DVD Review: The Corpse of Anna Friitz (2016)

"This is a perfect date movie... if you're looking for a way to end the date early. And maybe be single again."

There's nothing that's not deeply disturbing about necrophilia. What would possess anyone to molest or have sex with a dead body is far beyond our comprehension, but it's a real thing, and it makes for a horrifying premise for a movie. Movies like Deadgirl and Cemetery Man managed to tackle the subject in an entertaining way, but holy hell is it tough to sit through a movie where people are making love to the dead.



The Corpse of Anna Fritz has a little twist in it that makes it more than just a movie about three guys who decide to sex up a corpse, but even so, the psychology of the whole act, and what would even possess someone to partake in such heinous shit, is what really drives the movie.



There are going to be some heavy spoilers in this review, because they can't really be avoided, so if you want to stay spoiler-free, then skip to the end, read our summary, and watch the movie as "in the dark" as you possibly can.

When Anna Fritz, one of the most famous and beloved actresses in the world, dies suddenly at a party, everyone is in shock. Her body is transported to a hospital, the location of which is kept secret (so as to keep her adoring fans from causing a scene), but that doesn't keep a creepy orderly, Pau, from taking pictures of her naked corpse and sending them to his equally creepy friend, Ivan.

HOW CREEPY DO YOU NEED TO BE, MAN?!?

When Ivan and Javi (Pau's only friends) show up at the hospital to see Anna, because they're obviously big fans of hers, Pau takes them to the locked room where she's being stored. Upon seeing her naked corpse, a drunk and stoned Ivan decides that he's going to have sex with her; she's only been dead for a few hours after all, and she's still mostly fresh. Javi wants no part in the heinous act, and tries to get Ivan to stop, but he's too coked out of his mind and horny to listen to reason. After Ivan takes his 30-second turn, Pau decides to have a go at her. He's no 2-pump chump though; no, you see he's sexed up corpses before, and so he's got a smooth technique about him. So he too climbs on top of her lifeless form, and starts to go to work...



Then Anna opens her eyes.

YEP. HAPPENS JUST LIKE THAT.

Necrophilia, rape, murder, kidnapping... The Corpse of Anna Fritz has it all!



This is an uncomfortable and disturbing movie, to say the least. It's a tightly-paced ride that pushes all kinds boundaries during its extremely short, 71-minute runtime, and when all was said and done, we felt dirtier for having watched it.



The scene where Anna was trying to crawl to freedom down a hallway was pretty intense, and a good example of the atmosphere that the movie creates. Even though the movie always seemed to come up with some lame plot device to keep the action mostly in the one room, it kept us engaged throughout. 



As nasty as the visceral aspect of the subject matter is, it's really the psychology behind it all that makes it hit so hard. What kind of person could take pictures of a naked corpse, let alone touch it sexually or actually have intercourse with it? More than that, how far would someone go to keep their shameful deed from being discovered? It's all very disconcerting, and the film holds nothing back in asking those questions, and answering them.

IT'S ALWAYS THE QUIET, AWKWARD ONES.

How is the newly-dead corpse of such a beloved celebrity left all alone in a morgue like that? I get that they were keeping the location of her body a secret so that fans wouldn't swarm the hospital or something, but no family, no friends, no manager, no publicist, no entourage... there was no one there for her at all?



Even better, as popular as she was, and as worried as they were about keeping mobs of fans away, why were there no Cops present? Surely someone would have been guarding the body of such a high profile celebrity, right? And wouldn't there be doctors doing an autopsy or something? Gah!



It also sucked that Anna wakes up from her death... presumed death... shit, we don't even know if she was dead or not, because they never explain a damn thing to us!

WE HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON EITHER, GUYS.

What in the hell kind of creepy degenerate would want to have sex with a corpse? Seriously, what happened to you as a kid, man?

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, CONYO?

Necrophilia is about as "gory" a it gets for us, even if there's no blood or gore present during the act. People are also beaten and stabbed to death in this one, so it's violent enough for its short running time.

THINGS GOT MESSIER THAN YOU THOUGHT THEY WOULD, HUH BOYS?

Alba Ribas spends a good amount of time naked throughout this one, and she's truly lovely, but it's not the sexy kind of naked. Not at all.

NO, DUDE. JUST NO.

People are fucking creepy.

THE MORGUE: IT'S LIKE A PLAYGROUND FOR THE SICK AND DEMENTED.

Dark, disturbing, uncomfortable, and heinous, The Corpse of Anna Fritz is a short Thriller that packs a lot of punch. It twists and turns, and in the end it became something more than what we thought it would be, and that's a good thing.



If you're looking to be disturbed, then check it out when it sees release in your country.



