it ain't eraserhead

Rating: Null/10 (8 January 1999)

This movie is so violent and absurd one can't help but enjoy it. Most horror movies engage in some sort of lame fore-shadowing before the extraordinary encounter takes place, but the "horror" aspects of this movie are absolutely unexpected--so unexpected, in fact, that they cease to be horrifying. This movie is closer to a bloodbath western than a horror film--the characters are dumped into the middle of extreme carnage and asked to fend for themselves. The story is not as two-dimensional as critics of the film would have you believe--it seems many people can't tell the difference between a campy, fantastic conceit and scripted cheese. If you enjoy a well-done story and exceptional action sequences and you're not too hyper-sophisticated to love a nasty adolescent melodrama in which the bad guys do good things and good beats evil in a wave of guns and blood, then check it out. You won't find a better high-brow slaughter this side of Sam Peckinpah.