The Last Horror Movie (2003) — Triskaidekafiles

THE LAST HORROR MOVIE

WRITER: Screenplay by James Handel

DIRECTOR: Julian Richards

STARRING: Kevin Howarth as Max

Mark Stevenson as Assistant

Antonia Beamish as Petra

QUICK CUT: A day in the life piece following Max, a wedding videographer, as he spends time with his family, makes new friends, and tries to make his mark in the world.

THE MORGUE

Max - He seems like your average guy, maybe with a little less drive than most, who seems content to do his own thing, doing just enough to keep a roof over his head, and pursue his interests. But he doesn’t want to just go along with the program, and has darker desires lurking beneath the surface.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions. Well, here we are. It's been a thirteen year long journey, and I decided back around the 10th anniversary, that for the 13th, it would be a good, fitting time to call it a day. So here's one last Halloween treat for everyone, one last run at the weird and obscure, one Last Horror Movie review. I hope you enjoy.

So the movie opens up with a radio news report playing over the credits, setting things up, telling your average tale of an escaped madman on the loose, wreaking havoc, and killing people. Naturally, it's peppered with a lot of nods to other horror movies, and a handful of name references.

But from there, we start off in a diner, as a woman is cleaning up, oblivious to everything going on in town. Turn on the radio, miss! She hears something break and goes to investigate, thinking it's all a prank, because Halloween. She leans down to pick up a Halloween mask...revealing the escaped killer behind her with a knife!

HEY BART WANNA CHECK OUT MY NEW SKULL MASK AND CARVING KNIFE??

He grabs her, thrusts the blade...and the movie cuts away to someone sitting in front of a video tape collection, adjusting the camera, and then speaking directly to it. To us. To ME.

The man, who will we eventually learn is named Max, apologises for this not being the movie you expected to be watching, and goes on to say that he recorded over it, and he has something he replaced it with, that he wants us to see.

And that is SUPER CLEVER. It gives a sense of reality so many movies like this don't have, and I am instantly intrigued.

You didn’t really want to watch that other trash anyways.

He splices in some footage of him beating up on someone, hopes that intrigues us enough to keep watching, and he goes on. He starts showing his own movie, a documentary, about what he has been up to.

It begins with him taking us to the top of a tall building in London, and while in the elevator, sharing the story of a man he saved after they had jumped off a bridge into the waters below.

They became friends after that, but Max never REALLY liked him, and six months later, atop the same building we're on now, Max decided to shove his newfound friend over the ledge.

And that is one heck of a twist on the whole, save a man's life and it's yours, idea, with Max deciding that he didn't want that life anymore.

He then drives off to his day job, filming and photographing weddings, and he tells us more about what he's done, how he kills eight, ten people a year, but he always picks random people, random methods, so there's no connections to him or between the victims.

Max then goes back to share us his first real, premeditated kill, which didn't go well, gets a bit messy, and splashes blood over the camera.

Then we start to get into some philosophy with Max, as he figures we see him as evil, and us good, and the old "watched too many violent films" and I hate that I agree with him picking that apart by saying there have always been violent people.

Back into the film itself, Max meets a drunk man at the bar, already wasted, and says he's making a film about life and death, and wants to do an interview.

The guy, Ben, has had your typical life, more downs than ups, and he drowns his sorrows in the bottle. Max prods him, seeing how much he REALLY wants to live, and for a second you think, maybe JUST maybe, Max has a motive for all this, to give people done with life, a sort of release.

Of course, the instant Max brings out a gun, Ben...well, he doesn't quite sober up, but there is some clarity, and he's not done with this world just yet.

This is NOT what they mean by ‘assisted suicide’.

It's actually less about Max having some sort of moral code. He really doesn't. He just wants to know, why cling on to life, if it makes you miserable? A question he has yet to get any answers for.

We cut to later, and Max assures he didn't kill Ben, and actually felt sorry for him. And he ponders the whole life thing again, likening it to staying in a relationship with someone who makes you miserable, and it's this philosophy that REALLY makes this movie sing for me. It gives this movie more depth than it should have

Continuing on, Max stops by a school as it's letting out, finds a kid standing around all alone, and oh no oh no, asks if he'd like to be in the movie, and that he's been sent by his mum to take the boy home.

Don’t take leading roles from strangers.

But then the shocking twist, he actually does take the kid home. And in fact, Max knows the mother. Doesn't just know her, but he's family, the boy's uncle. That fakeout, playing into the expectations of what a man like Max would do with a child, and then completely subverting them is brilliant.

The thing that makes movie so so chilling, is how NORMAL Max is. He has family, he seems to care for them, he has a job he likes, he has relationships with women. He literally could be your best friend, and you'd never know.

Going forward, the movie will cut from the ridiculously mundane normal life of Max, to his murders, and it actually helps ground the movie, and is really fun intercutting and mixing those moods.

Following some dinner with his ladyfriend, Petra, we watch Max pounce a woman in a carpark, strangling her from the backseat. Once she's taken care of, he enlists his cameraman to help get her in the boot of her car.

This is where Max gets into how he mixes things up, but the downside is, since no one knows all these murders are by one man, he can't really use it to make a statement. Hence the film.

Following a friendly visit with his gran, Max finds another victim in her home, insisting the cameraman get more involved, a thread which plays out throughout the film.

While she sits there bleeding out, Max explains to her that he's making an intelligent movie about murder, while committing them. He knows this doesn't excuse or explain anything, but it's *interesting*, and that's the key, to do something interesting with life.

Once he's done, it's time for more Philosophy with Professor Max, as he again addresses his acts, and what is a human life worth? Is it worth selling your possessions to help a kid in Africa live longer? But you're not doing that, are you? Would you have sold your tv, if it would have saved the woman he just murdered?

