![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grrgoylBonus post! Bonus post! Bonus post! Bonus post!
I thought I was done with this year's Horrorfest, and had breathed a sigh of relief, because it was truly, truly disappointing. Then this little gem showed up unexpectedly. And, while quality films like Goya's Ghosts wait for their treatment, for bad ones like Tooth and Nail I need to get the word out as quickly as possible, to prevent future unsuspecting rentals by my f-list.
Right from the opening credits, this movie annoyed me. They're set over frenetic shots of bumper-to-bumper highway traffic, then stock footage of Iraq, then close-ups of gas pumps. I get it -- the movie will have something to do with gas, and probably not good news. Then, I saw the most chilling sight one could ever see in opening credits: Written, directed and edited by Mark Young. I don't believe anyone should have that much power over a movie, and the fact that we're even here supports this belief.
Sure enough -- the movie takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, where most of humanity has been wiped out simply because we ran out of gas. No gas means no trucks to transport supplies and no electricity, means no refrigeration, means food spoiling in mass quantities, means people starving and killing each other for resources. Okay, I'm with you so far.
We're introduced to a straggly band of survivors holed up in a hospital in Philly through the eyes of a young woman saved by them from some sort of attacker. Her name is Neon (I spent the first half thinking it was Neo and how lame that was), not that the hospital dwellers have better ones: names like Torino, Viper, Yukon, Ford, Nova (a small girl who doesn't speak, making her the least subtle movie character reference ever), led by the professor, Darwin. It seems in the future, we're all doomed to be named after automobiles (making Neon's name even lamer than if it were Neo).
We're barely given a chance to get to know this ragtag bunch, in fact almost immediately Viper decides to go it alone because his demands to be allowed to work on defenses are ignored. Defenses from what? And why can't he work on them? It seems like two or three of them are given chores to do and the rest just sit around listening to the professor all day.
Darwin explains to Neon that they've been there almost a year with no plans to leave, since the hospital provides them with almost everything they need. He also provides a lot more exposition to her, so thank god his vote to let her stay overrode the others' to turn her out.
Naturally some of the young band have coupled, giving us the chance for one gratuitous sex scene. Bleah. I won't forget this, Mark Young.
Then that night Darwin is attacked and taken, and rightly so, if you ask me -- in a painfully extended scene he pads to the bathroom, fills a basin with water and splashes his face and neck luxuriously, which seems damn irresponsible in a world with such drastically limited resources. An unseen assailant with a cleaver slashes his throat and drags him off. All that's left is a large bloody smear for the others to find in the morning.
They immediately fall to pieces, lamenting their lack of a leader. While the others flounder helplessly, Yukon determinedly heads out to find Darwin, where he's beset upon by a group of savage brutes dressed a little like Renaissance Faire employees. They attack him while the group watches out the window. He manages to stagger back inside, where you'd think his friends would come down to offer some aid, but no -- as he belly crawls through the corridor before being finished off by the brutes' leader (played, believe it or not, by Michael Madsen, who clearly owes a favor to Mark Young or something), they sit around in their cafeteria speculating calmly about who these new people are.
Neon confesses she was running from them when they found her. She said they were cannibals, and told a chilling story of her family being killed off when they were living in a grocery store. She observed they only killed one person a day, presumably because dead meat rotted too quickly. How horrible! And now they know we're here! What should we do?????
What anyone would do, of course. First waste time bickering about who should be the leader (democratic vote. Winner: Neon, despite her technically not really expressing an interest in running). Then sit around staring at each other for a few hours. How about some rough wall sex, because nothing gets my juices flowing like knowing a gang of cannibals is coming back at nightfall to pick out their next entree. Then wait for the cannibals to actually appear before instituting the plan of running and hiding.
Let's ignore for a second how much more sense it would have made to sneak out of the hospital the minute you heard the word "cannibal" and have the entire city of Philadelphia, or hell, the entire country to hide in. Their hospital is a pretty large place, no cozy private facility, yet the best these people seem to be able to do for concealment is hug the shadows on the wall. Max, who was the only character I liked simply by virtue of having the most believable name, tries to hole up inside a horizontal stainless steel cabinet whose door won't close all the way. Instead of abandoning it, he sort of leans back out of the light and hopes for the best -- in vain, predictably.
