Review of Murderball (2005) by Nick R — 18 Dec 2005

...but I'm not sure what phrase to use...

I absolutely despised [i]House of 1000 Corpses[/i]. It was months ago, and it was on late on night on Shotime or HBO or something, and I figured I'd watch it. I disliked it so much that I had no intentions of watching the quasi-follow-up [i]The Devil's Rejects[/i]. I read and heard a lot of good things but I thought there was no way that Zombie could tackle essentially the same material and do it [i]that[/i] much better. Boy, was I wrong. Where the first movie felt like one long music video, with Zombie throwing in such "horrifying" sights of freaks and an abundance of zooms and cuts and bunches of other effects and tricks, this time he seems to have a better understanding of the medium. Sure, there are stylish throwbacks to 70s exploitation flicks, but they don't come at you every minute. And where [i]Corpses[/i] was ever-so borderline pornographic with its violence, this seems a bit pulled back. Not that this movie is for the weak of stomach. It's also much tighter, focused, and, in its way, more ambitious. The way the movie turns the genre on its head during the last 15 minutes or so, with the law man, axe in hand, relentlessly pursuing the killers, was a nice touch.

Some other movies I saw that I never got to rating -.

The most fascinating person in [i]Murderball[/i] is by far Joe Soares. In a movie about rehabilitation (to me it was anyway), Joe's story probably encompasses all of its facets. And through all the discussion about how quadriplegics still can have sex, the one thing that stuck with me was the one guy who said, and I paraphrase, that the best part of learning he could still have sex wasn't knowing he could do it, but the fact that the opportunity to go out to a bar with his buds and maybe get lucky that night was still there. And to a single 20-something male, what else is there?

[i]Fantastic Four[/i] - meh. 5 people with amazing powers. Well, really 2 people with [i]amazing[/i] powers (burning at supernova levels, and becoming invisible). 1 is pretty cool (shooting electricity would be badass, but metal body parts might suck) and two guys who got shafted ("What do you do?" "I can stretch forever and ever!!" "Wow. I am so impressed." "Well, at least I don't look like a mountain ate an orange smoothie and took a crap!") Anyway, they have supernatural powers and what do they do? 4 of them bitch at each other. The other decides to use his power to... I really don't know what, other than take out the other 4 because he's jealous or vengeful or something. I mean, come on. The dude was a ruthless bastard bajillionaire who ran a ginormous corporation. You'd think with super powers he'd have a little more ambition to do something other than take out Stretch Armstrong.

I'm out...