Tag Archives: Belgian horror

Hard Candy Christmas

The Advent Calendar

by Hope Madden

Who needs a new Christmas horror story?

I do. Y’all can have your Hallmark romances but give me a little yuletide carnage and I’m filled with holiday cheer.

This Christmas season, writer/director Patrick Ridremont comes through with the Belgian horror The Advent Calendar.

It’s been three years since the accident that put Eva (Eugénie Derouand) in a wheelchair, but it’s still sometimes tough for her to tolerate the ableism and ignorance of those around her. Luckily her bestie Sophie (Honorine Magnier) cheers her with a visit and a gift — an antique wooden advent calendar she picked up in Germany.

There are rules. There is candy. There will be blood. (But there is candy, so how bad can it be?)

The “be careful what you wish for” storyline is as vintage as the ornate and impressive prop, but cursed object horror can be powerful when done well. Ridremont does it well, allowing time for his ensemble to develop their characters. And though the film skirts cliché, Ridremont respects his audience’s ability to keep up. We’re not spoonfed.

Better still, Eva has depth enough as a character that when she finally moves willingly toward doing the wrong thing, you feel her resignation more than her selfishness.

Derouand portrays Eva’s bitterness and longing so clearly that the film never has to bow to montage or flashback. And when the time comes to get spooky, The Advent Calendar delivers.

There’s plenty of blood, but it’s the way it’s meted out that ramps up tensions. We start off with people we’re trained to want to see picked off, but viewer beware: there’s a beautiful mutt in danger here as the cursed object worms its way into Eva’s life.

The FX are not as impressive as the performances, unfortunately, but the creature itself is creepy as hell. Better still, his existence and the origin of the Advent Calendar are left a bit to the imagination. It’s a clever sleight of hand, Ridremont taking advantage of our familiarity with his subgenre when he needs to, while still leaving behind the tangy taste of mystery.

Fright Club: Best Belgian Horror

Here’s our guess: you have no idea how much great horror comes out of Belgium. A lot! So much that we weren’t even able to talk about the excellent camp horror Cub or the bloody head trip that is The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears – but we still had to mention them because you should see them.

But keep in mind – there are five movies from Belgium that are even better! And here they are!

5. Vampires (2010)

About 6 years ago, Belgiain filmmaker Vincent Lanoo made a hilarious (if blandly titled) mock-doc about vampires. Far darker and more morbid than the later Kiwi import What We Do in the Shadows (the first two film crews were eaten before they could complete the documentary; the final film is dedicated to the memory of the third crew), Lanoo’s film offers insight, social commentary and blood along with laughs.

The crew moves in with a vampire family with two undisciplined teens. The house also contains the couple who live in their basement (vampires can’t own a home until they have – make – children), and Meat (the name they’ve given the woman they keep in their kitchen). There’s also a coop out back for the illegal immigrants the cops drop off on Mondays.

Beginning to end, wickedly hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqS_6nlctG8

4. Them (2006)

Brisk, effective and terrifying, Them is among the most impressive horror flicks to rely on the savagery of adolescent boredom as its central conceit.

Writers/directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud offer a lean, unapologetic, tightly conceived thriller that never lets up.

Set in Romania, Them follows Lucas and Clementine, a young couple still moving into the big rattling old house where they’ll stay while they’re working abroad. It will be a shorter trip than they’d originally planned.

What the film offers in 77 minutes is relentless suspense. I’m not sure what else you want.

Creepy noises, hooded figures, sadistic children and the chaos that entails – Them sets up a fresh and mean cat and mouse game that pulls you in immediately and leaves you unsettled.

3. Alleluia (2014)

In 2004, Belgian writer/director Fabrice Du Welz released the exquisite Calvaire, marking himself a unique artist worth watching. Ten years later he revisits the themes of that film – blind passion, bloody obsession, maddening loneliness – with his newest effort, Alleluia. Once again he enlists the help of an actor who clearly understands his vision.

Laurent Lucas plays Michel, a playboy conman who preys upon lonely women, seducing them and taking whatever cash he can get his hands on. That all changes once he makes a mark of Gloria (Lola Duenas).

Du Welz’s close camera and off angles exaggerate Lucas’s teeth, nose and height in ways that flirt with the grotesque. Likewise, the film dwells on Duenas’s bags and creases, heightening the sense of unseemliness surrounding the pair’s passion.

Duenas offers a performance of mad genius, always barely able to control the tantrum, elation, or desire in any situation. Her bursting passions often lead to carnage, but there’s a madcap love story beneath that blood spray that compels not just attention but, in a macabre way, affection. Alleluia is a film busting with desperation, jealousy, and the darkest kind of love.

