ROGUE 2007
Radha Mitchell (Kate Ryan), Michael Vartan (Pete McKell), Sam Worthington (Neil Kelly), John Jarratt (Russell)
Directed by Greg McLean
Radha Mitchell (left), Sam Worthington (middle), Michael Vartan (right). Worthington has since become a rising star in US action films
A group of tourists, including an American travel writer, embark on a holiday excursion into the Australian Kakadu National Park. Taking a detour after spotting a flare, the tour boat is damaged by something big under the water. The group are then forcibly stranded on a tiny island in the middle of the lake. With the tide coming in and darkness approaching, the mud caked atoll begins to sink. The dwindling survivors attempt to make it to dry land and escape the forest alive.
For whatever reason, movies involving gi-normous Crocodilia have never fared well theatrically, but seem to find much better appreciation on the small screen. Even going back to 1980's ALLIGATOR, that film came and went rather quickly without much fanfare, but that was due in part to an odd decision by the producer. Still, that film became a massive success for ABC. Since then, any movie that featured a killer crocodile either went straight to disc, or television via the (then called) Sci Fi Channel such as Tobe Hooper's CROCODILE and BLOOD SURF (both 2000). Even the quirky big studio production of LAKE PLACID (1999) failed to generate much interest despite a healthy ad campaign.
Vartan inside the crocodiles corpse ridden lair
After his nasty debut with the searingly savage slasher/torture film, WOLF CREEK (2006), McLean returned with this, a film near and dear to his heart about a monster reptile hunting humans. It was a long battle for this subtle, but ambitious monster movie throwback to make it to the big screen. Fan anticipation was high for McLean's follow up, but it was beaten to the punch by the far less enthusiastic PRIMEVIL (2007). The makers of that film couldn't even be bothered with advertising their film as a monster movie opting instead to falsify it as a slasher flick.
The giant croc makes off with one of the first victims
The stranded tourists attempt an escape
McLean's picture is a love letter to the onslaught of killer animal movies that populated the 1970's with a special nod towards Spielberg's JAWS. Those 70's films themselves being a revival of the numerous similar atomic creature movies of the 1950's. Just as those movies belonged in the 'Siege' style of suspense/horror opuses, ROGUE puts its people in peril not in a house, a cabin, or other such construct, but on a rapidly sinking atoll. McLean takes his time getting to the good stuff, but it's well worth the wait. There's also a nice bit of foreshadowing (an ugly spider prepares to feast on a bug caught in its web) as the boatload of tourists make their way into the monster crocodiles domain.
Not only that, but the film has some of the most sprawling, awe inspiring cinematography in any film of recent memory. These sequences perfectly capture the beauty and majesty of the Australian locations. The inherent dangers notwithstanding, DP, Will Gibson (who encores for McLean from WOLF CREEK) captures some notable shots of the vast Aussie landscapes.
The tourists trapped within the monsters territory, itself swallowed up by the surrounding desolation of the vast expanse of wilderness and mountain regions.
The croc effects are also the finest this monster subgenre has yet to see. Even the CGI shots are very well done and mix perfectly with the handful of animatronic shots. The croc also doesn't move at lightning speed as other creatures have done in other similar movies. It moves fast, but in a far more believable fashion. The finale within the gore addled lair of the beast is one of the best edge-of-your-seat conclusions to come along in a long time. I also particularly enjoyed the demise of the monster. It avoids the tried and true method of "Blow'em up real good" that so many other rampaging animal movies incorporate.
Although a good many of the people trapped by the huge reptile manage to escape, the handful of casualties come as a bit of a surprise. Some of the characters die that you don't necessarily expect. The film has all the proper creature fodder found in past horror movies of this type, but not all of these die a spectacularly gruesome death. With so many great qualities, it's mind boggling that this production has been neglected as the superior horror film it truly is. One of the best this subgenre has to offer, it should have gotten more of a theatrical showcase than the limited run the Weinstein's gave it.
Understandably, the film lacks any major action set pieces that moviegoers come to expect these days, particularly those that worship at the alter of the all mighty Hollywood blockbuster. While not counting the wonderful conclusion, the film mostly takes place at its one central location. ROGUE plays fine on the small screen, but I would have loved to have gotten the opportunity to see it in a darkened theater. As it is, it's an eye opening, frequently scary trip into the unknown territory of the Australian boonies that no fan of the killer animal subgenre should pass up.
This review is representative of the Dimension Extreme Unrated DVD.
This edition of Cool Ass Cinema Book Reviews focuses once more on Italian horror tom(b)es. There are three books featured here--from the best to the least. All three are good reads, but two in particular are serious must haves for readers and fans of Eurohorror. First up is a book on one of the great directors of Italian genre cinema...