B-



The Corpse of Anna Fritz is available now on DVD in Japan, and will be coming to Germany on 2/26. *Presumably, it will be hitting other markets shortly after that. We hope.

Alive or dead, Alba Ribas is a beautiful girl. We prefer her alive though.

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Review

VOD Review: Martyrs (2016)

"No. Just... no."

The announcement of a new Horror remake almost always make us apprehensive, if not flat-out angry. There are many reasons for this that we won't go into now, because we'd be here all day if we did, but mainly it's because most remakes tend to suck; especially when it's a Foreign Horror movie being remade to cater to the U.S. audience.



They seldom work out well.



Our first reaction upon hearing about thus ill-advised remake of Pascal Laugier's excellent Martyrs (2008), was that we knew that it was doomed. Alright, maybe we didn't "know," but how in the world could a remake of such a brutal, powerful movie like that ever be done justice by anyone, let alone a company that churns out cheap, generic movies on the regular, and thinks that it's a good business model? Sorry, Blumhouse, we really like some of your stuff, honestly, but you know it's true.



*If you want to know anything about this movie's plot, please check out our review of the original HERE, because I'm not breaking this one down. No, this is gong to be little more than an angry rant.

HERE WE GO.

Where Martyrs (2008) was a veritable clinic on permeating dread that used intense brutality to illustrate a higher concept that director Pascal Laugier was aiming for, this remake feels like a watered-down Teen Terror flick about pretty girls being chased around the woods by a generic group of bad guys who want to hurt them for one silly-ass reason or another. *And yes, the girls actually get chased through the woods in this one. All three of them. And yes, there are actually three of them.



The 2008 version took our collective breath away, and it fucked with our heads in the best of ways. It was dark, disturbing, nihilistic, and hard to watch... but it was compelling enough to keep us from turning away, even when what we were seeing on screen made us want to run. It was fucking powerful, and even if you didn't like it (lots of people don't), you have to gave it to Pascal Laugier for trying his ass off and going for it.



The original worked so well because it was a well-made movie. Laugier took his time and let the story unfold naturally, letting its characters breathe and evolve into the wretched messes that they became. We felt for them, and by the end of the movie, we felt as worn and abused by watching their journey as they did actually experiencing it.

THAT'S KINDA HOW WE FELT AFTER WATCHING THE ORIGINAL MOVIE: VULNERABLE AND UNDERARMED.

This remake however has all of the intensity and emotional power of a Direct-to Video Saw knock-off. It's not particularly terrifying, or even scary (unless jump-scares actually work for you), and there's nothing shocking or repulsive about it either. It's violent enough, and its content certainly is nasty, but it feels ordinary and soulless. 



Where are the scenes where Lucie was fed that vomit-looking gruel, and mercilessly beaten until she was at death's door? Instead of Anna finding a genuinely tortured being in the dungeon and trying to help her, she finds a little girl who looks dirty, but unharmed? The skinning scene is all but gone, and the "creature" that haunted Lucie throughout the movie has been reduced to little more than a jump-scare device in this one.



Where is the impact that the original had?

MARTYR TEST?

We also don't get to see the horrifying physical and mental ordeal that these people put Anna through in order to make her into a martyr. In fact, it wasn't even Anna who was martyred in this one, but Lucie, who is actually kept alive until the end. Lucie dying in the original was the first step in Anna's destruction, which lead her to her resolution, and by changing that all around for the remake, it lessened the emotional impact of the entire thing. 



None of the martyrdom that these people were trying to get Lucie to achieve felt earned. Anna was shocked (for basically no reason, because it was Lucie who they really wanted to martyr), and Lucie had a small bit of her back skin flayed off and was hung on a cross (in effigy?), and then 5 minutes later, she was "ready." What the actual fuck? THAT was all it took to drive the girl into such a heightened state of consciousness that she could see into the afterlife? She escaped them 10 years ago, randomly stumbles back into their clutches, and then 10 minutes later, she's the one who will finally give them what they seek?



Come the fuck on.

PLEASE STOP.

The actors did fine with what they had to work with, especially Troian Bellisario, so we aren't mad at them. Some of the violence and gore was solid too, although there wasn't really much of it. It's also a well-shot movie, and looked far prettier than it should on such a small budget. The real problem here is that the entire movie felt rushed and careless, and made absolutely no effort to build its story, and make us give half a shit about the main characters.



It lacked punch, both emotionally and viscerally, and given the source material that it was culled from, that's just unforgivable. 



Had there never been a movie called Martyrs in 2008, and this was a totally original movie, we could probably go easier on it; its faults would still be present, but we could write it off as just another Horror flick that had some great potential, but just couldn't quite reach it... but there was a movie called Martyrs in 2008, and this isn't an original effort, so its many faults can't be so easily forgiven or overlooked. It had a fantastic template to work from, and it should have been better.



