Post by jasonzson on Jan 27, 2007 0:39:06 GMT -5
Directed by George Pavlou
Written by Clive Barker
Starring David Dukes and Kelly Piper
An ancient demon has been freed from its phallic prison in Ireland. Rawhead proceeds on a rampage of vandalism and murder until he comes face to face with his most ancient and despised enemy.
At first look, this is the best it gets. After all, what's better than a man-eating, ancient demon with claws, a history of ruling the land, and a gaze that can force his enemies into his will? Well, apparently good acting and good directing would be better than all that.
The most obvious thing about where the quality of Rawhead Rex lies is the attempts at setting a horror mood. The dislike Piper's character feels for Ireland, the actions of the birds before the little girl screams and Dukes's character's reaction, the movie goes through all of these motions and yet, it doesn't work. Everything looks, feels and sounds like it's scripted, instead of scary. That statement can summarize this review: there were a lot of good things in place, but there was no one around to pull it off right.
The acting in general was as uninspired as it was during the failed mood-setters. The stars didn't stand out in one way or another (I'm not even sure why Kelly Piper is listed in the opening credits as a star- all her character does throughout the movie is support her husband) to the point where I would have been hard-pressed to label them stars. Even the character I would label as the starring role, Declan O'Brien (Ronan Wilmot) didn't talk like a real person ("Kill me, I HOOOOPE!"), and his reactions seemed like he waited for a cue (Give me a burning book and let me hit you, if you want to see what I mean).
The fact that you don't see any full frontal closeups of Rawhead himself until about halfway through the movie is a mix of good and bad. The good is that the shots of Rawhead in the first half of the movie are basically all good ones; the bad is that with that suit there was no need for a full frontal of Rawhead at all. It would have looked a lot better (and probably been a lot scarier) if Pavlou had taken a leaf of George Lucas's book and not shown his incomplete wampa until the very ending.
Rawhead himself is portrayed badly, and without some understanding of his background he looks more like a child than a demon. While he's supposed to be a symbol of masculinity, mind driven entirely by testosterone, the editing of his image coupled with his wild, child-like reactions (the trashing of the house and flipping of the trailer) make his flailing arms seem like the wild rage of a toddler.
If I were to pretend, like the director did, that the flaws in Rawhead's costume did not exist, I have to say I enjoy the cheesy "60s movie made in the 80s" graphics. The final confrontation reminded me of Star Trek reruns I used to watch as a kid, and the lightning in the beginning doesn't look half bad.
The gore effects were... not as good as the rest. Only once do you see liquid blood; everything other time it's just make-up or painted on a wall and looking hours old even when relatively fresh. The severed hand didn't even look like a hand. Probably the best piece of gore was the headless body, which was shown in the perfect lighting to compliment its budget: dark, lit by a flashlight.
I was irritated by the near lack of R-rated material here. If there's going to be one tit shot to bump the movie up to R, then where are the sexual scenes beyond simple tongue-in-mouth? Had they cut the one instance of tits, this could almost certainly have been marketed as PG-13; if they had to take the step up to R they could have at least gone all the way.
There were a few things I found confusing about this movie. First of all, what the hell was the deal with the "familiar" old woman, who makes one appearance? Why did the congregation go back to singing "Halleluia, halleluia" after the end of the song? And, of course, is "pig" the only insult in Ireland?
The religious satire in this movie, also seen in the Hellraiser series (Hell on Earth) shows the greatest difference between Barker and King. While Stephen King's religious themes are almost always about faith in the unknown and the good of God, Clive Barker is clearly not impressed by the Christian church and its claims. He seems more impressed with Phantasm- the name of the bar, Tall Man, seems a certain homeage to Rawhead's fellow cult classic.
All in all, a devout horror fan with a little background knowledge, a strong imagination and a love for Clive Barker's work will find himself enjoying this movie. Just don't set too much score in what it looks like, or how the acting is. Focus on Rawhead. Look deep into his eyes, in fact.