The Last Horror Movie (2004)

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The acting in this movie is really good.

THE LAST HORROR MOVIE is another super-realistic slice of real life horror, taking the form of a documentary following the work of a real-life serial killer at work on the streets of London. The film itself has a gimmick that didn't really transfer to the TV showing I watched (in which the killer has 'taped over' an ordinary horror film DVD to give viewers a slice of the real thing) and as a whole it follows in the same footsteps as MAN BITES DOG, HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, and many more besides.I'm not a fan of this whole sub-genre of cinema, it has to be said. THE LAST HORROR MOVIE goes out of its way to shock and disturb the viewer at all points and it certainly succeeds in doing that. I appreciate the way the protagonist breaks the fourth wall constantly and it's fair to say that Kevin Howarth gives a strong and charismatic performance, but films like this one lack the basic structures of a normal film: characters you like or sympathise with; a narrative structured in various acts; and a mixture of emotions. This is just a gruelling odyssey of endless murder and depravity, and as such it's a film you can hardly have said to enjoy.

So heres a great idea. A killer steals a horror movie from the video shop, tapes over the film with him being all smarmy and intersecting scenes of him killing people in various ways.It would have been amazing were it not for a little Belgian film called 'Man Bites Dog' back in 1992. Call it homage, call it rip off, but you cannot help but think of that classic while watching this.But when all is said and done though, it's still a fine movie, but the twist of the movie is that the killer waits for someone to rent the movie, and follow them home, and ultimately kill them.Max is your typical wannabe middle class thirty something, who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. If you can stomach his pretentious fox pops and silly anecdotes, you will love this movie.Fortunately in my line of work, I deal with these sorts of people everyday, so Max didn't really annoy me much, even his delusional anecdotes about life.It's a brutal movie, not for the faint hearted, and what makes it brutal, isn't the killings, it's the victims, they are normal people, no back story, your neighbour, someone you pass on the street, and the way the camera lingers on the victim, is the most shocking part of the film.It loses a point for really trying to make Max seem normal by having him host dinner parties and his friends are annoying, at points I wanted him to kill them.All in all, it's a brilliant little movie, so what if it homages MBD, the novelty is there, and it works to good effect.

Major disappointment! I thought it was going to be a typical horror movie but with a bit of originality. I was wrong. The originality that the movie was trying to achieve was over-done and therefore didn't make any impression on me. In the end it's just another low budget movie, done in a reality-TV kinda way, similar to "Blair-witch-Project" in terms of VERY little action and WAY too much talking. It feels like it was not edited at all. Surely that makes it seem more real, but we all know it's not. It also wasn't entertaining. I honestly had to stop myself from falling asleep several times...it was awfully boring and a waste of time. If you expect to see a scary movie, it's just not it.

Alright, I don't even know where to begin for this review. This movie scared me more than any other movie I have ever seen (with the possible exception of "It"... which I saw when I was 8 and from which I will be forever scarred). Now, honestly, I don't scare very easily. It's really practically impossible for a movie to frighten me... I mean sure, I jump like everyone else at the crap that pops out at the main characters in slasher flicks, but it is extremely rare that a movie will leave me sleeping with my light on for days.Basically, I watched this movie alone at night... which, obviously, is the ideal setting to be scared. Now, being as I don't scare easily, I did not expect what I got from this film. The storyline is amazingly original... it consists of a man who has taped over some crappy horror film called "the last horror movie". The man has made a documentary of himself murdering countless victims at random. Interesting, yes... unusually frightening, no. The whole plot really is very darkly comedic. Now, this may seem like it contradicts my previous statement that it's the scariest movie I've ever seen, but, somehow (I don't know how) this film pulls off the best of both worlds- the darkly comedic aspects of any horror film, and the keep-you-up-at-nights terrifying moments. I don't want to give away the ending, because, if you know the ending, it really will ruin the whole movie for you. I told my friend how it ended so she insisted we watch it and, what do you know, she thought it was horrible. I feel like this review has done a bad job at giving you an idea of the plot, but, again, I don't want to give anything away because I really feel like it will ruin it for you, and that is the last thing I want to do because this movie is so genuinely creative and good.Seriously, it's worth a watch. And, while I know that this is not always realistic, I swear to you that you won't regret watching it alone at night. I promise it will scare the crap out of you. I highly recommend this film and I apologize that this comment is lacking in any sort of plot review or in-depth analysis... I genuinely don't want to give anything away because my experience with this movie was so good.