2. Man Bites Dog (1992)

In a bit of meta-filmmaking, Man Bites Dog is a pseudo-documentary made on a shoestring budget by struggling, young filmmakers. It is about a documentary being made on a shoestring budget by struggling, young filmmakers. The subject of the fictional documentary is the charismatic Ben – serial killer, narcissist, poet, racist, architecture enthusiast, misogynist, bird lover.

There’s more than what appears on the surface of this cynical, black comedy. The film crew starts out as dispassionate observers of Ben’s crimes. They’re just documenting, just telling the truth. No doubt this is a morally questionable practice to begin with. But they are not villains – they are serving their higher purpose: film.

The film examines social responsibility as much as it does journalistic objectivity, and what Man Bites Dog has to say about both is biting. It’s never preachy, though.

Theirs is a bitter view of their chosen industry, and – much like The Last Horror Movie – a bit of a condemnation of the viewer as well. The fact that much of the decidedly grisly content is played for laughter makes it that much more unsettling.

1. Calvaire (2004)

Like you didn’t know.

Fabrice du Welz’s surreal nightmare has appeared on eight separate Fright Club podcasts. Why? Because we effing love it.

A paranoid fantasy about the link between progress and emasculation, The Ordeal sees a timid singer stuck in the wilds of Belgium after his van breaks down.

Writer/director Fabrice Du Welz’s script scares up the darkest imaginable humor. If David Lynch had directed Deliverance in French, the concoction might have resembled The Ordeal. As sweet, shy singer Marc (a pitch perfect Laurent Lucas) awaits aid, he begins to recognize the hell he’s stumbled into. Unfortunately for Marc, salvation’s even worse.

Du Welz animates more ably than most our collective revulsion over the idea that we’ve evolved into something incapable of unaided survival; the weaker species, so to speak. Certainly John Boorman’s Deliverance (the Uncle Daddy of all backwoods survival pics) understood the fear of emasculation that fuels this particular dread, but Du Welz picks that scab more effectively than any filmmaker since.

Plus there’s dancing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn3oba5HmH8





Halloween Countdown, Day 5: Man Bites Dog

Man Bites Dog (1992)

Oh, Belgium. How we do love your horror output.

In a bit of meta-filmmaking, Man Bites Dog is a pseudo-documentary made on a shoestring budget by struggling, young filmmakers. It is about a documentary being made on a shoestring budget by struggling, young filmmakers. The subject of the fictional documentary is the charismatic Ben – serial killer, narcissist, poet, racist, architecture enthusiast, misogynist, bird lover.

There’s more than what appears on the surface of this cynical, black comedy. The film crew starts out as dispassionate observers of Ben’s crimes. They’re just documenting, just telling the truth. No doubt this is a morally questionable practice to begin with. But they are not villains – they are serving their higher purpose: film.

Eventually the filmmakers’ commitment to the project, fear of retaliation, bloodlust, or sense of camaraderie pushes them toward aiding Ben, and then finally, to committing heinous crimes themselves.

Benoit Poelvoorde’s (who also co-directs) performance as Ben is just as quirky, ridiculous and self-centered as it can be. He’s perfect. His character needs to move the group toward fear, camaraderie, and sometimes even pity – but slyly, he also moves the audience.

The film examines social responsibility as much as it does journalistic objectivity, and what Man Bites Dog has to say about both is biting. It’s never preachy, though.

Theirs is a bitter view of their chosen industry, and – much like The Last Horror Movie – a bit of a condemnation of the viewer as well. The fact that much of the decidedly grisly content is played for laughter makes it that much more unsettling.

There are cynical chuckles to be has as members of the crew die off, one by one, and the remaining crew come up with teary excuses to soldier on with the film. But filmmaker and views alike have been made unclean by what we’ve chosen to participate in.

Listen weekly to MaddWolf’s horror podcast FRIGHT CLUB. Do it!





They Could Have Been More Prepared

Cub

by Hope Madden

Does this story sound familiar? Friends head into the woods, run into some trouble finding their exact camping spot, settle for an “almost right” spot, tell campfire stories about a lurker in the bushes, and die.

If it doesn’t sound familiar, you are new.

So why, then, is Cub (Welp) immediately scarier than other campground slashers?

Because they’re all little kids.

That is correct. It’s a group of wee Belgian scouts out on their big camping excursion into the wrong damn woods.

Co-writer/director Jonas Govaerts uses that small twist to build a lot of tension as imaginative little Sam (Maurice Luijten) – a boy with an uncertain yet tragic past – believes the campfire tales of Kai, a feral boy who hunts the nearby woods.