BEYOND TERROR: THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI
By Stephen Thrower
Softcover/Hardcover (softcover reviewed); 311 pages; color & B/W
Stephen Throwers exhaustive, exemplary book on the entire career of Italian genre specialist, Lucio Fulci is a wonderful and fascinating read. Every film is covered here in perfect detail. It's truly the definitive volume on the celebrated and controversial director. As much as I have already sang the praises of FAB Press, this is yet another achievement from them. I ordered this book back when it was first made available. It's still around and at nearly twice its cover price used. Still, rabid Fulci fans should attempt to track down a copy.
Loaded to the gills with analytical dissections of Fulci's movies, it's also jam packed with over 800 illustrations and 40 pages in color. Fulci's daughter, Antonella has an introduction and all 52 Fulci films are covered. Fans of his "Zombie Quartet" will lap up the generous display of pictures and full page splashes of the films most famous scenes. There's also behind the scenes photos and various promotional materials including posters and lobby cards. As a lot of fans are already aware, Fulci had his hands in more movie genres than just horror pictures. He did many other types of films including comedies and westerns. The chapters are as follows...
INTRODUCTION TO THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI
ZOMBIE!
THE COMEDIES
BUILD MY GIALLOS HIGH!
THE GHOUL CAN'T HELP IT
GOTHIC HELLS, GRUESOME VISIONS
FULVIA FILM PROUDLY GOES TO FAR...
ADRIFT ON PERVERSION
CRAFT, PAIN AND INSPIRATION
There are also four appendices...
THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI: COMPLETE CREDITS
FULCI'S OTHER WORK
ACTOR AND ACTRESS FILMOGRAPHIES
SYNOPSES FOR UNREVIEWED FULCI FILMS
The book is quite large at 11.6 x 9.4. A good number of FAB Press's books are around this size and as per there usual volumes, it doesn't disappoint. Those looking for heaping amounts of background information may be a bit dissatisfied, but the sheer volume of pictures and interesting dissertations of the movies themselves makes this handsome package definitely one for the shelves.
Next up is another Pasta Land book on Italian horror and fantasy pictures. This one is an English tome written by two Italian authors....
SPAGHETTI NIGHTMARES: ITALIAN FANTASY-HORRORS AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF THEIR PROTAGONISTS
By Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta
softcover; 192 pages; color & B/W
This very interesting book on Eurocinema is a highly interesting look into the world of Italian genre cinema and the people that made them. It contains over two dozen interviews with stars, directors, effects artists as well as two very brief articles regarding Italian fantastic cinema and the Mondo movies.
It's not all Italian filmmakers and other personnel interviewed, there's also a conversation with American special effects ace, Tom Savini. His interview is probably the funniest. For years it's been "rumored" that Savini was involved in the FX from Romano Scavolini's NIGHTMARE (1980) aka NIGHTMARES IN A DAMAGED BRAIN. Savini has repeatedly discounted this information yet in this book, there is a picture that clearly shows him involved in an effects sequence. Why he refuses to acknowledge his participation here is unknown.
As with most Italians in interviews who like to put their cult films on a pedestal much higher than the stature they truly attained, the authors do much the same thing here. Such is one humorous bit in the 'Violent Adventure' index. The entry for L' ULTIMO SQUALO (1980) aka THE LAST JAWS aka GREAT WHITE reads, "The film that was a real threat to the success of JAWS. Excellent production with just the right cast." While I agree with the last bit regarding the cast, the rest is a bit overblown. There's nothing at all excellent about the film, unless you count how successfully bad it is.
WHAT'S ON THE BACK COVER?
Still, the interviews are all very entertaining and enlightening. While the book covers an incredible amount of ground, it's far too much to be considered definitive. The reference section does a decent job of covering the many different genres and key films, but it's far from the "complete reference book" blurb on the front cover. Only the horror and fantasy related films are given extensive coverage.
The only negative about this book would be the way in which the films are indexed. They are listed by their original Italian titles only. Some of these will be familiar to fans, but then a great many of them may not. This can prove frustrating at times. The interviews are the following....
Fabrizio De Angelis
Claudio Argento
Dario Argento
Lamberto Bava
Mario Caiano
Stefania Casini
Luigi Cozzi
Armando Crispini
Ruggero Deodato
Mimsy Farmer
Franco Ferrini
Claudio Fragasso
Lucio Fulci
Umberto Lenzi
Antonio Margheriti
Aristide Massaccesi
Luigi Montefiori
Daria Nicolodi
Gianetto de Rossi
Dardano Sacchetti
Tom Savini
Romano Scavolini
Michele Soavi
Terence Stamp
David Warbeck
Bernardino Zapponi
An index (as mentioned above) covers all the other genres including Horror, Thrillers, Violent Adventure, Peplums and Science Fiction among some others. This highly recommended book is still available much cheaper (half off its cover price!) than I paid for it back in 1996. Fans of interviews and learning about technical information will no doubt lap up this piece. At its current price, easily one for the shelves.
