Drifter (2016) 1h 26m

There's nothing worse than buckling in for what you think is going to be a wild ride only to have things just jump the tracks.  I sat down, started this up, had some orange juice with me, a cat on my lap, hit play, things started off great.  Then...well... let's get into it.

Drifter follows two brothers as they're attempting to track down the man that killed their father.  They're driving across the desert in hopes that they're on the trail of the murderer.  After a few tough run-ins one of the brothers needs medical attention and they stop at the first town-ish/trailer park thing they come across.  From there everything goes south.

This film has one of my greatest complaints which is unnecessary or unfinished plot points.  You can leave a plot point open ended if done well, but the first quarter to half of this film is focused on the brothers getting revenge.  About 10 minutes into them being in this town that plot line is completely abandoned.  I'm also not sure what the setting for this world is.  Everytime someone comes across them they ask how they have a working car.  Yet the person they're chasing is supposed to be in a car.  So is it just that in this desert region of nothing cars became scarce or is this some form of post apocalyptic world?  Finally, I assume that the one writer/director are a fan of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and House of 1000 Corpses because once the town "family" gets introduced then it's the crazy eccentric cannibals!  It's like you took the Firefly family from ...1000 Corpses and told them to be poorer quality versions of themselves.

The high points of this film are everything up to them arriving in the town and the score.  The score is simple but coated in a sense of pending danger.  It's louder than some scores but it doesn't overpower the scene.  The viewer has an auditory dread of "what's coming" while watching.

As I mentioned earlier, I wish that plot line A (revenge) would have tied into plot line B (the town) better.  Once B is wrapped up we're just left wandering that same wasteland of a desert without a decent sense of accomplishment for the characters or even just us.  It tries to make that jump that ...1000 Corpses does but it's not absurd enough.  They don't have the horror experience that Rob Zombie had at that time, and in the end, it set Drifter into a ditch to die.

I give Drifter 1.5 car pancakes out of 5:

Raw (a.k.a. Grave) (2016) 1h 39m

If this movie has taught me anything then it would be the following information about France (or possibly a French speaking area like Quebec): 1) You apparently either become an aggressively homosexual truck driver or go to vet school, 2) Vet school in France is the fucking worst, 3) French woman (especially those from vegetarian families) have the possibility of becoming cannibals.  I think I just accidentally summed this movie up too early.

Raw is the story of a girl going away to vet school (which her older sister is also attending) and going through some serious life changes.  For instance, she starts off being vegetarian and then, after a hazing ritual has her eat a raw rabbit liver, she begins to crave meat.  Normal meat isn't enough though and, after eating her sister's severed finger, she finds she craves human flesh.  None of this is as cool as you may think it sounds.

This movie is less of a horror film and more of a slow drama with cannibal elements.  It takes a while to get anywhere and when it does the party sucks and you would much rather be back home playing video games.  I like the concept of this film.  They take it from a very "outside the box" perspective when it comes to having those jagged horror edges.  Yet I found myself checking the time left on the film because I really just didn't care about our leading lady's transition from virgin vegetarian girl to deflowered cannibal woman.  Dammit!  I made this movie sound cool again.  It's not.  At least not to my American horror senses.

I give Raw 1 severed finger first aid image out of 5:

Day 18: Exit To Hell (2013) 1h 21m

Remember when everyone forgot that grindhouse style films existed until Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez made people remember?  Then everyone promptly shit their pants for the visual style and we had a giant influx of films attempting to be Planet Terror or Death Proof?  Remember that?  The thing that made the original grindhouse films endearing was the fact they were scripts that were probably written in a weekend, low budget, and sometimes poorly acted.  People forget that and in attempting to emulate the nu-grindhouse style end up creating shit.  Exit to Hell actually did a good job of avoiding this.

The hub of this film is the town of Redstone; a lost town in the desert of wherever U.S.A. off highway 69.  It's mostly creepy shirtless redneck people with assorted weapons, a gas station, and a sheriff that drives a car that would make Mad Max jealous.  People making a getaway to Mexico after committing violent crimes seem to end up stuck here where they pay for their deeds.  Hence the tagline "justice is served."

I'm pretty sure that Exit to Hell knew that they weren't going to make something Oscar worthy.  So rather than going toward the professional route they hit the gas and jumped up over the top.  It feels influenced by the nu-grindhouse technique while also pulling from something like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Implementing a bizarre cast of characters mixed in with young sexy criminals and throwing in car chases, some four-on-the-floor rock n' roll, gore, and cannibalism make this movie worth a watch.

I give Exit to Hell 3 coming attraction screens out of 5:

Day 6: Ravenous (1999) 1h 40min

Ravenous is barely a horror movie.  In fact, as soon as it started I was worried it was going to be a comedic horror.  Which would be fine if it were on the levels of say, Murder Party, or Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.  In truth, after researching, apparently this film was meant to be a black comedy.  I can see that, but if you want to watch a black comedy with cannibalism as the main theme then I would suggest watching The Last Supper (1995).

Ravenous is set around the Mexican American war where a soldier is sent to California because he won't eat his steak.  Actually it's because he laid down on the battle field and played dead.  He wasn't court-martialed though because he later captured an enemy base all on his own.  So he's the bi-polar soldier.

So our shell-shocked zero arrives at the camp in California where we get our introduction to the other people stationed there.  This is a quick montage of guys either being drunk, getting high, or in one case standing shirtless in a river and screaming like a wild man.  This screaming guys' hair is super bleached too which makes me think an old time Walgreens must've been close by.

A stranger eventually drifts into the camp at night, they rescue him, and he tells a story of trying to cross the U.S. and the group being stuck in a cave for the winter.  They have a Donner style party and cannibalism ensues.  This guy supposedly leaves/escapes and ended up at the camp.  One of the Native Americans at the camp then tells the story of how Wendigos are created via cannibalism.  I was hoping for an awesome monster transformation at this point.  I was let down, horribly, and the only real monster was me for watching this film.

I've reached the point of not caring here so he's the speed run version:  The story was a lie, the guy kills almost everyone, our protagonist escapes but has to eat some of screaming river guy in the process.  After a time another regiment comes in and is lead by the stranger in military clothes.  Our zero freaks out and knows it's the cannibal.  They end up having a conversation about how eating another person's flesh will heal all woulds and basically grant a form of immortality.  Almost everyone is then killed and we're left with our zero, the stranger, and the old leader of the camp that was given man meat to eat so he didn't die.  I hope he was fed the butthole because this movie is a fucking turd.

Our zero kills the old leader because he doesn't want to continue being an immortal cannibal.  Apparently living for another week was enough for him.  After zero kills him then he fights with the stranger and that leads up to them both getting trapped in the biggest bear trap to ever exist.  The stranger dies first and our zero chooses to die rather than eat the stranger and live.  In the end, you truly were a man of valor, you dick nose.  I promote you to Sergeant Boner Kill.

This wasn't a horror movie despite Netflix saying it was.  This wasn't a good movie despite the rating of three and four-fifths stars Netflix had for it.  I want that hour and 40 minutes of my life back!  Who's ass cheek do I have to eat to get that back from Wendigo-ism.  If you want to watch a movie with cannibalism then watch The Last Supper, or Cannibal The Musical, or Cannibal Holocaust, not this shit.

I give Ravenous zero cannibal forks out of five: