(2000)
Dir - Stefan Ruzowitzky
Overall: WOOF
Austrian filmmaker Stefan Ruzowitzky does his own mostly embarrassing take on turn of the century horror films with Anatomy, (Anatomie). We have attractive college-age adults doing attractive college-age adult things, some hip soundtrack choices, and groan-worthy and flirtations dialog to appease a post-Scream audience looking for fast-paced, quippy schlock with some torture porn additives. Sadly there are plenty of other hackneyed tropes sprinkled around as well, like law enforcement officials not taking anyone seriously, our main protagonist Franka Potente trying to uncover a mystery that the audience is already privy to, and a slasher-esque third act that undermines the inherent creepiness of a clandestine and occult surgery butcher organization. In other words, it throws in many elements that seem to be doing battle with each other in order to have something for everyone, becoming an inevitable mess in the process. If Ruzowitzky went for a more subtle approach so that both the viewer and Potente were left in the dark, at least the trek to get to the silly finale would have been more atmospheric and unsettling. Instead, this just comes off as a competently made and good-looking bit of stupidity.
(2007)
Dir - Franck Vestiel
Overall: MEH
An ambitious yet largely unwatchable debut from French filmmaker Franck Vestiel, Eden Log throws a guy into a pitch black cave and spends the next merciless one-hundred odd minutes watching him try to escape. If this sounds like an interesting jumping-off point, it is, but things quickly settle into a sluggish endurance test for the audience once we realize that the horrendous and exclusively hand-held cinematography is going to render much of the visuals indecipherable. This is a shame since some of those visuals are impressive, (solid and mucky monster makeup, sets that look more expansive than they are, some tar-like gore), but even though the movie is practically in black and white, oppressive atmosphere is sacrificed for grainy, shaky, and ugly shots after shots. On top of that, we have a narrative with barely enough meat on its bones to carry a short film through, let alone one that is longer than an hour and a half. It concerns some soft of dystopian future where an underground facility is trying to harvest tree sap that turns people into mutants or whatever, (plus some stuff about immigrant initiation and fascist authoritarianism), but Vestiel structures everything with a video game trajectory that probably only had a chance of being fun if it was played instead of tolerated. On that note, the dialog is worse than what is commonly found in video games and all of it appears to be ADRed, but this is an ugly mess first and foremost with a story that is unwavering in its dour insignificance.
(2009)
Dir - Michael Spierig/Peter Spierig
Overall: MEH
The sibling filmmaking duo of Michael and Peter Spierig follow-up their goofy zombie action romp Undead with a different form of undead as subject matter, namely vampires in Daybreakers. An American/Australian co-production that scored heavyweights Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, and Willem Dafoe, it has a big budget sheen for such knowingly B-movie material, with oodles of terrible CGI effects, flat green filters used for the interiors and night scenes and earthy ones used for the outside country ones, plus some car chases, solid monster makeup, explosions, and artillery showcases. Plot wise, every beat can be predicted from miles away as it follows the bog standard structure of ragtag underdogs up against an authoritarian regime with the help of one of the unwilling participants of such a regime. On the plus side, the premise is a clever enough subversion where blood-suckers are the ones who have taken over the globe and the humans are the ones on the run to stop such a militant bureaucratic stranglehold. It works as an allegory for mankind depleting their own resources, and the Spierig brothers maintain a surprisingly somber tone for such schlocky material, at least until the finale when the big guns literally come out and the one-note characterizations rear their dopey heads.
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