The Rage (2007)

An Exercise In Nonsense

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Firstly, this is a really good film for the genre. It's hard to believe it was made in 2007 because it harks back to those cheesy over the top violent zombie/slasher films of the 80s and early 90s. Like Return of the Living Dead.It's really disgustingly violent from frame number one.And the best part is about a quarter into the film, it takes a left turn when the main monster dies and herein we have a great twist.The pace is fast and your attention will be kept. The director knows how to keep the energy tense and the action flowing. You'll be on the edge of your seat for the duration.

(Acknowledgement to the immortal Joe Bob Briggs) eM's Grindhouse:Robert Kurtzman's no-budget, grade Z splatterfest, which I've subtitled, "Blood-sucking Zombie Buzzards from Beyond the Grave." Pure drive-in exploitation featuring wonderful old-school in-camera effects, including puppetry, rear-screen projection, and something I haven't seen in a while--stop-motion animation.Zombie-fu. Mad scientist-fu. Bone-saw fu. Ax-fu. No firearms, but a surprisingly unending supply of baseball bats. Topless aardvarking in a convertible. Nubile dancing girls, a throwback to the fabulous Russ Meyer films of the 60s.Notable quote: KAT: "Why is this happening? Is God punishing us?" No, Kat. He's punishing US.And we love it.eM sez: check it out.

Allow me to summarize the first ten minutes or so for you: This crazed Russian guy has a couple tied down and after the woman has died a bloody death, he cracks open the skull of the man (shown on screen) and injects him with the "rage mutagen". The man transforms into a bloody killing machine, rips loose and attacks the crazed Russian guy. This one puts up a fair fight, but eventually, the creature wins and stabs the crazed Russian guy dead with a saw or something (shown on screen). Cut to a party of some town young folk in the middle of nowhere, where the decent Mushroomhead play. Cut to a couple having sex in a car. After what felt like 10 minutes (apparently, the producers insisted on a a sex scene for the film. However, while I do enjoy the occasional sex scene, this one was just sort of annoying as the setup for what follows is all too obvious), the creature bursts into the scene and splits the skull of the guy open with a saw (shown on screen). The woman crawls away in terror, but the creature catches her, plugs out her eye (shown on screen) and proceeds to eat it (shown on screen).At that point, I stopped the movie and vowed never to look at it again. If you are not looking for the real trashiest-of-the-trashy movies, this one is not for you. I am no wimp. The gore on screen did neither freak nor gross me out. It was just so... unnecessary and annoying. Maybe I'm not far enough into this splatter/slasher stuff.This is the type of movie you would usually find running at like 1am on the cheapest cable channel you can find in your country. And even then, heavily cut.0,5 points for Mushroomhead. 0,5 points for the Zombie theme. I like zombies.

Fans of trashy horror rejoice, for Robert Kurtzman, the 'K' from awesome effects team KNB, has given us The Rage: a demented, dumb gore-soaked film that manages to go from simply mad in the first half, to completely insane towards the end.Featuring terrible acting, dodgy CGI effects, and bucket-loads of cheesy gore, this film sure isn't going to be to everyone's taste, but those who dig crazy schlock horror will have a blast: Kurtzman throws in everything but the kitchen sink to guarantee an enjoyable ride for gore-hounds.Andrew Divoff (who also starred in Kurtzman's The Wishmaster) stars as Dr. Viktor Vasilienko, a Russian scientist who decides to punish capitalist society after a money-hungry drugs conglomerate steals his cure for cancer (because their 'preventative' medicine is far more profitable than a cure), discredits him, and sends him to an insane asylum. Vasilienko eventually escapes and plots revenge, creating a virus called The Rage, which turns victims into uncontrollable bloodthirsty maniacs; only when his cancer cure is publicly acknowledged will he release the antidote.Things go awry, however, when one of the mad scientist's test subjects escapes into the woods, dies and become vulture fodder: the birds also contract The Rage, and become airborne killers, which is not good news for a bunch of 'twenty-somethings' (including Erin Brown AKA Misty Mundae, star of many a soft-core sex flick) who are travelling through the area in their RV.With shonky vomiting mad-vulture puppets, a death-during-sex scene (always a winner), a killer hunchback dwarf wearing the face and hair of a little girl (and grunting silly phrases such as 'kiss the monkey'!), giant leech attacks, and CGI feces (seen as a pole is rammed into the ass of a bald, blind 'zombie' called Gor!), The Rage is sheer low-budget lunacy from a film-maker who is obviously having loads of fun entertaining us.