The Last Horror Movie (2003)
Directed by Julian Richards, Screenplay by James Handel
First of all, just go out and watch this film. Track down a copy of it, put it in your queue or whatever it is you do and then come back here.
Did you do it? Don't lie to me. Go on, now, go watch this film. Come back here when you've seen it.
Did you see it? Come on now, don't be lazy.
And don't be scared.
There.
Didn't you actually start believing that the scene in the diner at the beginning was the movie you were going to be watching?
Wasn't it just a little jarring seeing that movie get hijacked by our narrator?
Now aren't you glad I made you do that?
You're a bit weirded out? Well, I understand that. It is, after all a bit of a serious intellectual exercise.
A seriously sick intellectual exercise.
On the other hand, it was kind of funny, too, right?
But it was the kind of funny that not only made you feel a bit dirty afterward but also called you out on your conflicted feelings about violence and voyeurism. Sure, you laughed a lot, but you were also tense for a lot of that time, right? And you wondered why the killer wasn't always a killer, why you had to see him having tea with his mother and being the cool uncle to his nephews. You thought to yourself that this has to be some kind of joke, this guy had to be either a monster or not but certainly not something in between. Movies aren't supposed to work that way.
You got especially pissed off when you thought about how this film violated so many of those "rules" of screenwriting and storytelling and you didn't know if you should be angry at the film or at those con-artists in the screenwriting workshops and their hack acolytes.
You're thinking again about that scene where he doesn't show you what he's doing off camera and then accuses you of wanting to see what he was doing. You wanted to see it, didn't you? And yet you deplore violence, don't you? But once it was there it was an awful tease for him not to show you what was so clearly audible.
You're a sick and twisted person. And so am I for making you watch it. And yet, because it makes you question yourself it was worth it, wasn't it? Saw will make you feel dirty for watching it, but never call you a sick fuck for having watched it--because they want you to watch the next installment. Not this film. It calls you a sick fuck for watching and wanting to watch the killer in action and wants to cloud your mind. Admit it. You were rooting for him somewhere along the line, there, weren't you?
I mean, not when you thought he was going to kill the kid that turned out to be his nephew. And not when you thought he was going to clock the old lady like the guy in Man Bites Dog does. But somewhere along the line he became your sympathetic protagonist, and yet that is so wrong. Isn't it?
It's rare when an intellectual exercise is so damned entertaining, but this one really is.
The Last Horror Movie is one of the three best films that critique the voyeurism of violence in our culture and in many ways Julian Richards goes even further in directly confronting the audience with their complicity than Mary Harron does in American Psycho (where we can, because of the ambiguity of the source material, pass off the whole thing as a daydream) or even Man Bites Dog, which this film pays homage to on multiple occasions. The conflict here is even more than we get when we watch Dexter, because he, at least as some sort of code that we can understand whereas Max is just killing people and the more tragic the result the better for him.
The thing that Julian Richards does here with Max (Kevin Howarth) is to give us a well-rounded character who is both awful and sympathetic and who is self-aware of the part we play in watching the violence he does. Are we not entertained by all of this? And what if this was actually a snuff film taped over a crappy horror movie? Would we keep watching it? Leave it to a small British film to make us ask the hard questions.
At any rate, this is a well written, excellently directed and performed little film that you should see. It'll make you think hard the next time you sit through a film like House of Wax cheering at people being murdered.
Special Features
1. Deleted Scenes
The Nazi Woman
Max hits a woman over the head with a skillet but is disappointed by how quick it all was so he puts her in a chair and goes into her bedroom where he finds a German military hat. "Isn't it funny what people are into?" He puts it on her head and takes some makeup and draws a little Hitler moustache on her. It's sick, but funny.
The Newsagent
Max goes to a corner store to look at the newspaper headlines for the last victim. Nice juxtaposition of his pride in killing with his slight embarrassment when the clerk asks him if he's reading the paper or if he's going to buy it.
The Art Student
The extended version of the scene with the art student that the assistant (Mark Stevenson) is unable to kill. The assistant first picks up a paint brush. "What are you going to do, paint her to death? Then he tries a plastic bag but it has a hole in the top. The student is terrified by the botched torturing. It's more disturbing in its own way than the slick violence of true torture porn, which gives you no cause to be as disturbed as this.
Grandma
This is an extended version of the scene with Grandma (the Beckettian Rita Davies) where she describes taking on a burglar and pouring a hot cup of tea down the burglar's trousers. She and Max share a laugh when he recalls that the doctors said that the burglar's testicles had been "parboiled."
2. The Last Horror Movie Featurette
A typical behind the scenes independent film look.
3. Cast Auditions
It's fun to see people auditioning for this film. It certainly shows us how good the writing was.
4. Commentary
The commentary makes clear that the nods to Man Bites Dog and other films were intentional and reveal an interesting thought process behind this film. It's not about revelling in the sick and twisted but calling our fascination with that into account.
5. Director's Friend's Short: The Shoe Collector
Directed by Justin Smith, Screenplay by Emyr Glasnant & Justin Smith
First of all, this is one of the best ideas for a special feature ever. Director's Friend's Short is up there with Director's Neighbor's Home Video of Cats Playing with Yarn.
That said, this is an excellent short film about another serial killer who has a collection of shoes. Like some of the best shorts it has a zinger of a twist and it has a gemlike quality of visual control. Most of the film (until the ending) is shot at ground level so it wins a Tarantino Award for consistent shots of people's feet and shoes.
6. Coming Soon
Corn
A horror film about defective genetically modified corn that makes sheep violent. Can Jena Malone defeat the evil corn?
Gypsy 83
Goth kids on a road trip going to New York for "Night of a Thousand Stevies" a Stevie Nicks contest at a Goth club. The very idea of a thousand Stevie Nickses running around a goth club in New York makes Priscilla Queen of the Desert feel like The Dirty Dozen by contrast. Sara Rue, Karen Black and Paulo Costanzo (Evan R. Lawson from Royal Pains) are all in this film, as is the great Andersen Gabrych.
Virgin
An interesting looking little film about a girl who claims to be having the Christ child. With Elisabeth Moss, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Robin Wright Penn and Peter Gerety.
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