Thanks again for all the suggestions even if I did hate Campfire Tales.

1) The generic werewolf story that had nothing and I mean nothing to really add to the genre. About the only good thing about the story was the fact that it had the guy from Office Space in before he was in Office Space.

2) The story about the 12 year old girl was created by someone who wanted to push the wrong buttons. I do not think that I am a prude or anything and I like a lot of sick shit in movies but when a movie feels like they are putting a 12 year old girl in the shower and then showing her in a towel as a means to play with sexuality I have a bit of a problem with it. It just felt wrong and dirty. Now give me someone in their 20s or 30s or hell even old and I’m all for it but I felt that the second story just wanted to push that button and it was cheesy.

3) In the second story there is no reason why the stalker should know about the dog licking bit. That felt totally contrived and was only there because it provided a twist.

4) I didn’t even bother to get to the third story because I was bored by the end of the second one.

5) The whole concept of why they are there telling the stories with the twist is just plain overdone and generic. Now I will admit that I didn’t watch it but I read how it ends and it really just looks like another twist for twist sake.

Onto Martyrs….

I really enjoyed the first home invasion bit because it was also combined with the creature who was hunting the woman at the same time. I thought this was an interesting twist and I thought the violence while really brutal was not over the top silly.

I’m with you and Kurt on the second half. I know what the director was going for but I don’t think he was able to achieve it. After the first 5 minutes of torture I had tuned out. I didn’t tune out because I couldn’t stand it but because it was boring. I really did not get a sense of emotional stress out of it which is something it really needed. I was able to distance myself from it too much.

And yeah I also really get ticked at what everyone always says about Haneke and how he is telling you that you are evil or bad for wanting to watch horror movies. I personally believe that he wants us to simply be involved and to really think about what we are seeing. Why are things always done the same way. Why is it always the woman who is able to escape and fight off the bad guy. And most importantly to think about why we can take enjoyment from watching violence.

Come to think of it I think I can understand why I don’t like the second half of Martyrs based just on the director’s response to the Haneke question. He basically said “fuck Haneke” or at least that is what I remember it basically coming down to. I really don’t think he delved deep enough into the violence and the emotional impact and that is what he really should have done. Perhaps I’m wrong but I really think this is what Haneke wants from both his audience and also the people who make horror movies.

(yes I’m alive)

But yes, I didn’t find it to be violent, the last half I found rather boring. It’s the pacing suspense thing. And because the director doesn’t give up the game until the final few minutes, any dialogue between the viewer and the director is nullified (unless you wanted to sit thru it again). If felt the opening half which was more conventional thriller/ghost story was more honest, when Laugier tries to shoehorn in some depth to things, it gets pretty unpalatable due to its own shallowness.

I’ve heard some people with some compelling allegorical explanations for the films intent and meaning, but I’m not buying it. I consider the creators of the film were far more intested in “Fuck Yea!” violence than in honestly communicating/dialoguing with deep themes. I felt the same way with Xavier Gens Frontier(s) which kinda-sorta tries to get allegorical and message-y but really, it doesn’t graft onto the film properly and just looks really ungangly.

I’ll give Martyrs this though, from a production design standpoint and the construction of the first half. It was pretty top shelf. As a movie, well, it sucked.

A L’Interior (aka Inside) was a much better movie-movie. Great pacing, solid integration of subject matter with construction, inverting the genre-tropes a bit and making the whole thing compulsively watchable. Yea, I liked that one.

And as for the sex scene. They had been locked up in the house for 6 months with no sex so she was probably just horny.

I dig that Kris Lemche (Ginger Snaps, The Last Casino) has a solid role.

Evans went on to direct Trauma with Colin Firth and Snow Cake with Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman. I must admit that My Little Eye didn’t make me get up the energy to watch either of those other films.

Oh, and most clumsy set up for sex scene in a film. Ever.

I was really into the way MLE was handling everything and the overall atmosphere. If the movie had kept it up right until the end I would have loved it but when it jumped it really jumped and like I said it was too easy to see it all coming at that point.

Great review, I enjoyed My Little Eye quite a bit when I caught it a while ago. If I remember correctly it was a Midnight Madness film at TIFF a few years back.