Reviews

'Last House...' is a notorious film, because of its theme of rape, murder & vengeance and the often disturbing graphic violence and I admit I was interested in this film, not only because it was made by the man who gave us genre classics like 'Nightmare on Elm St', 'Serpent and the Rainbow', and 'Scream' but also because of its dubious reputation, especially in countries like the UK where this film was, or still is, banned (it will be released on DVD in the UK soon ,with about 31 seconds cut).

There are many similarities with 'I spit on your Grave' another 'video nasty' (which was even more heavily cut in the UK in order to make a release on video possible), but there is also an important difference: 'Last House' was created by a skillful director, someone who had it in him to make a truly good horror film, whereas 'I Spit' is far more of an exploitation film (and therefore in many ways even more disturbing).

However, 'Last House' is by no means flawless, and the excuse of the shoestring budget does not hold up totally. So many things have been said and written about this film and I know it has many fans who will defend till the end, but the acting is plain BAD. Krug is such a bad guy, it's almost laughable (I love the scene with the wee boy and the balloon!) and (I know it has been mentioned in earlier reviews...) what about these stupid cops!

I've heard the new DVD edition comes with a commentary by Wes Craven and Sean S. Cunningham and I would love to hear them responding to some bizarre scenes. For example, The daughter is moving when her parents find her, and I was surprised to see that she was still alive (she is moving her head and her eyes). However, one second later her father says something like "she's dead, there's nothing more we can do". And I tell you the girl was moving, not like an extremely bad actress would move who cannot 'play dead' but really moving!

I had read some bad reviews before actually seeing this film so I was prepared for the worst. I have to say that the film was way better than I had expected it to be. Mind you, it is no masterpiece, but 'The Time Machine' is highly entertaining and benefits from its relatively short running time. Most blockbusters nowadays suffer from overlong running times, often dragging on, whereas they could easily have done with 20 minutes less.

I have always liked the story by H.G. Wells, but this film is by no means a faithful adaption of this book, however, it is a sometimes inventive Hollywood take on the book. I haven't seen the 1960 adaption but most people in this review section seem to perceive this film as a remake of the 1960 film, but I see it more as a second movie adaption (Tim Burton will probably say Simon Wells 're-invented' the story :-) ).

As I have said, the film is better than the bad reviews would suggest, but still you would have expected more of it just judging from the trailer and the multi-million dollar budget. So although I had a good time watching this film I can point out many weaknesses, e.g. the numerous plotholes.

*** SPOILER!!! ***

One reviewer mentioned what he regarded as a plothole: in the beginning Hartdegen is unable to change the past (the killing of his lover) and later on he is planning to change the future (i.e. the Eloi's past). The fact that he was unable to prevent the killing of his girl, was not due to some mysterious cosmic law saying that you cannot cheat fate/destiny. His girlfriend had to be killed because otherwise he would not have invented the time machine and could not have been in the past. His wife's dead led him to lock himself in his lab and work day and night on the time machine for four years. I'm not sure whether this is how time travelling would really work, but I'm afraid that time travel films always lead to this type of discussions. I can think of only one film, 'Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me', where there was no discussion possible because of a 'disclaimer' uttered by Basil in the film (paraphrase): 'don't worry about any details, just enjoy yourself'. And I guess that goes for 'The Time Machine' as well.

Of course 'Commando' is one of these brilliant 1980's no-brainers with countless obvious plot holes. A recent experience made me remember one of them (I haven't seen the film in years):

*SPOILER ALERT*

In the beginning of the film we can see that Arnie's ex-Green Beret buddies are being killed off one by one. For entertainment's sake this is done in rather unconventional fashion. For example, one guy is not simply killed by putting explosives in his car or anything conventionally simple like that. No, the bad guys (one of them played by Bill Duke) come up with the following 'cunning plan' (of course this is not explained elaborately in the film but we have to assume that this is the way the plan was developped):

First they get hold of a garbage truck (probably stolen/jacked). Then they drive the truck to the victim's house in the early morning. It's is important to note that no garbage is normally collected on this day. The victim is lying in his bed with his wife, they are woken up by the noise of the garbage truck. Naturally the couple the couple is confused. Are the garbage bags collected today??? However, they come to the conclusion that 'maybe they changed the schedule'. They guy then hastily collects the garbage bags in the kitchen and approaches the garbage truck. The garbage collectors then turn out to be killers and they shoot him point blank. The killers must have made the following assumptions beforehand:

1. The noise of the garbage truck will wake up the victim or at least draw his attention.

2. The fact that he hears a (garbage) truck will make him run for the garbage bags even though according to the schedule they are not supposed to be picked up yet.

3. No-one else in the neighbourhood will make the same assumptions as the victim.

4. The victim's household is a conservative stronghold where only the man will take out the trash.

I remembered this scene (which to be honest is quite irrelevant in the film) when they collected our garbage ahead of schedule (due to Christmas) waking up me and my girlfriend. We ended up having a conversation similar to the victim in 'Commando'. Eventually I got up and ran after the garbage truck...but luckily I survived :-)