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Idyll 2015 ★★★
One of the pleasant surprises that can ever so often pop up on the specialised YT-channels. Luckily with English subtitles available.
Killbillies (or Idyll as it is called in its native Slovenia) is a slasher that from time to time (ever so) slightly veers into the territory of I spit on your grave. With, amongst others, a rape attempt at the start of the movie that gets spectacularly Van Dammed.
Our main characters are aspiring models, going out on a fotoshoot. Zina is the badass heroin who does not take shit from anyone with a new wave/goth/Zoey Deschanel-ish look to go. And then there's Mia. Or, as I called her at the start, Ehmagerd. She embodies all the stereotypes about fashion models and all the things that make models annoying. A self absorbed superficial chatterbox with nothing to say.
They leave the city with their friend/photographer Blidtz for a photoshoot out in the country. With Mia throwing a tantrum about cream and ticks and what not. Is this supposed to be the comic relief? Because it only made her more annoying.
From the start, the omens do not bode well. Case in point: the encounter with the locals selling moonshine by the side of the road. Or the shot of the hillbillies on the side of the road smashing stuff. Sadly, no Homer Simpson smiling politely.
Then the main baddies introduce themselves. Two deformed rednecks who claim the models are trespassing on their territory. They quickly take them prisoner – dare I say after a Blidtz-krieg? - and get to torturing and raping (or at least trying to). Meanwhile, Mia's ineptitude and incessant sceraming and crying only make her more annoying. And we only reinforce Zina as the badass who saves herself out of every sticky situation.
The movie is entertaining and Zina is a (somewhat) likable heroin. The villains do look scary and the kills are well executed. And we get a pretty decent final battle between Zina en Frantzl. With the latter giving away slight echoes from Freddy Krueger in the original ANOES.
That said...
There's not that much of a character arc and the foreshadowing (for example the knife) is pretty on the nose. The twists are pretty predictable, apart from maybe the dark ending. Which I will not spoil.
Three stars overall. A nice addition to your slasher-collection.
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare 1991 ★★˝
I have to (partially) agree with the critics on this one. It's better than The Dream Child, but by this point, the series has gone into full on goof mode, with far fetched stories and Freddy's oneliners getting pretty bad at certain points.
Out of nostalgia, the part of me that somewhere still hosts a 15-year-old does however still have a soft spot for the series in general and this movie in particular. I kind of like the silly jokes and, contrary to the others, enjoy the Spencer kill. Or the irony of Ricky Dean Logan going from bully to victim in about a year or two.
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