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xSamhainx
Paws of Doom
Joined: 11 Sep 2002
Posts: 2192
Location: San Diego |
CRADLE OF FEAR
"Cradle of Fear" is basically a British horror anthology, with Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth leading the effort to horrify and possibly revolt you. It is four relatively short tales of the macabre, tied into a larger plot by Dani Filth skulking around looking and acting totally eeeeevil. HBO's eerie 80's "The Hitchhiker" series kinda comes to mind, but that is a saturday morning cartoon in comparison to this monstrous gore-fest. Also, Dani has a more prominent role than simply an ominous messenger of doom. Tho shot on video, "Cradle of Fear" is well done schlock horror that makes whatever film format into a non-issue relatively quick.
From the get-go, Dani is lurking in the shadows, and wastes no time in utterly destroying two would-be muggers. Ripping one of their heads literally in half with glee, it is apparent that he is "not of this world" from the get-go. He has always reminded me alot of Glenn Danzig. A short, stocky little dark Napolean who is always filmed perfectly, and his apparent sole mission in life is to prove to everyone how truly doggone eeeevil he really is. The overly-dramatic persona of both of them is sorta laughable, but far preferable to some vanilla DJ rap-clone antics that are so unfortunately popular in today's pop culture icons. Dani's utterly silent performance here as a seductive devil and psychopathic demon killer is entertaining, but like I said, totally silent. It's hard to achieve depth without some type of dialogue, but robotic hellspawn death-dealer is the sole purpose of his role in this film. He is Black Metal-style Terminator 2004, and he eats cats and goth chicks for dinner.
Yes, not even the wily felines escape the claws and jaws of Dani, as he kills and eats some poor tabby that ended up on the wrong fence that evening. This is the most moronic thing in this film. Not because I adore the creatures and take some sort of ridiculous offense to the act portrayed, it just looks like he's wrangling with a little Hobbes* doll or something.
In the first tale he plays more than just the harbinger of horrors to come. Drugged-up sexy goth-betties in a metal club are snorting dope and having a great time, rocking out to "Lord Abortion"(Midian cd), until one of them spots Dani and decides to take him home for a roll in the ol' coffin. This proves to be a bad call, as once the foreplay begins, so does the horror of knocking boots with a demon. She undergoes horrific psychic violation, and the next morning wakes to an empty bed. After showering, bleeding, and puking, she heads over to her friend's loft for support. She realizes along the way that demons are everywhere looking at her, faces in the crowd, while the oblivious hustling masses continue on their daily routines. The aforementioned cookie-toss session is one aspect of this film that I would have rather not been subjected to, and the second of three graphic hurling sessions. I dont particularly like vomiting, nor do I like seeing people vomit. Regrettably, the director saw fit to include 3 very realistic "vomiteurs" doing their thing, the first 2 hitting you within a half hour of this film's genesis.
To cut to the chase, her and her friend both die horribly as a brand new case for RU486 plays out quite dramatically. It isnt a pretty sight at all, but it's effectively bloody and realistic, as Dani's bastard spawn wreaks havoc on the horrified harlots. The CGI/makeup effects are done so well, that any apprehensions that arose from the shot-on-video look become quite irrelevant in due course.
Next, two equally good looking riot grrls attempt a little larceny at the wrong house. The man they attempt to rob is home, and quite asleep. Until he wakes up of course, and they violently kill him, supposedly. Then he scares the heck out of them, they have to kill him again. There is life in the old boy yet as he jumps them yet again and they stab and beat the guy lifeless for the third time. After a short bloody bath together, the bandits bag up their crusty clothes and start talking about what a great lump of cash they've scored when.. well.. I'll just put it this way: the despicable girls sure wish they would have stayed home that night. This is my second favorite tale after the first one.
The third and fourth stories kinda fall flat for me. First, an amputee wishes to have a leg again, and kills some scumball and "steals" his leg. Then, in predictable fashion, the leg freaks out on him and causes much duress. There is horrifying gore, more cookies are tossed, another dark-haired buxom lady gets naked, and Dani pops in for a scene ending cop-crunching session. It isnt bad, but strictly a color-by-numbers style horror story.
The fourth tale continues the downward spiral to storytelling mediocrity, as some guy becomes addicted to internet snuff entertainment. He eventually ends up as "Lead Victim #1" so predictably, that I was almost waiting for a drumroll and "ta-daa!" to ring out when the knucklehead snaps to the fact that his proverbial "goose is cooked."
The story basically all connects as so: All these slain meat puppets supposedly are directly or indirectly involved with the case of some psycho satanic Svengali-type loon, locked up for various grisly crimes against humanity. Dani is merely his summoned agent of retribution, who takes part directly and indirectly in each of their fates. In what is a great finale, Dani shows up in the end to help out his boss when a snappy detective decides to try and stop the madness after putting 2 and 2 together and realizing the nut is the one causing all the calamity from behind his cell walls. The movie throws one last bloody punch at you, with a "Mind-Blowing" shotgun scene, if you know what I mean 
All in all I liked it. Even tho the last 2 stories started to drag and become way too predictable, they arent all that bad on the grand scale of things. The entire thing wraps up quite nicely into one unrepentingly brutal, carnal, and outright ghastly bit of schlock horror you will not soon forget. One thumb-equivalent up, there just isnt enough clever or thought-provoking story here to justify two.
The Good-
-Dani Filth is cool. Overdone and insufferably egotistical, but cool.
-Emily Booth is just one of the great looking, dark haired, heavily-accented British ladies in this film. I used to think I liked Louisiana accents best.
-Miss Booth is the first one to get down to her birthday suit..
-Great gore that is very convincing. Good FX
-A few Cradle of Filth tracks fit nicely
-Sound overall is well done, soundtrack is mostly dark electro
-i think the acting was quite good, most are convincing 'cept the last moron featured (the net addict)
The Bad-
-Vomiteurs on parade
-A Hobbes stuffed animal is viciously killed
-"Color by Numbers" horror, not alot of deep storytelling here. No irony
-Watch your language, Emily. The profanity becomes redundant.
-While the women in this movie totally rawk, they really needed to get some guys that werent so horribly inadequate. Who hired these nerds? Emily could kick practically every guy's butt in this movie.
*of "Calvin and Hobbes"
_________________
“Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.”-Mark Twain |
Thu Jun 24, 2004 5:45 am |
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