Reviews

Though the title of this film might suggest conventional horror forthcomings, don't despair. The last Horror Movie is a unique cinematic exploration in to the mind of a serial killer. Wedding filmmaker Max Parry [Kevin Howarth] is a London bachelor who enjoys looking after his sisters' kids, entertaining friends and honing the art of murder. He decides to make his own horror film in order to help him discover his victim's attitudes to death. The commonsensical style of this movie is its real charm. It lacks the sardonic comedy that makes Rémy Belvauxs' Belgian film Man Bites Dog an obvious fiction, but henceforth the horror becomes much more feasible. Howarth conceivably becomes someone we could know, and like. His charismatic portrayal of Parry makes us open to his rational debates of art vs. humanity. The last horror movie takes the horror genre and turns it on its head; it pushes the viewer to challenge why they enjoy purveying murder and brutal senseless acts of killing. It forces us to consider the value of a human life and then contradicts our opinion with the general antipathy shown for human life in the third world. It tries to make us believe that murder is in essence a force of nature. The protection and reassurance of your own home is no longer a safe haven but a fruitful opportunity to gratify the predator among us. If you can stomach horror and gore then go and see this film. It's a powerful piece of British filmmaking with an unnerving edge. Director Julian Richards commented that the real horror of this film starts when you leave the cinema, a concept that entertained me, as I lay awake, convincing myself that the squeaking floorboards below were not as innocent as they sounded.

Security guard, Harry Caine (Tutorro) lives a life of lonely obsession after his wife's mysterious shooting at the shopping mall where he works. Unsolved by local Wisconsin police, Harry struggles to piece together information salvaged from surveillance video footage. A dream leads him to discover a photo that begins his search for truth in Montana. Like many psychological thrillers it meanders through themes of schizophrenia and police corruption, but doesn't rise to the excellence of the superior 'Spoorloos' by fellow Danish director, George Sluizer. I soon realised that I had no compassion for Caine or held any emotional attachment to either him or his dead wife. I am certainly not condemning Tutorros' acting; indeed the entire cast did a fine job. The plot just had no substance, no story, no soul. I watched narrative suffer through incoherent changes between dreams, visions and reality. No meaning could be made from feeble attempts at lynchian uniqueness. Kubrick collaborative Larry Smith is Fear X's saviour. Through his creations of unnerving environments we wallow in a visual richness without which would leave the film ineffectual. This utterly pretentious film fails to tell us a story worth listening too. Uncompelled I watched, hopeful that Fear X would recover with a remissive ending. The biggest let down of all being we had to fabricate it ourselves.