Isolation (2005)

The traditional way of making beef jerky.

At a glance:

"Holy cow!" is the obvious, blasphemous and yet appropriate response to this very unrewardin movie. There are crowd-pleasin blockbusters and there are niche-market, art house indies. Then there are films like Isolation, ones that befuddle the human mind to no end.

Essie Davis gets to grace this poster.
Others I've seen feature Ruth Negga.

Bad news on the doorstep:

So befuddlin was it that it befuddled itself into the hearts of several film festival judges and won some mediocre horror movie awards even! How do we make heads and tails of this one? It's essentially a one-sentence movie - a full-length feature about a mutant cow foetus terrorisin an Irish farm. Oh wait – there's actually a few of them, but one was particularly difficult to capture. In any case, it's about Dan Reilly (John Lynch), an Irish farmer whom we are told is a little short on money. It soon transpires through Orla (Essie Davis), the vet, that together they have been workin for mad scientist John (Marcel Iures) in bizarre biological experiments involving cow-breedin. Meanwhile, a young couple (Sean Harris and Ruth Negga), runnin away from an unknown enemy, enters the fray when Dan experiences trouble with a calf and asks for help. Soon however, the fate of everyone on the farm becomes inextricably linked with a missin cow foetus.

Reminds me of:

The now-defunct Cathay-Keris distribution arm in Malaysia. When I watched this in 2007 under their limited release, this movie was showin at one solitary cinema nationwide, givin its film title the most fittin tribute ever.

I have no clue what's goin on here.

Or here.

I can't remember if I cried:

Havin such an unusual plot, this was bound to provide at least some shock entertainment, you'd think. So many things were out of place however, when shock turned to schlock within the first 30 minutes, the most frustratin being the characters which are so painfully disengagin. I couldn't be bothered if they died, lived, won the lottery or turned into lactatin mutant cows. With no real protagonists, coupled in with a claustrophobic settin, the appeal became very limited. The ecological arguments of genetic tamperin in this movie were already lost – not on merit, but attention – by the time the crawlin foeti stopped makin you go 'euww'.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Ruth Negga

There's one savin grace - the traditional FX. This would've been a straight-to-DVD feature if the cows were anywhere near digital. What we get to see is quite graphic – say, a vaginal checkup performed on a cow – and the details of the goo, gum, teeth and blood are a nice touch. Bein so stickily real, the movie however shot itself in the hoof (ha!) again when the screenplay didn't allow for a fuller view of the mutant cow in question. Well, it did teach me about how swingin a newborn calf around your head from its hind legs is supposed to accelerate blood flow to the heart. Moo-ving stuff, eh?★1/2
Bonus material:

Like this character, I was drowning in the movie.

Wake Wood (2011)

"Help! I don't wanna be another child star with an anonymous adult career!"

At a glance:
This is a Swedish-Irish project filmed in Övreby and Donegal that will whet the appetite of any Pet Sematary (1989) fan who wanted The New Daughter (2009) done in the vein of The Wicker Man (1973) with a bit of the bovine horror from Isolation (2005). Yes, it's definitely worth a look, if only because it is Hammer Films' first feature release in over 30 years - bringin life to the old English studio that gave us movies like The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958). The classical bio-resurrection horror formula is revisited by producer Brendan McCarthy who wrote a rather uneven script and screenplay together with director David Keating - though this is amply made up by the excellent production values, includin the quiet star appeal of decidedly Irish leads Eva Birthistle (Ae Fond Kiss, 2004) and Aidan Gillen (Blitz, 2001) not to mention a very familiar face in Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter films).

The ubiquitous Timothy Spall

Bad news on the doorstep:
The little girl (Ella Connoly) is somewhat miscast but her yellow raincoat is perhaps a nod to the red one worn by the little girl in the 1973 classic Don't Look Now so we'll just overlook that.
Perennial wonderment:
Why aren't there more supernatural horror like these? The best thing about Wake Wood is the texture and quaintness of the set, especially when you have a look at the grisly traditional FX employed to depict the supernatural elements of nature. Wake Wood does well in bein totally devoid of the sudden-loud-noise horror that we've come to expect these days and is one of the more memorable returns to chillin ritualistic paganism since Lord Summerisle last  held a fire torch in 1973's The Wicker Man.
Watch out for:
Muddy scenes of human resurrection. Reminds me of lemang.

"Shit. I knew we should've just adopted."

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Wake Wood (2011) obliges with a strong finish that comes with a twist for post-movie conversation fodder and perhaps we can all agree with the director who wrote in the production notes that "everything that happens is their fault but as an audience we go along with all the mistakes they make because we know we would do the exact same thing in their place".★★★1/2