Foot Fist Way – Danny McBride has made a career of playing a complete dirtbag that we unabashedly love, or at least it has found a soft spot with me. The beginning of this was this film, released ten years ago this week. Following a tae kwon do instructor with massive insecurities and bullying issues, McBride beats up kids and pumps up his own ego in a wild and obsessive rivalry with a fellow and far more successful instructor. The first film to be released under Adam McKay and Will Ferrell’s Gary Sanchez Productions, this movie is a hard sell for a lot of casual viewers but if you dug Observe and Report, Eastbound and Down or anything else director Jody Hill has made, you’ll be into this one.
Stuck – A twisted little film from Re-Animator director Stuart Gordon released ten years ago, the hardest thing to believe about this one is that it was based on true events. The story goes that a woman was driving home heavily under the influence of drugs and alcohol struck a homeless man, who went through her windshield and was lodged there. Rather than stopping and phoning an ambulance, she proceeded to go home and leave the man to die in her garage. Well, this is the darkly comedic retelling of that story through the visual style of one of the great horror filmmakers. Mena Suvari and Stephen Rea star as the perpetrator and victim respectively in a great blend of panic reaction thriller and almost survival horror. This one probably flew under a lot of radar but I definitely recommend it.
Wrong Turn – Keeping on the dark and sinister theme, this week marks fifteen years since this gory little gem was released. With creature effects by the legendary Stan Winston company, this road trip with inbred mutant cannibals is an unforgettable and insanely fun romp. Unfortunately, it spawned a few terrible sequels, one of those being a passable one directed by Joe Lynch with Henry Rollins, but it’s amazing that given the horror prowess that director Rob Schmidt showed off in this film that he never made anything else of note. The dedication to the making of this film is astounding as well, as Eliza Dushku did the majority of her own stunts, Desmond Harrington broke his right ankle in one scene and Emmanuelle Chriqui dislocated her shoulder performing a fall through the trees. You can hear her shoulder pop on the production track in the theatrical sound mix which I think adds to the atmosphere.
Steve Stebbing 