Special

By: Orlok666 / Chev Chelios
Date: November 1, 2012

BUT Film Festival 2012 report (1): Hell, Morituris and more!

While the BUT Film Festival was held a while ago we couldnt leave this small Dutch film festival pass by unnoticed. SlashingThrough had the chance to visit this cosy festival which was held in Breda. Due the amount of films we’ve split this BUTFF Special in two, both containing short reviews of all the films we’ve covered.

Held for the first time in 2006 the festival aimed at B-, Underground and Trash movies (hence BUT) aimed at the more obscure genre films that have a small budget and seldom are brought to the attention of a bigger crowd. Next to the film program there are several side programs that focus on poetry, performances, music and other art forms. For example this year BUTFF welcomed Dutch poet and jazz lover Jules Deelder, Belgian filmmaker Rob van Eyck and several other guests. Friday became Black Friday with several Black Metal bands playing in a venue and visitors had the opportunity to create a zombie film in a day.

The epicenter of the festival lies at De Nieuwe Veste square, you could stop by for a snack or a drink, catch a performance, get merchandise or find an obscure film at the dvd stand. The screening rooms varied from a theater to an intimate attic which helped creating a little bit of underground atmosphere. Especially when watching films from the BUTFF Club 70 program. Overall the festival had a pleasantly and open atmosphere even while most of the films shown are more for the seasoned gorehounds. But enough talk about this cozy, little fest and let’s get on with a selection of the films!

Hell (2011, Germany)

In the not too distant future, people struggle to survive their greatest enemy, the sun.

Hell (German for ‘bright’) is a raw and gritty post-apocalyptic film. Food and drinks are a luxury and a vehicle like a car is needed to cover great lengths during the daytime because after more than three hours in the sun will leave just a burned and blistered piece of flesh. In this setting we follow the main character trying to survive and find an almost mythical place in the mountains where the trees are still alive and water is abundant though mountain streams . In their quest for this place they encounter others that are struggling to survive as well and some of them have their own means to stay alive.

This film is backed by Hollywood director Roland Emmerich and it shows: the world looks like a desolate place, all dust, all scorched by the relentless sun. The daytime scenes are all filmed using a yellow filter, making white even whiter and it works, it really feels like a barren world out there. The acting is fine and especially Marie (Hannah Herzsprung) excels and gets the most opportunity to shine. As far as the story goes: expect standard approach to the apocalypse theme with a very few survivors and very few place to stay. Marie’s sister falls in the wrong hands and Marie tries to get her sister back. It’s a decent made film of which the biggest surprise is that the film stays away from the guts and gore.

Morituris (2011, Italy)

Rome, in 73 B.C. Spartacus led the rebellion of 200 gladiators wich saw them opposed to the inhumanity which Rome had forced them into. During the riot they resisted for a long time against the roman soldiers. Few against a whole army. Some of them went crazy and started murders, rapes and violence. Spartacus punished them with dead. But in those lands, when blood gets shed, they come back ...

Picchio, (screenplay) writers Gianluigi Perrone and Tiziano Martella created a film that takes a little while to get up to speed and sets you on the wrong foot at first half but then becomes a relentless piece of horror cinema with scenes (of abuse) that would make even some avid fans cringe. If you think you can handle that, “Morituris” comes highly recommended.

Read the full "Morituris" review!

Brute Corps (1972, USA)

A couple runs into a strange Marine camp where soldiers perform training exercises. The girl gets tormented, and the guy goes after them.

As a part of the BUTFF 70’s movie program they showed the “Brute Corps” which is a production about some mercenaries who reside near the US – Mexican border for an assignment. When two hitchhikers are invited to the camp the mercenaries take interest in the girl, which results into a quarrel who can get the girl. When her fellow hitchhiker manages to save her a human hunt begins…

The film starts promising when the mercenaries take on a motorcycle gang but apart from that and few other action scenes you get the feeling there was so much more potential for this film. Director Jerry Jameson borrowed most styles from the Western films as well as some action movies. If he pushed a little further into the more exploitation genre this film would be a lot more fun. Now it’s just a one-to-watch if you’re a die-hard 70’s fan.

Bloodline (2011, Italy)

Sandra and her colleague Marco are sent by their boss to a hardcore movie set in order to shoot a backstage: everything would appear to be everyday journalistic routine, if the shooting location didn’t happen to be the same where, fifteen years before, Sandra’s little sister was murdered by a serial killer called “The Surgeon”.
Reluctant at first, Sandra will eventually face her fears by accepting the job, only to find herself involved in a new line of murders: who’s the Surgeon copycat? And more important, why are his victims coming back to life only to kill again?

The premise of Edo Tagliavini’s “Bloodline” is interesting with a mysterious Surgeon who’s haunting the set of a porn film slashing the victims one by one (and as an extra addition: the dead come back to life).

It’s a bit of a shame that everything is worked out without much inspiration. The Surgeon looks more like a butcher with a gasmask on and it takes far too long before the film really starts to get interesting. Even though there was potential in this story you first have to endure some more relational issues and it takes too long before the wheels are set in motion. It seems to be an ode to the Italian masters of horror but it misses the grittiness that a film like “House by the Cemetery” does have.

Break (2009, Germany)

Four young girls head out into the Canadian woods for some outdoors fun. They wind up running into two brutal and sadistically inhuman rednecks. A blood-soaked fight for survival ensues.

The German “Break” is a funny one. It has a German cast and crew but seems to be filmed In North America. Also the German cast speaks English and that created quite a flaw, next to a script that was found in some recycle bin.

The German actors all speak English but not without an accent and you notice that they just do the dialogue as it’s in the script but lacks the emotion that goes with it. There’s a fair deal of character introduction in it, which along with the flawed English makes it harder to sit through.

When they get terrorized by some rednecks it gets a little more interesting but here too: nothing special. The rednecks aren’t creepy or threatening and the smartest one only seems to have one line of text (‘Fuck!’) that he uses over and over again. The part that got the best response from the crowd was when the main character tries to camouflage one of her injured friends by just throwing a handful of dirt on her.

I’m not sure why director Matthias Olof Eich went for the English approach but if it was for more international market then I think he better kept in in German and have the events take place on German soil with some twisted Schlager-singers. That could be far more entertaining than this film that has been made 1000 times before and a 1000 times better.

Head over to part 2 of the BUTFF report which contains short reviews of “Saturday Morning Massacre”, “Rammbock”, “Die Farbe” and “Bloody Bloody Bible Camp”.