This last book is a minor one, but no less interesting....
ITALIAN HORROR
By Jim Harper
Softcover; 252 pages; B/W
Harper's book is a nice little starter kit for the unitiated, but still offers a bit of substance for others more familiar with the movies listed therein. Relegated strictly to the years between 1979 through 1994, it does Italian Horror a bit of a disservice by not including Eurohorror from years prior to those discussed here. It doesn't completely ignore the Golden Age of Italian horror cinema, but doesn't dwell on it, either.
The book itself is digest sized and includes a surprising amount of lesser known titles among the ones fans are more accustomed to. There's also just enough background information and critical analysis to satisfy those in need of a quick fix. All the reviews and dissertations are rather brief and that in itself will be attractive to less patient readers who want to simply "get on with it". There's also around 15 pages devoted to the filmmakers themselves and their accomplishments. Indexes of alternate titles and pseudonyms are the books additional attributes.
The major negative here are that the pictures are poorly produced on the paper stock utilized. Other than that, Harper's book is a nice edition, if a bit pricey. The rather hefty $25 price tag will figure into many fans minds as to whether this is one for their shelves, or not.
UNTIL NEXT TIME...
copyright 2013. All text is the property of coolasscinema.com and should not be reproduced in whole, or in part, without permission from the author. All images, unless otherwise noted, are the property of their respective copyright owners.
Radha Mitchell (left), Sam Worthington (middle), Michael Vartan (right). Worthington has since become a rising star in US action films
A group of tourists, including an American travel writer, embark on a holiday excursion into the Australian Kakadu National Park. Taking a detour after spotting a flare, the tour boat is damaged by something big under the water. The group are then forcibly stranded on a tiny island in the middle of the lake. With the tide coming in and darkness approaching, the mud caked atoll begins to sink. The dwindling survivors attempt to make it to dry land and escape the forest alive.
For whatever reason, movies involving gi-normous Crocodilia have never fared well theatrically, but seem to find much better appreciation on the small screen. Even going back to 1980's ALLIGATOR, that film came and went rather quickly without much fanfare, but that was due in part to an odd decision by the producer. Still, that film became a massive success for ABC. Since then, any movie that featured a killer crocodile either went straight to disc, or television via the (then called) Sci Fi Channel such as Tobe Hooper's CROCODILE and BLOOD SURF (both 2000). Even the quirky big studio production of LAKE PLACID (1999) failed to generate much interest despite a healthy ad campaign.
Vartan inside the crocodiles corpse ridden lair
The giant croc makes off with one of the first victims
The stranded tourists attempt an escape
McLean's picture is a love letter to the onslaught of killer animal movies that populated the 1970's with a special nod towards Spielberg's JAWS. Those 70's films themselves being a revival of the numerous similar atomic creature movies of the 1950's. Just as those movies belonged in the 'Siege' style of suspense/horror opuses, ROGUE puts its people in peril not in a house, a cabin, or other such construct, but on a rapidly sinking atoll. McLean takes his time getting to the good stuff, but it's well worth the wait. There's also a nice bit of foreshadowing (an ugly spider prepares to feast on a bug caught in its web) as the boatload of tourists make their way into the monster crocodiles domain.
The tourists trapped within the monsters territory, itself swallowed up by the surrounding desolation of the vast expanse of wilderness and mountain regions.
The croc effects are also the finest this monster subgenre has yet to see. Even the CGI shots are very well done and mix perfectly with the handful of animatronic shots. The croc also doesn't move at lightning speed as other creatures have done in other similar movies. It moves fast, but in a far more believable fashion. The finale within the gore addled lair of the beast is one of the best edge-of-your-seat conclusions to come along in a long time. I also particularly enjoyed the demise of the monster. It avoids the tried and true method of "Blow'em up real good" that so many other rampaging animal movies incorporate.
Understandably, the film lacks any major action set pieces that moviegoers come to expect these days, particularly those that worship at the alter of the all mighty Hollywood blockbuster. While not counting the wonderful conclusion, the film mostly takes place at its one central location. ROGUE plays fine on the small screen, but I would have loved to have gotten the opportunity to see it in a darkened theater. As it is, it's an eye opening, frequently scary trip into the unknown territory of the Australian boonies that no fan of the killer animal subgenre should pass up.
