There seems to be such a large amount of directors out there who feel that by combining gruesome visual effects, blood, sex, nudity, and a little bit of voyeurism they can create something both horrifically entertaining and profoundly meaningful. Bernard Rose is the latest of many to get this wrong.
The confusing narrative begins in Victorian times, when a doctor arrives to treat a pregnant woman but finds she is dead and performs a caesarean instead. This operation is very gruesome, as is the midwife with a poker through her head for no apparent reason at all. The woman is then placed ikn a coffin in the family vault, only to come back to life and come after her baby. It soon turns out this is just a film, by shock director Boris Arkadin (Jeroen Krabbe), which he is watching with his wife (Lisa Enos) and some friends. Suddenly Arkadin is called away to the editing room and upon his departure a group of bizarre militant killers arrive and cause carnage, whilst filming themselves, cutting out Arkadin's pregnant wife's baby from inside her.
We cut again to Wendy (Lisa Enos again) with her boyfriend, watching a documentary about Arkadin. Wendy is an actress and is cast in Arkadin's first film in years, telling the story of that fateful night. She attends a special audition at his house along with some other actors, and gradually the story acts itself out without anyone knowing if it's real or not, but with the whole thing being filmed by omnipotent cameras.
The film is clearly trying to be clever and make a point about the darkly voyeuristic nature of sex and violence in horror films. The lines between fiction and fact are constantly being manipulated and we never really know where we stand. Along the way there are several pretty gruesome moments, some sex and nudity and a lot of trite dialogue and apparent meaningfulness. The fact that Rose is making a film to parody badly made horror films ensure that his own film ends up just as bad as them, and by the end manages to surpass them in its absurdity. Some attempts at repsectability are made, such as Nick Broomfield's appearance as himself making a documentary about Arkadin, but looking very uncomfortable and embarassed (he and Rose both studied at the National Film and Television School).
The film has a very cheap look to it, shot on video, probably partly because most of the action is caught on videos around the house, but also mostly because of a lack of money. The acting is poor, inexplicably featuring several American actors in a British set film, and boasting a Playboy bunny in its ranks, all working with bad dialogue. There is no visual flair making interesting use of the video and everything about the film suggests amateurishness. The meaning behind the film is lost in the sensationalsim of blood and nudity and even this isn't enough to maintain any interest. The story isn't even particularly original - the murder of the friends at the beginning is an exact copy of the murder of Sharon Tate and friends by members of the Manson family, and several times have we seen attempts at clever comments being made about voyeurism, exploitation and immorality in the media, only for the vehicle for those comments to become totally hypocritical and becoming voyeuristic, exploitative and immoral itself. It's simply pretentious and absurd.
Absolutely do not bother with this film, it's simply a waste of your time, with no redeeming factors. Rose received a fair bit of critical acclaim for his 'Ivansxtc', which is worth seeing but isn't anything special. He's also known for 'Paperhouse' and 'Candyman', neither of which I've seen, but I can't say I'm especially keen to.
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