Kitchen Sink

Eroticide (2013)

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eroticideWTFHappy nine-month anniversary, Yan and Elise! My gift to you two lovebirds is this glimpse into your immediate future: It’s gonna suck!

So goes the game of Eroticide, a truly twisted tale of romance by Canadian filmmaker Matthew Saliba, ringleader of 2009’s underseen Frankenstein Unlimited anthology and director of the 2011 Italian exploitation homage Amy’s in the Attic.

This short begins with Yan (Jocelin Haas) and Elise (Stephanie van Rijn), our heretofore happy couple, celebrating their momentous occasion at a restaurant. Who should walk in and interrupt but Kendra (Lisa Di Capa), Yan’s ex-girlfriend; she evidently hasn’t let go of their half-decade together, because she delights in disparaging Elise in general and Yan’s erectile dysfunction.

eroticide1Later that night, as Yan and Elise make love (she puts it rougher, actually), Saliba skillfully intercuts their thrusts with Yan’s imagined submissive activities with Kendra rather than his “silver medal” gal. But the real weirdness doesn’t kick in until the next morning.

Saliba’s specialty isn’t off-kilter subject matter; it’s whatever lies at taking a hard left turn when one reaches off-kilter subject matter. Viewers never can be sure what awaits them in the next scene. What does can be shocking, but never just for the cheap sake of doing so; it serves the story.

And this story hints at a lot that it does not depict, adding layers of mystery to an unsettling surface. It’s suggested that Yan and Elise had their “meet cute” via gruesome car crash which may have resulted in his bedroom troubles; says the French-speaking Elise, “The road to your heart was paved with my blood.”

That you want to know more about its origins speaks highly of Eroticide. All three cast members do great work, but Di Capa gets the juiciest role as the manipulative rhymes-with-blunt. She also gets the last word at the harsh ending — abrupt but appropriate. If you’ve seen Brad Pitt deliver the denouement of Killing Them Softly, you have a hint of the cruelty to come. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002)

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sharkattack3Without question, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon is the funniest of the trilogy. Shark Attack 2 director David Worth returns, this time shifting the action from South America to Mexico (although, strangely, 95 percent of the names in the credits are Eastern European).

In this unrelated installment, a resort security patrolman (John Barrowman, TV’s Torchwood) and a natural history museum researcher (Jennifer McShane, playing a different character than she did in 1999’s original Shark Attack, yet still looking as if her plastic surgeon beat her cheeks with a ball-peen hammer) team up to rid the Mexican shores of a (fictional) Megalodon shark and its 60-foot mother. The sharks, which growl, change shape constantly, depending on whether you’re seeing live-action footage, noticeably grainier stock footage or cheap CGI.

sharkattack31You get to see a guy get an arm and a leg bit off, as well as a shark swallowing a boat or two whole. There’s a drunk couple who waterslides right into the shark’s mouth, and that would’ve been the best scene, if not for the one where Barrowman hits the shark repeatedly with a baseball bat. Or the skinny-dipping duo that nearly becomes lunch while screwing underwater. Or when the evil communications mogul Jet Skis directly into the belly of the beast. Or when said mogul’s partner-in-slime steals a life jacket from his own girlfriend and jumps from a boat right into Meg’s open jaws. That was pretty cool.

I’ve never experienced a Kirk Cameron vehicle, so this is the only movie I’ve ever seen where the protagonists pray in church before the final showdown. While the sentiment is appreciated, its awkward uniqueness just makes the movie goofier. This is also the only movie I’ve ever seen where the male lead is able to coax his female counterpart into bed with the misogynist (and now-famous) line, “What do you say I take you home and eat your pussy?” But again, I admit to my deficiency of the Kirk Cameron filmography.

And speaking of quips, before blowing the smaller shark to smithereens, McShane says, “You’re extinct, motherfucker!,” but the final shot predictably screams Shark Attack 4 (supposedly made as 2003’s Shark Zone). Just before that, having bested the oversized creature with a torpedo and a mini-sub, Barrowman gets all cocky: “Megalo-who?” he asks with a smile … but, sigh, not with a wink. —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Antiviral (2012)

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antiviralWith Antiviral, Brandon Cronenberg — spawn of David — makes his feature-film debut as both writer and director. The result? Well, like father, like son! That’s only a bad thing if Papa Cronenberg’s works of body horror give you the Shivers.

In a near-future world where celebrity obsession has grown to become unhealthy in the literal sense, The Lucas Clinic makes a mint by bringing its patients closer to their paparazzi-chased idols. For big bucks, its reps inject clients with viruses taken directly from the celebs. That way, you, too, not only can contract herpes simplex like the gorgeous Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon, Cosmopolis), but get it as if she gave it to you herself! Swoon!

antiviral1It is the job of clinic rep Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones, The Last Exorcism) to administer these injections (the needles penetrating flesh shown in unflinching close-ups, of course). So lucrative is his gig that he dabbles in freelance, swiping inventory to sell on the black market, including to a butcher shop that grows meat from the stars’ muscle cells. March is good as what he does; unfortunately, he becomes the victim of his own sales pitch.

To that end, Jones’ appearance as a pale, emaciated Macaulay Culkin benefits the movie as his body deteriorates, in some of the gnarliest-looking ways imaginable. No doubt Dad is proud of Brandon keeping the family business going. In terms of a debut, Antiviral is more accomplished and assured than his father’s, yet it wouldn’t exist had the elder Cronenberg not spent the majority of his career exploring the ways in which our organs revolt (in both meanings of the word) against us, played out and splayed out against a sterile backdrop.

Antiviral becomes less aggressive in its second half — call it the Malcolm McDowell Effect — but at least it’s about something. —Rod Lott

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Comedy

Modern Vampires (1998)

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modernvampiresRules of garlic and sunlight rules still apply, but Modern Vampires, from Forbidden Zone director Richard Elfman, is an unconventional vampire film, both fresh and funny.

Here, the bloodsuckers take residence in the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel and visit a nightclub where humans are kept in cages until feeding time. Looking like he finally comprehends the words in a script, Starship Troopers‘ Casper Van Dien stars as Dallas, a cigar-smoking vampire who takes a trailer-trash vamp (Natasha Gregson Wagner, Urban Legend) under his, um, wing.

modernvampires1But the subplot is what really makes this comedy fly: Vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing (a crazed Rod Steiger, Mars Attacks!) comes to L.A. and is forced to take out an ad to find an assistant. The only applicant is gang member Time Bomb (Gabriel Casseus, Black Dog), a Crip who is at first reluctant to complete the duties of his job: namely, driving a stake through a vampire’s heart. “Man, I’m on probation!” he protests. “I don’t wanna fuck that up!”

Count Dracula himself is played by Robert Pastorelli (TV’s Murphy Brown), while other creatures of the night are Udo Kier and Kim Cattrall. Yep, she’s slutty in this one, too, and when she’s raped by gang members, they turn into the world’s first black vampires — a distinction of which they’re awfully proud. This humorous take on the vampire legend was written by the talented Matthew Bright, who infused equal amounts of humor and horror into his wicked Little Red Riding Hood update, 1996’s Freeway. —Rod Lott

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