(2006)
Dir - Éric Lavaine
Overall: MEH
With a title like Poltergay, one can accurately deduce what they are in for, and the resulting film delivers lightweight and low stakes silliness, yet little else. The debut from French filmmaker Éric Lavaine has a premise that is borderline ingenious; what if a house used to be a gay disco and it is now haunted by flaming queens who accidentally blew up in it when a foam machine short circuited? Besides the goofy behavior of said queens and stereotypes being played up on how fashionable, good at cooking, and sharp they are as dancers, the rest of the humor resolves around straight Clovis Cornillac who seems to be the only one that can see them for awhile, losing his job, his girlfriend, and his mind in the process. While none of the gags are obnoxious and the tone never becomes offensive, there is nothing here that is laugh out loud funny either. It works more conceptually than anything, playing it tame the whole way through without going for any wild set pieces or trying to reinvent any haunted house motifs. Not that it needs to be a game changer though, since for most viewers, the bare-bones set up will be enough as the film writes itself from there.
(2007)
Dir - Chris Power/Nathan Hynes
Overall: MEH
A redundant mockumentary about a cannibalistic serial killer, Long Pigs is the debut from the filmmaking duo of Chris Power and Nathan Hynes, their only co-directed full-length to date. While there have only been a small handful of such movies where a documentary crew follows around somebody who nonchalantly murders people, the topic is so specific that yet another one coming down the pike with no differentiating qualities provides a superfluous viewing experience. This particular reworking of The Last Horror Movie, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, and Man Bites Dog is noticeably lacking in production values, with a few unconvincing talking heads sharing screen time with Anthony Alviano's schlubby and chatty murderer that picks off anyone that looks tasty, as well as the two indie filmmakers who are following his exploits. While the premise is inherently faulty and ridiculous from a logical standpoint, there is a moment in the final act that causes even more plausibility problems concerning how the finished product was edited together, with a tagged-on coda that the movie-within-a-movie directors could not have possibly added on. To be fair, the film is played for dark chuckles and knows how far-fetched it is, but it still ends up being just a grisly and unnecessary entry into a niche sub-genre that has already made the same point several times over.
(2009)
Dir - Peter Jackson
Overall: MEH
Hot off the monumental success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the also success of his blank check King Kong remake, Peter Jackson takes on the popular Alice Sebold novel The Lovely Bones, and he does so in a fashion that these later works adhere to. This is to say that it is a bombastic film, loaded with artificial digital effects, tonal issues, a lack of subtly, and incessant music done by Brian Eno no less. It is also a film about a fourteen year-old girl who gets murdered and probably raped by her seemingly mild-mannered, serial killer bachelor neighbor, and there lies the problem. Jackson's fusing of CGI whimsy and having his central protagonist/victim narrate the film from an artificial nether realm where her mood switches it to either a Candy Land heaven or an Autumn-hued hell is not an egregious concept, and it easily seems like one which Jackson would gravitate towards. What does not work is ill-placed comic relief, (stemming from Susan Sarandon's floozy and oddly insensitive grandma), underwritten characters, and a rushed plot that fails to delve into the harrowing ordeal that families suffer through when one of their children is taken from them. Jackson is expert enough at his craft to stage some suspenseful moments, and his cast is A-list enough to deliver commendable performances with what they have to work with, but it feels like a bloated mess that is trying to be two different movies at once and not spending enough time delving into either of them.
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