If the answer is yes, why wouldn't you for the hypothetical African child? And if not, then why are you giving him a hard time?

And this stuff sits with you, as a viewer, as you start becoming an active participant in the narrative. I'm as much a part of this as he is, and my own morality, my enjoyment, is being questioned. That is an uncomfortable place for a person to be in. And I love it.

This leads into Max conducting an "experiment" where he kills a pair of people, but you only see the other person as one is killed, denying the viewer the 'satisfaction' of being the audience.

And this makes Max ask us, were we curious? Did we want to see him murder someone? And if you didn't...why are you still watching?? And these questions just keep hitting. Yes, it's just a movie, *I* know it's just a movie, but playing with that reality is done so well.

We move on to Max filming another wedding, which culminates in his catching the groom making out with one of the bridesmaids some time during the reception. And the next thing we know, the groom is tied to a chair, confronting Max's questions, and ultimately getting set on fire.

And uh, holy fuck. Unlike something like Reservoir Dogs where it pans away and leaves things to the imagination, we get to see the body go up and writhe for a few seconds. DEFinitely above and beyond the sort of effects you would be expecting to see in this sort of movie. And again, adds to the reality of it all, going that extra mile.

But the time has finally come for Max to have his assistant step from behind the camera and get some on the job experience of his own. It does not go well, he chickens out, and Max has to do it all himself.

Max sees this as a chance to learn though, wanting to know what changed, why it feels different, picking and picking, trying to figure out this thing he's looking for.

The assistant actually threatens Max with a knife, and well, I'm sure you can guess how good that went for him.

But this does let Max get into how he carefully disposes of the bodies, and cuts immediately to him serving dinner to the family. But it's also a good cover to use the leftovers, mixed with just a few bits of human remains, to disguise them and dispose of them in the trash.

Or, there's implied cannibalism, take your pick.

After all this, Max addresses the viewer again, wondering what sort of conversation we would have if we met now, but well, that's not really going to happen, is it?

We then continue with the film, of Max watching someone, watching the movie that you're watching, and then approaching him.

And of course they let him in, it's the guy from the telly! You're meeting a celebrity! It's all some kind of joke, right??

Once Neil is all tied up, Max wants to know...why? Why did he watch it to the end? Did he think it was real? If it wasn't a joke, would there be something wrong with you for watching it all the way through?? And again, holding that mirror up to the audience, making us complicit in our viewing, making us an active member of the narrative.

Max doesn't get any satisfying answers, but he then explains how he recorded his story over a movie called the Last Horror Movie, making that also the title of his movie, and, he did not choose it at random. People who see the Last Horror Movie, then come face to face with Max, and after their chat, he takes their life. It truly is their Last Horror Movie.

If you've watched the movie to this point, if it's sucked you in like it did me, it can really hit you, and is one of the more unsettling moments I’ve seen. I'm PRETTY sure this is only a movie, but...what if? Right? Making your experience part of the story, and makes you question, what comes next?

Even if it IS just a movie, it can leave you, as a viewer, with a lot to think about, even then.

And the movie ends there, with Max looking forward to paying you a visit, and leaving you jumping at that creak on the stairs...

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks all right, but definitely has that kinda dull, British feel to it.

Audio: It sounds fine.

Sound Bite: "We're trying to make an intelligent movie about murder, while actually doing the murders."

Body Count: Not counting the kills Max claims he did before his movie, there’s still a nice, hefty body count here.

1 - 4:30 in and a waitress is just about to be murdered before the static.

2 - The killer properly hammers a police officer at about 7:30

3 - Tim gets beaten with a mallet.

4 - Max garrotes a woman in her car.

5 - Blonde girl gets gutted

6 and 7 - Max murders a couple to question our complicity

8 - Giles gets set on fire

9 - Max slashes a woman's neck when the cameraman won't

10 - And then he kills the cameraman

11 - Suffocates one of his viewers.

And then there’s a montage of a few other bodies after they viewed the movie.

Best Corpse: Dude bursts into flames and writhes on camera. Easy pick.

Blood Type - B: There’s plenty of blood, but there’s also a sense of restraint…until someone bursts into flames.

Drink Up! Every time Max addresses the viewer

Movie Review: I’m sure it goes without saying, I squawking love this movie. There’s a trick that is unique to found footage movies, and movies like this, and I mentioned it a few times in the rundown. Found footage movies are able to directly address the audience in a way regular films are rarely able to, and hold that mirror up, and ask, “Is this what you want? Are you happy now??” and it is the sort of thing that affects me more than almost anything, because yeah, I watch this stuff for the luridness sometimes. And that’s something to think about. It’s rare for a movie to actually make the viewer question themselves like that, make them literally part of the story, if not complicit in the actions taking place. Now, it’s low budget, but it’s acted well, it’s believable, and it is clever as SHIT and I absolutely love this movie. Five out of five what I hope are chicken drumsticks.

Entertainment Value: To be fair, there’s nothing very ‘entertaining’ in the bad sense here. Maybe the sad sack assistant who is in way over his head. There’s some good humerous moments though, and Max is VERY compelling, and you are on the edge of your seat waiting to see where all this is going. If you get sucked in, and are down for the philosophical discussions, the movie just trucks along, and is almost never boring. If not, I can see people finding the film tedious when Max gets into his thing, and find the philosophy very armchair, first year, try hard stuff, but I definitely enjoy it. Five out of five videotapes.

So I am going out on a very high note. It’s been a fantastic run, but taking my bow after 13 years, just feels right. But you haven’t heard the last of me. Now if you'll excuse me, I just heard someone at the door...