streets of Heroin Pushers and Gun Runners.
At its gut, the story of RAZOR EATERS is compelling in its hyperactive vigilantism. The character of Zach is a lightening rod of charisma and it’s easy to see how he can work a throng of disaffected youth into a furious crowd of fans while shooting off an AK-47 just as easily as he convinces his friends to start a murderous rampage while spouting quotes from Robert Kennedy, blaming Australia for making them the way they are and lamenting that his country has no Capone or Krays or Trenchcoat Mafia to elevate. Zach is a modern day Charlie Manson, only Zach has no problem getting his hands dirty.
Most of the film is told in retrospect as Detective Berdan pieces together the group’s weeklong reign of terror as told through the amateur video they shot themselves and store surveillance camera footage of their atrocities. This jerky, Vérité, hand-held style makes the film even more gritty and urgent and Writer/Director Shannon Young uses the guerilla style to more than make up for the films budget shortfalls. In fact, considering all the artillery that the Razor Eaters are packing, it would appear that Young and his crew spent every available penny on Pyrotechnics, Squibs and Bullet Ridden Cars. It’s an orgy of gunplay and fireworks the likes of which most low-budget filmmakers never even attempt and coupled with the superior acting on display from Cawthorne it raises the bar on what could have been just another wannabe-gangster-flick into a full metal meltdown of blown up buildings, blown away bystanders and scene-stealing scenery chewing.
If you’re looking for a film that’s as vicious in it’s assessment of society as it is in it’s dispatching of victims then RAZOR EATERS is going to be right up your alley. If you’re looking for a film with easy answers and clear cut heroes and villains, you’re looking at the wrong DVD. Whether or not the RAZOR EATERS are the winners or the losers, when the final credits crawl is a matter of opinion. That Young doesn’t feel the need to provide you those simple answers is a matter of integrity. If you think that by watching a film like this, you’re actually buying into the idea that we live in a society where the worst aspects of humanity are endlessly sensationalized by the media, then you’re probably right on the money. You decide.
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At the Abigail premiere, Dan Stevens listed Norway among his four favorite vampire movies. “I just saw a great movie recently that I’d never heard of,” he told Letterboxd. “A Greek film called Norway, about a vampire who basically exists in the underground disco scene in ’80s Athens, and he can’t stop dancing ’cause he’s worried his heart will stop. And it’s lovely. It’s great.”
You won’t find a better endorsement than that, but allow me to elaborate. Imagine Only Lovers Left Alive meets What We Do in the Shadows by way of Yorgos Lanthimos. The quirky 2014 effort follows a vampire vagabond (Vangelis Mourikis) navigating Greek’s sordid nightlife circa 1984 as he dances to stay alive. Not as campy as it sounds, its idiosyncrasies land more in the art-house realm. Stylized visuals, colorful bloodshed, pulsating dance music, and an absurd third-act reveal help the existentialism go down in a mere 74 minutes.
With the recent solar eclipse renewing public interest in the astrological event, Bloody Birthday is ripe for rediscovery. Three children born during an eclipse – Curtis Taylor (Billy Jayne, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose), Debbie Brody (Elizabeth Hoy), and Steven Seton (Andrew Freeman) – begin committing murders on their 10th birthday. Brother and sister duo Joyce (Lori Lethin, Return to Horror High) and Timmy Russell (K.C. Martel, The Amityville Horror) are the only ones privy to their heinous acts.
Bloody Birthday opened in 1981 mere weeks before the release of another attempt to claim the birthday slot on the slasher calendar, Happy Birthday to Me. Director Ed Hunt (The Brain) combines creepy kid tropes that date back to The Bad Seed with slasher conventions recently established by Halloween and Friday the 13th – with a little bit of the former’s suspense and plenty of the latter’s gratuity. The unconventional set up helps it to stand out among a subgenre plagued by banality.
Starting in the late ’70s and throughout the ’80s, Italy built an enterprise out of shameless rip-offs of hit American movies. While not a blatant mockbuster like Cruel Jaws or Beyond the Door, 1989’s Alien from the Abyss (also known as Alien from the Deep) was inspired by – as you may have guessed from its title – Alien, Aliens, and The Abyss.
After a pair of Greenpeace activists attempt to expose an evil corporation that’s dumping contaminated waste into an active volcano, the environment takes a backseat to survival when an extraterrestrial monster attacks. Character actor Charles Napier (The Silence of the Lambs) co-stars as a callous colonel overseeing the illicit activities.
Director Antonio Margheriti (Yor: The Hunter from the Future, Cannibal Apocalypse) and writer Tito Carpi (Tentacles, Last Cannibal World) take far too long to get to the alien, but once it shows up, it’s non-stop excitement. The creature is largely represented by a Gigeresque pincer claw that reaches into the frame, giving the picture a ’50s creature feature charm, but nothing can prepare you for its full reveal in the finale.
Set against the backdrop of displaced Syrian and Palestinian refugees, What Is Buried Must Remain is a timely found footage hybrid from Lebanon. It centers on a trio of young filmmakers as they make a documentary in a decrepit mansion alleged to be haunted on the outskirts of a refugee camp. Inside, they find the spirits of those who died there, both benevolent and malicious.
It plays like Blair Witch meets The Shining through a cultural lens not often seen in the genre. The first half is presented as found footage (with above-average cinematography) before abruptly weaving in more traditional film coverage. While the tropes are familiar, the film possesses a unique ethos by addressing the Middle East’s plights of the past and the present alike.
Cathy’s Curse is, to borrow a phrase from its titular creepy kid, an “extra rare piece of shit.” The Exorcist, The Omen, and Carrie spawned countless low-budget knock-offs, but none are as uniquely inept as this 1977 Canuxploitation outing. Falling squarely in the so-bad-it’s-good camp, it’s far more entertaining than The Exorcist: Believer.
To try to make sense of the plot would be futile, but in a nutshell, a young girl named Candy (Randi Allen, in her only acting role) becomes possessed by the vengeful, foul-mouthed spirit of her aunt, destroying the lives of anyone who crosses her path. What ensues is a madcap mélange of possession, telekinesis, teleportation, animal attacks, abandoned plot points, and unhinged filmmaking that must be seen to be believed.
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