Better yet, Martyrs should have ever been remade. Yeah, that sounds about right.

WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY?

As bad as Martyrs was, I honestly think that I'm being overly-generous by giving it a grade of D-. It's a mess on just about every level, save maybe for technical, and not only is it a poor remake of an excellent film, but it felt like 100 other movies that came out last year, and 100 others that will no doubt come out this year as well.



Fuck this movie, and go watch the original HERE. Trust us.



D-



Martyrs is available now on VOD.

Troian Bellisario and Bailey Noble are in this.

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Review

VOD Review: Intruders (2016)

"The poster pretty much tells you what to expect with Intruders, but you'll still be surprised at how it unfolds. "

A lot of people will tell you that the first two thirds of Intruders is great, and then it falls apart in the final act, and becomes something less. That's kind of true, because most of what comes before is better than what is found in that final act, but it still works, faults and all.



Don't let the naysayers scare you off of this one.



*It really is better to see Intruders without knowing too much about it. I'd say that if you like Home Invasion Thrillers, then you should skip reading any reviews (even this one), and avoid watching the trailer, and just give it a rent. If you don't mind reading details about a movie that could potentially ruin its twists, then read on.

Afflicted with a pretty severe case of Agoraphobia, sweet, demure Anna spends her days locked inside of her house, taking care of her terminally-ill brother, Conrad. The only real contact that she has with the outside world comes in the form of Danny; a food delivery guy who she has a sort of odd friendship with. When Conrad dies, Anna is distraught, and her Agoraphobia is so bad that she can't even bring herself to leave the house for his funeral.

NOPE. NOT GOING OUT THERE.

Shortly after trying to give Danny a large bag full of money (which he politely refuses even though she has plenty of it, and won't miss it), three skeevy dudes show up, break in, and are determined not to leave until they get every bit of money that Anna has stashed in the house. Needless to say, Anna isn't very keen on visitors.

DAMN SHE LOOKS WICKED.

To say any more about the movie would ruin its twists and turns, and that would really suck, because they work so well. What we will say though is that Anna may not be able to go outside without being paralyzed by fear, but she's not afraid to defend her home at all, and she's pretty good at it.

"HELLO, BOYS. I HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR STAY."

Intruders was a really solid Home Invasion flick, even if it did offer some familiar tropes along the way. What makes this one stand out from the norm though, is a clever, smart script that adds some much welcomed twists to the sub-genre, and some well-realized characters that made it all play in a realistic way. It was taut and intense, and we generally felt anxious anytime Anna was in danger.



We knew this was going to be a Home Invasion/Survival flick, but we didn't know how it would play out, or that it would be so entertaining to watch. 

IT DIDN'T PLAY OUT VERY WELL FOR HIM THOUGH, DID IT?

Beth Riesgraf, who we've never really seen in anything, did a great job playing both the victim, and the heavy in this one. She switched between vulnerable and ruthless with ease, and she really impressed us with her presence and versatility. Then again, the "bad guys" of the movie were equally good in their roles too, especially Rory Culkin and Martin Starr; both are great actors, and seeing Martin Starr play against his comedic type and go truly sinister was fun as hell. He should take on more of those types of roles going forward.



The dialogue was pretty naturalistic in this one too, and you can tell that the director handled the actors well, because as much talking as there was in this movie, it never felt dull, forced, or over-the-top.

THEY NEVER SAW IT COMING.

On the downside, as great as the movie was, particularly in the early going, it lacked a bit in its back half. Once we start getting explanations as to who Anna is, and why she's so mentally fragile, it loses some of its edge; not because the explanations sucked, but because we were just kind of told what the deal was, and it would have been far better if they had shown us some of that backstory instead. They just could have taken a bit more time at the end, not only with the movie's reveals, but with the way that it wrapped everything up.



That said, Intruders still does it better than most, even if it doesn't do it quite as good as some others.

THAT KID LOOKS THRILLED TO BE IN THAT PICTURE.

You probably shouldn't mess with shy loners who never leave the house, because they most likely have some secrets that you don't want to discover. Also, Martin Starr needs to play more serious, murderous roles.

BILL HAVERCHUCK GREW UP CREEPY.

We really liked Intruders, and the way that it twisted and turned and ended up feeling like a different kind of Home Invasion Thriller. The cast is great, and the characters that they're given to play were all interesting and felt like real people, which always makes things better. We wish that more movies of its kind were executed as well as this one was, even if it wasn't a perfect movie.



Give it a rent, and enjoy.



B



Intruders is available now on VOD.

Hello, Beth Riesgraf, it's nice  to meet you.

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