2000's Foreign Horror Part Three

IN MY SKIN
(2002)
Dir - Marina de Van
Overall: MEH

Writer/director/lead actress Mariana de Van's full fledged auteur debut In My Skin, (Dans ma peau), has moments that are borderline interesting, but ultimately the film does not really go anywhere.  Considered part of the French New Extremity, (which is always a shame), it is thankfully not as uncomfortable as it tricks you into thinking it is.  Yes the self-mutilation is shown in detail, but it is not done for overt shock value and does not go nearly as far as it could.  This is where some of de Van's restraint comes in handy, keeping In My Skin shy of just being obnoxious and disagreeable to all possible tastes.  The movie is messy though in more areas that just its visual grotesqueness.  Detachment from one's body, relationships, and employment are clear themes that are given a literal, severe showcase for a horror movie, but de Van's character is not relatable nor is her condition believably explained.  Which is fine, but it does make the ordeal of watching it kind of lifeless when it instead should have been much more exciting.  It is a common mistake where too much vagueness undermines your intent, but there is also far worse offenders than this so it gets enough points for effort.

COLD PREY
(2006)
Dir - Roar Uthaug
Overall: MEH

There is no over-abundance of jump scares, the acting is fine, the characters are very well written, the setting is very appropriately ominous, the pacing is deliberate and well maintained, but all this said, Cold Prey is still just another boring slasher movie.  That said, even the competent ones that do nothing to reinvent the wheel and stick faithfully to the books will occasionally provide a moderate level of thrills for an audience forever hungry for such fare.  Roar Uthaug, (who just helmed the latest and probably not last Tomb Raider reboot), does a swell job with everything he is expected to here.  It is the Norwegian version of any pick your favorite "final girl standing" slasher, with a big, hulking, inhumanly strong brute picking everyone off, (literally with a pick-axe in this scenario), and his prey, (hence the title), all young, attractive people who do their best to hide and plan their escape only to end up all bloody and dead.  The only things truly annoying with Cold Prey besides it being in a sub-genre in the first place is that it had potential to go a different route.  The thirty-year-vacant, creepy, isolated hotel in the middle of the mountains setting is purely ripe for something besides having yet another axe-wielding maniac run around who is impossible to kill.  Also the color pallet is so diluted and flat that it is barely not in black and white.  A minor annoyance yes, but it still makes for a rather ugly looking movie.

THE LOVED ONES
(2009)
Dir - Sean Byrne
Overall: MEH

Though nowhere near as mind-numbingly stupid as his to date, (thankfully), only second full-length The Devil's Candy, Sean Byrne's first The Loved Ones still showcases a lack of tone control and lazy screenwriting.  Byrne wallows in full-blown torture porn sequences that make the movie far too dark to work as a comedy, even when the intended funny moments are actually funny.  As a piece of serious and disturbing kidnapping horror, (the more of these movies you watch, the more of them you discover blatantly steal from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), The Loved Ones still would not have been unique enough to really stand out.  Yet stripping away the out of place scenes that go for chuckles, at least it would have kept its shock value in a more dismal check.  The script is anything but intelligent, with convenient plot turns and "hey, remember when a character said this?" flashbacks haphazardly scattered around to get characters from point A to point B.  The film's villains are just as poorly conceived, with Robin McLeavy being far too pretty to pull-off being the neglected teen turned-vile psychopath and her backstory leaves far too many questions idly open.  Byrne seems to be attempting many cliches tweaks here, but they clash with each other far too much to work.  Plus he still likes his teenagers to be stereotypical metalheads which is a trend that can die any day now thank you.