Movie Breakdown: Bloody Hell (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
The trailers for this film promise grim, pitch-black comedy and the sort of flashy visual editing I haven’t seen since Tony Scott’s Domino. I’m all about visual gusto and though more times than not it’s just camouflage for a not great film, well, what else do I have do these days?
Post-Screening Ramble:
As it turns out, Bloody Hell is a damn good time. The type of, ahem, “pitch-black” horror comedy that doesn’t try to do much more than put an interesting, anti-hero in a terrible situation and let the bad times roll. Rex (Ben O’Toole) is a former military dude who accidentally kills someone while foiling a bank robbery, goes to jail, comes out a little bit crazy and a lot tired of the rat-race and decides to start a new life in Finland. Which ends up leading him, immediately, into the basement of a psychotic family who wants to feed him to their cannibalistic son. Rex must then escape in an increasingly violent fashion. It is quite a romp. O’Toole is sort of a combination of young Robert Downey Jr. and Ryan Reynolds – a fast talking, mood-shifting explosion and he takes a fairly straight horror flick and gives it a kick into something better. Not to say that Bloody Hell is reinventing any genre (the film almost seems to be a statement on how you don’t need to reinvent the genre), but O’Toole (often times talking only to himself) and director Alister Grierson’s attractive, quirky take on the material does just what the best, fun parts of the horror genre do – it entertains for a snappy hour and a half. And when the twists and slight turns of the script invariably lead to a gore-soaked finale, well, I wanted more. Rex himself isn’t a fascinating character, but he’s a solid archetype (winking anti-hero) injected into a world (invasion horror) he doesn’t fit seamlessly into, and it works. And I would love to see Rex go toe-to-toe with a Jason Vorhees type slasher or a demonic house or whatever other creepy crawlies this enjoyable zany world could subsume.
One Last Thought:
I think the final death in this film is entirely original to me. I won’t spoil anything but it is a gruesome finale and I couldn’t think of another horror film that used this death method. Please, correct me if I’m wrong.
