Review: Fantaside - 2007

Fantaside

Director: Shane Mather

2007

Comedy/Horror

The leader of a Nazi-sect collaborates with a psychotic madman in the search of a relic spoken of in myth. It gives its owner a legendary power which they’re both after. They are not the only ones, however, who wants the ancient spear. It’s a cruel struggle of power where the contestants won’t back down from killing each other in the most bestialised ways. A reporter has, at the same time, witnessed a ritual killing and hires a private detective to solve the mystery. But time is not on their side and they have to hurry before they become victims of the Nazi sect.

As in Exreamer, the music is something you notice right away. It sounds totally wrong, but at the same time it sets the humorous and paradox tone for the movie. It proves once and for all that all splatter movies don’t need to have a heavy- or death metal soundtrack to work.

The movie is also pretty politically incorrect and it makes of point of being just that. It goes all the way and doesn’t seem to be embarrassed over that fact either. It makes use of sarcasm and irony over the society of today, primarily through the movies visualization of broadcasts and newsflashes. Absurd allegations about society and the government in particular are grounded enough in reality to be perfectly understood without any doubt though. This is one of the movie absolute best virtues if you ask me!

But what would a true underground film of this kind be without some morbid and rather innovative sequences of murder where the blood splats quite a bit? I think that’s the main attraction to the masses for this kind of movies and I can report that this is looking quite good in that department, a lot better than in Exreamer! Norwegian Bread & Circus comes to mind, at least when the violence is concerned, absurd and humorous just like it’s supposed to be!

But some things I didn’t have to see. The, according to me, extremely tasteless presentation of animal sex, with a cat that gets executed and then eaten right after the act. Luckily for me, this is just a movie, but I can’t honestly say that that scene didn’t affect me in a negative way. That there’s “regular” rape a couple of times didn’t concern me in the same manner, it’s strange what kind of values you hold dearly, isn’t it? These are, of course, fictive too and there’s no problem in seeing through the falseness of it. Penetration should be rather impossible in that position if the male isn’t equipped like John Holmes himself!

                                 

Further more, the Nazis, or at least their leader (what a terrible actor he is) represents a rather pathetic transvestite. That alone is certainly absurd enough to fit right into the production, but I wouldn’t say that it’s realty that politically incorrect! To redicule the Nazis is one of the few ways, possibly the only, to exploit the Nazis. Don’t misunderstand me; it’s totally clear that every opportunity to mock them, if it’s by deviant sexuality, that doesn’t quite ring true with the thoughts of elitism associated with the Nazis, or something else, should be taken. But to put it in a movie that’s supposed to be politically incorrect seems to me to be a bit of a paradox.

All in all a watchable movie, it would however not hurt to cut it down a bit, Since a more average running time of 90 minutes would give it a much better flow.