Trailer Park of Terror

 "Trailer Park of Terror" (2008, Steven Goldmann, Summit Entertainment) is a humorous splatter film with some exploitation nods. It's based on the Imperium Comic book series of the same name.

A group of troubled teens take shelter in a seemingly abandoned trailer park after their bus crashes. They find the odd, kind of creepy and seductive hostess Norma (Nichole Hiltz) there who makes them and their guardian, Pastor Lewis (Matthew Del Negro), as comfortable as you can be in a gross, old trailer park. However, Norma isn't all she seems and she isn't alone....

It's a bit of a mash up in genres. Kind of "House of 1000 corpses" meets "Death Becomes Her". You have the rapey hillbillies with some deviant fantasies, but they also happen to be zombies... Some of whom are better at keeping themselves together than others.

Depraved, gory and a bit dumb, the film mainly sticks to the horror comedy realms, with a singing zombie cowboy on guitar. But it also delves into the more gruesome torture-centred gore, which seems to be the focus of a lot of horrors at the moment.

Not really scary or creative, and not the best zombie or hillbilly horror comedy out there, but I don't think it deserves all the bad reviews it's been getting. I think it suffers for being just another submission to the zombie/redneck/torture basket. But it's entertaining.

[Image: Summit Entertainment]

 

Hani

The Eye (2008)

"The Eye" (2008, David Moreau, Xavier Palud, Cruise/Wagner Productions, Vertigo Entertainment, Lionsgate Paramount Vantage) is the American remake of the original Chinese film from 2002.

Sydney (Jessica Alba) is a blind classical violinist. She undergoes a cornea transplant in order to restore her sight. The surgery is a complete success with one main drawback: she begins to see things.... Oh, and dead people, she also begins to see dead people.

Very reliant on jump scares, but they're pulled off quite well with sufficient overuse of the looking-through-the-peephole technique. It's also quite reminiscent of "The Sixth Sense" in style, but is not on par with the quality of story telling becoming bogged down in a stale plot.

What annoyed me the most, aside from the fact that her doctor (Alessandro Nivola) is a patronising arse for most of the film, is that she never once utters the words 'Grim Reaper' despite the fact that:

a) that is essentially what she's seeing and
b) that is a well known terminology and would have explained a lot more to the doctor than her descriptions did! No wonder they thought she was nuts! Geese!

Why is it that film and TV script writers always have to pretend like the protagonists have never heard of anything supernatural before? It's just like in every zombie movie ever where nobody ever goes "Well, fuck! That's a zombie! Quick, shoot it in the head!".

Sorry, rant over.

I did enjoy that one of the first things she buys upon regaining her sight is a flatscreen TV and also that "The Dresden Files" was on when she flicked through the channels. Good one, Lionsgate!

All in all, I found Jessica Alba to be a competent lead, which I was admittedly not expecting, and despite a drawn out plot, the film is watch-able and makes good use of the jump-scares.

Asian horrors as a whole are generally creepier and more effective. However, while this film doesn't add anything new to the American Remake bundle, it's certainly a scary movie you could introduce horror-keen young teens to! Average, but it could be an excellent sleepover movie, I reckon.

[Image: Vertigo Entertainment]

 

Hani