Govaerts knows how to wring anxiety as he unveils character, beginning with a group countdown as Sam sprints to try to make the truck that’s leaving for camp. Then there’s a run in with unfriendly French hoods claiming the right to the original camp site, not to mention the inner-troop skirmishes for hierarchy. Childhood is tough, tribalism is brutal, and camping in the woods is just plain stupid. If you don’t know that, again, you are new. No one survives the woods.

Most of the film’s success is due to the strong performances, particularly from Luijten, who is equal parts adorable, earnest, and impressionable. The adult cast is solid enough in a film that knows its territory and agrees to do what it can without redefining anything.

Which, of course, is also Cub’s biggest weakness.

Though Govaerts foreshadows quite well, and his camera captures both the wonder and terror of the woods, he can’t entirely overcome the template he’s chosen for his film. The entire effort just feels too familiar.

That doesn’t make the film an outright disappointment, either. There are bright, gnarly moments here and there. Govaerts just can’t finally deliver all the goods.

Verdict-3-0-Stars





Day 28: Alleluia

Alleluia (2015)

For a lot of horror fans, French cinema is the way to go. But just north of that border is a country making a name for itself in genre filmmaking, thanks in part to the work of Belgian writer/director Fabrice Du Welz.

In 2004 he released the exquisite Calvaire, marking himself a unique artist worth watching. Ten years later he revisits the themes of that film – blind passion, bloody obsession, maddening loneliness – with his newest effort, Alleluia. Once again he enlists the help of an actor who clearly understands his vision.

Laurent Lucas plays Michel, a playboy conman who preys upon lonely women, seducing them and taking whatever cash he can get his hands on. That all changes once he makes a mark of Gloria (Lola Duenas).

Fans of Calvaire may remember that name. Is there a connection? Du Welz is tantalizingly vague about the specific relationship between Alleluia and Calvaire, although certain sets (a rustic, wooden cross, for instance) beg loads of questions.

Like 1969’s Honeymoon Killers and 2006’S Lonely Hearts, Alleluia is loosely based on the acts of American serial killers Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez.

Lucas looks like an entirely different man this time around, and Du Welz’s close camera and off angles exaggerate the actor’s teeth, nose and height in ways that flirt with the grotesque. Likewise, the film dwells on Duenas’s bags and creases, heightening the sense of unseemliness surrounding the pair’s passion.

Duenas offers a performance of mad genius, always barely able to control the tantrum, elation, or desire in any situation. Her bursting passions often lead to carnage, but there’s a madcap love story beneath that blood spray that compels not just attention but, in a macabre way, affection.

Slow, atmospheric, and shot in grainy 16mm, Alleluia asks for your patience, but it repays you for that investment. It’s a film busting with desperation, jealousy, and the darkest kind of love.

Listen weekly to MaddWolf’s horror podcast FRIGHT CLUB. Do it!





Day 18: Calvaire (The Ordeal)

The Ordeal (Calvaire) (2004)

A paranoid fantasy about the link between progress and emasculation, The Ordeal sees a timid singer stuck in the wilds of Belgium after his van breaks down.

Writer/director Fabrice Du Welz’s script scares up the darkest imaginable humor. If David Lynch had directed Deliverance in French, the concoction might have resembled The Ordeal. As sweet, shy singer Marc (a pitch perfect Laurent Lucas) awaits aid, he begins to recognize the hell he’s stumbled into. Unfortunately for Marc, salvation’s even worse.

The whole film boasts an uneasy, “What next?” quality. It also provides a European image of a terror that’s plagued American filmmakers for generations: the more we embrace progress, the further we get from that primal hunter/gatherer who knew how to survive.

Du Welz animates more ably than most our collective revulsion over the idea that we’ve evolved into something incapable of unaided survival; the weaker species, so to speak. Certainly John Boorman’s Deliverance (the Uncle Daddy of all backwoods survival pics) understood the fear of emasculation that fuels this particular dread, but Du Welz picks that scab more effectively than any filmmaker since.

His film is a profoundly uncomfortable, deeply disturbing, unsettlingly humorous freakshow that must be seen to be believed.

Listen weekly to MaddWolf’s horror podcast FRIGHT CLUB. Do it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn3oba5HmH8





August Fright Club: An Ohio Premier!

Join us Friday, August 22nd for the next installment of Fright Club – now at 9:00 pm! The earlier start time should allow us to discuss the film after the screening. Prizes and fun before start time, too!

This month we proudly present the Ohio premier of Calvaire (The Ordeal), a bizarre and terrifying trip into madness!

Join us!