As soon as Max is bagged, a trumpet is sounded signalling the troop that they have their meal and it's time to go home. The attack is over and the rest of the hospital dwellers hightail it out the back door to a different location so they aren't quite such sitting ducks. .....Naw, I'm kidding. They all drop into their beds exhausted, and spend the next day essentially doing the same nothing they did the previous day, because it worked so well for them.
Actually Ford was hurt pretty badly in the attack -- fractured tibia jutting through his skin and several holes in his stomach, which I'm pretty sure should have killed him in a matter of minutes -- and the others spend all day looking after him, even though he was ready to desert them in a heartbeat. Dakota is triaging him while his girlfriend, Torino, is exceedingly unhelpful (my dialogue in italics).
Torino (weeping hysterically): PLEASE, YOU HAVE TO HELP HIM!! HOW BAD IS HE????
Dakota: Well, I'm not a doctor, but he's got (the abovementioned problems).
Torino: WHAT DO WE DO??!!!?
Dakota: (Injecting....something....into his neck) This should help with his pain. or lower his cholesterol. As I said, I'm not a doctor (she goes on to reset his leg, not bad for not being a doctor)
Torino: WILL HE BE OKAY????
Dakota: Remember 30 seconds ago when I was all "I'm not a doctor"? STILL TRUE We'll have to wait and see.
As they wait for nightfall and the return of the cannibals, Dakota and Neon get into it. Dakota takes all her frustration and helplessness out on Neon's apparent failure to formulate a plan, which seems terribly unfair at first until we realize it's all just a clumsily written buildup to the least surprising betrayal ever committed to celluloid (and Mark Young has no one to blame but himself): Neon is one of the cannibals! Yes! I saw it coming a mile away! Her sob story was true about her family getting eaten, but back then the cannibals were a disorganized, undisciplined, pathetic mess. Neon appointed herself leader to straighten their act out. I'll bet you didn't know you needed an MBA to head a post-apocalyptic cannibal tribe. I sure didn't.
She makes this revelation and then flees the hospital, Dakota in tow (not really clear why Dakota couldn't just fight her off). Dakota is briefly imprisoned but then sprung by Viper, who picks that moment to reappear. They return to the hospital to find Torino dead (shot by Neon before she left) and Ford dying (a full 24 hours after sustaining a reasonably serious stomach wound. I'm suspicious of Dakota's claims of non-doctorhood). He begs for death at her hands rather than the cannibals, and she obliges him.
We've come this far, so I'll tell you the ending: Dakota gets all savage on their asses, painting her face up with animal stripes, and returns to stalk them in their own base camp. Easily done, since she injected the bodies of Torino and Ford with heavy sedatives knowing they would be eaten (why couldn't she have just used poison and killed them all from afar?) The cannibals make easy pickins all sluggish and lethargic. I was a tad disappointed that I had figured this out, but Mark Young felt the need to explain to the more dim-witted among the audience with expositional dialogue between Dakota and Neon. I was thrilled to be right, not so thrilled to have it all spelled out for me anyway.
She finishes them off one by one at a leisurely pace, ending with Neon (that part was actually pretty cool). She rescues Nova (who had been captured by them) and heads back to the hospital with a voice-over about what would you do to survive, and how some would fight "tooth and nail." A slow pan through the hospital that promises some sudden twist stops only on a cannibal that had been trapped by Nova in a freezer unit, laughing maniacally out the window at the camera. Ummmm, okay?
Now, I think I'm done with Horrorfest. I'll still give it a go next year, Lord knows it can't get any worse.
This weekend is Parade of Homes, god willing. And even god unwilling -- I'll defy Him to see those million-dollar houses. The lengths I'll go to for my f-list.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-28 06:39 pm (UTC)zombie tangent?
Date: 2008-08-29 09:32 pm (UTC)Re: zombie tangent?
Date: 2008-08-29 09:39 pm (UTC)cannibals = people who eat people
zombies = dead people who eat braaaaaaiiiiins
what do you call living people who eat brains? UNAMERICAN, BUDDY.
Date: 2008-09-11 04:38 am (UTC)Re: what do you call living people who eat brains? UNAMERICAN, BUDDY.
Date: 2008-09-11 04:24 pm (UTC)Re: what do you call living people who eat brains? UNAMERICAN, BUDDY.
Date: 2008-09-11 05:44 pm (UTC)Re: what do you call living people who eat brains? UNAMERICAN, BUDDY.
Date: 2008-09-11 05:50 pm (UTC)Re: what do you call living people who eat brains? UNAMERICAN, BUDDY.
Date: 2008-09-11 06:04 pm (UTC)