(1981)
Dir - Raúl Ruiz
Overall: WOOF
Wha...umm...huh? It is difficult to tell if Raúl Ruiz' The Territory became an incomprehensible art film by default since the production was supposedly treacherous and brimful of problems. The resulting footage that was left after the hazardous shooting conditions were endured is almost fascinatingly terrible. So many aspects of the movie are so bizarre that at least some of them have to be intentional. Whether they are or not though, it is an incredibly aggravating ordeal to sit through. We witness several completely unrelatable characters boringly get lost in the woods and exchange some of the most asinine dialog imaginable, delivered in an overlapping, improvisational manner that remains more annoying than curious from the get go. Every plot point that happens is made even more confusing by how unnatural and again, obnoxious everyone is acting. Then when you add inappropriate music, (used at utterly random intervals no less), and an editing job that leaves out numerous instances only to bulldoze the whole trainwreck into the next confounding scene, it is quite the mess. Apparently the movie is about disregarding nature, civilization, class, languages, and geographical borders or something, but whatever. It is just nonsense and the wrong, wrong kind of weird from start to finish.
(1982)
Dir - Goran Marković
Overall: GOOD
This part-horror dramatization of the Yugoslavian smallpox outbreak of 1972 handles its simple, occasionally indifferent story well enough, mostly due to its steady performances. The multi-cultural cast play up their unfortunate situation rather realistically, slowly submitting to the cabin fever of their government-sanctioned quarantine in different ways. Serbian filmmaker Goran Marković finds room for both humor and some fitting, outbreak horror genre sequences, sparsely utilizing an ominous score, darkness, and almost zombie-like make-up on those poor souls caught with the highly infectious disease. Variola Vera is not particularly dramatic which may or may not be a problem depending on how one likes their "based on a true story" movies. Yet the controlled pace does afford Marković the chance to stay grounded to reality and not overemphasize any would-be unnecessary plot twists. It still presents itself as a harrowing enough ordeal for the hospital full of people who had to very patiently wait nearly a month for the virus to run its course, while at the same time trying to steer clear of anyone with it in such a claustrophobic environment. Does it rattle your bones and make your skin crawl as an eerie, mysterious horror movie? Not so much, but that is not its agenda anyway.
(1987)
Dir - Bruce Pittman
Overall: GOOD
Another victim of the once common practice of re-titling or re-shooting, (both in this case), a finished film to piggyback off the success of an already successful one, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II has absolutely nothing to do with the forgettable, Jamie Lee Curtis-stared Prom Night from seven years prior. Tossing any preconceived sequel notions aside then, this can be taken in as the knowingly ridiculous and often amusing Carrie/Nightmare on Elm Street hybrid it is. While it is ultimately too derivative of countless high school comedy/horror movies to be all that memorable, it is surprisingly well done for how silly it is. Bruce Pittman never lets his audience forget that they are watching a nonsensical horror movie where all of the supernatural occurrences are as random as they are numerous, assigning his revenge-seeking, demon-prom-queen-ghost-whatever the type of arbitrary powers that would look cool for that particular scene. This element is hammered home early on and becomes the main focus throughout, so complaining about it in a way is like complaining about wet paint being wet. Tone wise, it is more well-balanced than most. There are still groan-worthy one-liners and popcorn-crowd pandering cliches a plenty, but the set pieces are both schlocky and relatively spooky at times and it seems in on its joke while not blatantly hitting you over the head with it.
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