Things to do in Montreal when you're dead

Dead. The word seems a little odd to describe how most people feel these days, but it's well chosen. This is extreme, but so are the conditions in which we have to struggle to stay alive. Minus 30's are not uncommon and the question often rises : why the fuck do we even bother ? Why insisting on living in this shithole city with this shitty climate ? Why don't we move to somewhere warm already ?



Because. Many reasons. There is only about three months out of 12 of bad weather to live through. We might be limited in sun, but we are certainly not lacking decent parties. And the reduced criminality and beautiful blend of cultural & ethnic flavours is something you can't find anywhere else. Try as you might, there are inconveniences everywhere, and Montreal offers the perfect balance : low crime rate, lots of cultural content, cheap rent, a laidback lifestyle, tolerance, the notable absence of any religion trying to interfere in politics, a variety of geographical environments, rich & poor people of all races & colors. A big melting pot of fun, and of cool people doing their best to share a piece of land.

We just have to make sure that winter blues doesn't kill us for real and when springtime comes, we'll be reborn. Or something.

*

My good pal Benjamant warned us all when he wrote about the most recent TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE installment. I'd say his critic made me want to see the movie more than anything else. He qualified it as an "écoeuranterie sans nom". I now pretty much have to agree with him.



The movie is a prequel and was conceived by the same production team behind Marcus Nispel's 2003 THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, starring Jessica Biel in a tiny white tank top. A "remake" not to be confused with the poor attempt at a sequel made in 1994, THE RETURN OF THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, also known as TCM : THE NEW GENERATION. In this Kim Henkel-directed piece of nonsense, Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey were both the figureheads in a ship of fools, if I might say. My only advice is never to watch it.

In the extras of the DVD, we are told that the current director of this new version, Jonathan Liebesman, who's responsible for 2003's DARKNESS FALLS and for the upcoming FRIDAY THE 13TH installment, wanted the movie to be "the most brutal possible" so that his "product" doesn't feel like other pieces of the current "horror renaissance" we are inundated with these days. In a sickening way, he has succeeded at crafting a movie that, if ridiculous at times, offers a nauseating level of visual violence.

We are supposed to learn more about Leatherface, but instead are served a nice lesson in inhumanity, and of how far special effects can go nowadays. I thought I was insensible and that a movie could never make me cringe, but this one is quite the exception. I will not start to describe how savage it is, but let's just say that it's not pretty, and that it could give any kid nightmares for weeks.



The overall production values are amazing. Sets are top notch, and so are the special effects. The cinematography is beautiful, and it all helps getting into the movie - something the script doesn't do very well. The dialogues are cheap one-liners, and their campiness is the only thing that helps save the movie from total darkness. "Comic relief", when put aside the intense butchery we're facing, isn't even funny anymore. The Hewitt family is portrayed by the same cast as in the 2003 remake, which is original & interesting. R. Lee Ermey does a fine job as a psychopatic sheriff, and the enormous Andrew Bryniarski becomes an intense & scary Leatherface. The kids playing the victims are all good-looking, of course, and a special mention goes to Diora Baird. She screams her way through the whole movie, and her lungs seem powerful and adequate enough for her to become a legendary scream queen.

It took the documentary detailing the special effects to exorcise the horror of it all, and even then I felt like I needed to take a shower to get rid of this bleak feeling the movie evoqued. Watch at your own risk...

*

LA REVANCHE DES MORTES VIVANTES, a seldom seen French gem from 1987, has got to be seen to be believed. The director is Pierre B. Reinhard, a porn king responsible for 1983's LE BAL DU VIOL and the better known Bleu Nuit fixture LE DIABLE ROSE, also shot in 1987 and featuring Brigitte Lahaie as a hooker with a heart of gold servicing nazis in a WWII parisian whorehouse.



The milk has been poisoned ! Three young small town girls die after drinking some poisoned milk and are buried in a nearby cemetary. The C.E.O. of a local chemicals plant is a very evil & horny man and in between romps with his secretary, orders his right hand man to dispose of some highly toxic waste. The waste, of course, is spilled in the cemetary where the chicks are buried and it wakes them up... The zombie girls then go on a killing spree that has all the visible signs of being commited by psycho-sexual killers; the murders all have something obscurely sexual, and the campiness level is high. A girl from Germany is flown in town to investigate about the spree. What she'll find out is even more ridiculous than any hypothesis you may come up with during a fever-induced delirium.



The overall acting skills are pretty limited, and the female players all seem to have some kind of porn background. They are rather vulgar and skanky, but in an oddly amusing way. The fashion fads from '87 probably don't help at beautifying them, but we won't hold that against them. This viewing experience is rather pleasant, and is one of the very last schlock titles that Reinhard was to work on. He went on to direct more shot-on-video porn in the 90's, forgetable pieces of exploitation that never overshadowed his previous oeuvres, among which OUTRAGES TRANSSEXUELS DES PETITES FILLES VIOLÉES ET SODOMISÉES wins the palm of the most absurd title ever.