THE LAST HORROR MOVIE

THE LAST HORROR MOVIE

Wedding videographer Max Parry (RAZOR BLADE SMILE's Kevin Howarth) has been getting busy in his spare time. With his trusty camera and obedient sidekick, the charismatic killer sets about making "an intelligent horror film, while actually doing the murders." Taping the murders over a slasher film called THE LAST HORROR MOVIE, Max follows those who have rented it home, so he can kill them and add them to his ever expanding, ambitious and provocative project.

The most important horror film of the last ten years, Julian Richards' THE LAST HORROR MOVIE is as close to the last word on the genre as is possible, and picks up where Ray Brady's radical BOY MEETS GIRL (1994) left off. A truly cutting edge film, Kevin Howarth - our anchor into this fiction - forces us to question our own motivations for viewing violent imagery. Often speaking directly to the camera, the charismatic killer teases responses from us, some of which we may wish were not unearthed. In an intriguing tableau, with two victims tied to chairs, Max dispatches each while the camera looks at the other. Our minds are inflamed as to what happens. As if we didn't get the point, he asks if we weren't even a little bit anxious to see what was happening. Since we're watching a horror movie, it's not a difficult question, and makes us complicit in his production of violent images. Afterward, we are given a huge jolt when we are bombarded with the footage that has been withheld from us, in its unflinching, graphic glory. When it comes, the violence assaults the spectator instead of gratifying.

Throughout, our expectations are toyed with. Max is almost unique among screen murderers. Avoiding the trend of virginal mother-fixated killers, Max is a brutally honest individual who despises the mediocrity of slick Hollywood product and the passive consumers of them. Hilariously, the film we plop into our DVD player begins as such a slasher (all mobile-phones-and-halloween-masks) before we see the static caused by Max's taping over of it. Only then are we taken into his casually brutal lifestyle, including torture, immolation and even cannibalism. This casual style is a major part of the film's ability to throw us off balance: we don't know if he's going to kill the next person he sets eyes on, or have a polite conversation with them, and the film is a constant source of surprise, and, yes, dark delight. Like the female killer in Brady's BOY MEETS GIRL - whose systematic torture of wide boy Tevin reveals just how repellent the victim is - Max is a borderline visionary whose vicious insights are well-taken by us. Instead of harbouring some neurosis, Max is a man who simply doesn't care about the consequences his actions have on others. This apathy makes him more terrifying than any zombie, vampire or possessed schoolgirl.

Tartan give this masterpiece a fittingly good transfer. In spite of the handheld approach, THE LAST HORROR MOVIE is as crisp and clear throughout. As well as the audio commentary with director Richards, we get an interesting making of section. Leading man Howarth has plenty to say, as does Richards, but it's surprising that they try to distance themselves too far from Max (as madman, psycho, etc), whose actions might be horrendous but in the context of this film, make a lot of sense. Short films 'Pirates' and 'Self Help' are a nice addition, but the deleted scenes are a good laugh. Best of all is the alternate scene for Max's goading of his cameraman (Mark Stevenson) to perform a killing. In this comic scene, the participant attempts to beat the woman with a paintbrush and then suffocate her with a carrier bag that has a hole in it!

Review by Matthew Sanderson


 
Released by Tartan
Region 2 PAL
Rated 18
Extras : see main review
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