It's been a while since we watched it and I think I've cracked why I had the problem I had with the movie. The truth of the matter is 'The Hunger Games' books are for young adults. The movie is aimed at tweens. I still feel like a young-ish adult even though I'm in my late 20s, but a tween I am certainly not. So sadly it was never a movie meant for me, so no wonder it was a disapointment.
However I've still got Battle Royale if I want to see schoolkids killing one another for sport. It takes crazy Japanese directors like Kinji Fukasaku to do cutting edge horror properly nowadays. Hollywood has lost all originality recently. Brainless torture-porn like Saw for the over 18s, "found footage" Paranormal Activity clones for teens and those who mistake jumpy for scary. What is worst of all is the rise of PG-13 "horror". The hunger games could have been an epic dark horror with a strong heart if it hadn't been tailored to tweens and trimmed down for the ratings boards. but that's not profitable, so it'll never happen. So goes the hollywood mantra.
Maybe I am an older young-adult because I am starting to get the urge to say that some things were better in my day. True there was terrible hair and no internet but they sure knew how to make horror in the 80s and 90s. Even the ones that failed to be scary usually did so not by being bland and aiming for safe, but by being insane and laughable (which for me is win/win). Japan seems to have picked up that torch nicely and run with it. they often fall close on either side of a fine 'awesome/insane' line. Some walk that line like a tightrope.
First the insanely awesome.
Battle Royale
Obviously.
Japanese schoolkids slicing each other up in a 'last kid standing' fight to the death on a wierd government run island. With buckets of blood, romance and humour. Just epic! avoid the sequel though, it's a let down.
Now for the awesomely insane.
Machine Girl
This one is truely mental. A girl loses her arm to the Yakuza and has it replaced with a machine gun. Try pitching that plot in holywood. The effects are almost all practical as opposed to CG because of the low budget I assume (I'll save my anti-CG rant for a later date) but it allows for a much more 'messy' tangible, if not at all realistic look to the violence. I love how they clearly had fun making it and passion and fun is what a lot of hollywood lacks now I think. It's silly and funny and gorey as hell. I Love it! The director,
Noboru Iguchi also made "robo-geisha" and has a new movie coming out called "zombie ass" , That's right, and it's not one of those mis-translation things. that's a perfect title for this movie. I put the trailer is below, *Warning* can not be un-watched. :)
Related thing
Zombie Ass - Official International Trailer
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