DEVIL (2010)

[Update 03/29/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Five strangers are trapped in an elevator together. One of them might actually be Satan! How...stupid.

Being that M. Night Shyamalan came up with the story, you automatically know it's going to have more twists than an octopus gangbang, but what's funny is the red herrings he throws out are more interesting than the actual ending! If this movie had thrown the supernatural aspect in the garbage and just did a straight murder mystery it would have been way better.

Good acting, nice beginning, strong middle, crappy ending, zero nudity, very little violence, a few drops of blood. Worth a single viewing, but that's it. It was better than I expected, but that's not saying much. Even at only 80 minutes, it was too long. Trim off 20 minutes, drop the supernatural silliness and recut it as an episode of some other horror anthology show.

HANDS ON A HARD BODY (1997)

I enjoy quirky, little slice of life documentaries like this.  This time around, the slice of life featured is a "hands on a hard body" contest staged by a car dealership in Longview, Texas in 1995.  Now a hands on a hard body competition (as far as this film goes) is where a group of contestants (24 in this case) all start out at the same time with one hand placed on a vehicle.  There's certain rules on how you must stand, regulated bathroom breaks, etc., but the main objective is: whoever can stand there the longest, without taking their hand off the vehicle..wins the whip.  It's honestly a fascinating idea.  Standing there is obviously boring and sucks, but the main thing that fucks people up is the lack of sleep!  These motherfuckers all started out at the beginning of the film talking about their grand ideas and full-proof plans of how they're going to win, but then fast-forward 30+ hours later and they're dropping like flies.  It was awesome.

 

Another thing that makes this film stand out (in a good way) is how amateurish and rough around the edges it looks.  I have no idea what the story is behind this film (I would love to see a full-length documentary about HANDS ON A HARD BODY itself), but it appears to have been filmed for about the cost of a camera or two, some sound equipment and then editing.  It's rough as hell, but that only adds to the reality and desperation of the characters in the film.  I really don't understand why there hasn't been a follow-up to this movie.  Hell, I want a 6-hour documentary about that dude with the industrial air condition unit on his house!

 

Could it have been better?  Oh god yeah.  But is it still worth watching?  Most definitely!  The only real drawback I found to HANDS ON A HARD BODY is it leaves you with more questions than answers and you'll end up finding yourself wasting numerous hours doing online searches and literally daydreaming about the film!  I found myself recently trying to figure out a way to write a fiction story about a hands on a hard body contest, like the one in this film, but one of the characters was actually an assassin using the competition as a cover to kill somebody at the car dealership!

TRASH HUMPERS (2009)

Four yutes, wearing what look to be the Grandpa masks from the original TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, film themselves going around dry humping trash cans and mailboxes and trees and concrete walls and refrigerators and dumpsters and anything else they can clamp onto. They also dance around and destroy shit. At 30 minutes this would have been hilarious, but at 78 minutes it gets old. Especially the scenes where everybody is just standing around doing nothing. There is no real plot or story and the entire thing is made to look like it was filmed on a 300 year-old VHS camera from the 1800's. 

 

I like the bizarre concept and I'm a fan of Harmony Korine, but TRASH HUMPERS comes off as if he's trying too hard to be different. But hey, it is different and that's something. I just wish there had been more substance. Like maybe a bleak underlying darkness running throughout the film. Stuff going on in the back ground that is silently telling a really, really fucked up story and the viewer doesn't notice it until the end of the movie. Or ever. That's just my worthless opinion. 

 

If you like weird cinema, then TRASH HUMPERS is worth checking out.