Well we made it. 31 days of 31 randomly picked movies. It was a long road and I for one am proud of myself and fellow Ghouls for not going to the Amazon headquarters and raising it to the ground.
The bad news is my final flick was not a horror movie. I'd go with psychological thriller/drama. The good news is this French language film wasn't half bad.
Pierre is a quiet man who lives a simple, mundane and routine life. If he is not working at the recycling plant or cleaning up at the airplane hanger, he is at home caring for his ailing father. He doesn't go out or socialize. He has no friends and it seems he has never been romantically involved with anyone. For the last ten or so years though, he has found that he enjoys stalking, kidnapping and murdering people. One day he decides to throw his “murder rules” out the window. While he has stalked and meticulous planned to kidnap a man at his bachelor party, he spontaneously kills a living room full of drunk bachelor party guest. Then the strangest change of all takes place, he meets a woman. The growing love between them makes him second guess everything and with a super sad plot twist, this movie lives up to its name.
Unlike so many others that I have watched this month, this was far from a low budget affair. High quality actors, beautiful cinematography, haunting music and a heartbreaking story. The main actor, while not resembling him, reminded me of Anthony Perkins in Psycho. A quiet, unimposing man with an attractive face that you would never believe is hiding a monster inside his mind.
I want to talk about the ending, but I don't want to spoil it. I want you to watch this movie. Again, I wish I was given a horror movie. I would have loved to have ended this on a scarier note, but the Amazon Roulette of Horror is a fickle bitch. If you enjoy foreign films, watch this movie. If you enjoy movies like Silence of the Lambs, give this one a try. I will admit that it is slow at times. This movie clocks in at almost 2 hours and on one hand I feel there were unnecessary scenes and montages that could have been cut. On the other hand, each of the slower scenes and montages did add to the character development of Pierre and the people around him. With one final spin of the wheel, I was given Cruel. At least I get to end on a high note. I give this movie 4 “French people eating outside” out of 5.
From all of us at Jersey Ghouls headquarters, we hope you have enjoyed our 31 reviews. Hopefully we have saved you from watching a craptastic movie with a convincing summary and box art. You never can trust those damn write ups! I can't say it was always easy enduring some of these movies but at least we had a good time making fun of them.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
- Jacki
