 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
. | Last
Horror Movie, The (2003)
|
||||||||
|
. |
Touted as “continuing the British horror revival” following on from Dog Soldiers and the highly successful 28 Days Later. The film is shot in verite style and presents a smug, obviously well off and professionally successful yuppie type as a serial killer more than a little disgruntled at how his kind are misrepresented in films made about them. His plan is to employ a moron as a cameraman and prowl the streets of London taking the audience along on a sort of London tour guide to “real” serial killing. Its supposed to be shockingly bold, yet witty and literate with and ending that will haunt you for weeks to come!
The film never manages to rise above its rather crass premise and the novelty value of having the killer take his audience along on his killing spree evokes feelings of ridicule rather than terror. Not for a moment does the film inspire any semblance of tension or horror and comes across as a smug, self-serving piece of high brow student cinema – far too clever for its own good and deluding itself with its trying to appear like something innovative or groundbreaking – neither of which it is. The lead actor Kevin Howarth is dreadful – trying desperately hard to appear menacing yet charismatic yet failing abysmally at the endeavour. The scriptwriters and the director obviously felt they had hit upon a novel approach to the serial killer genre and indeed the film has been reasonably received at some of its previous screenings yet all it manages to achieve is a very clear indication that the British Horror revival is a figment of the imagination and in actuality nothing has emerged from the country of any worth since the days Hammer packed up – though The Wicker Man certainly had its moments and Don’t Look Now remains the glaring exception. The Last Horror Movies sinks rapidly into a sickly pool of its own smugness.
|
||||||||
