2 June 2016

TEAR ME APART. (2016) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.




TEAR ME APART. (2016) DIRECTED BY ALEX LIGHTMAN. WRITTEN BY TOM KEREVAN. PRODUCED BY ALEX LIGHTMAN AND TOM KEREVAN. 'WAYFARING STRANGER' SUNG BY GRACE LIGHTMAN. STARRING JENNIE EGGLETON, ALFIE STEWART AND FRAZER ALEXANDER. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This is a strange, grim movie, filmed in Cornwall and possibly the most unusual piece of cinema I've seen so far this year. It's billed as a 'cannibal romantic horror' and it's set entirely on an English coastline in a post-apocalyptic era. How'd'you like them apples...? Haha. I told you it was a strange one. Let me see if I can set the scene for you lovely horror fans. (I'm allowed to call you lovely; I'm one of you...!)

Okay, so we've got two adult brothers, living together in a cave at the beach. It's a gorgeous beach with the bluest of blue seas, but it's not the kind of sandy stretch where you have topless women sunbathing on loungers and sipping brightly-coloured drinks from a glass with a little cocktail umbrella in it. Oh dear me no...

Rather, it's the less glamorous kind of beach in a slightly dystopian future where two brothers hide out and wait nine long years for their dad to come back with news of what's going on in the rest of the world. Nine long years...? I don't think I'd wait that long for anyone to come back from anywhere. (Who am I kidding? I've waited longer for exes to phone or text me back...!)

Nonetheless, these two nameless lads are interminably waiting for their departed 'Father,' and while they wait they live a miserable existence. There are other men besides themselves left alive after whatever cataclysmic event it was that wiped out all the women (yep, only the women!) and the brothers hide from them, assuming that they only mean them harm.

The two lads eat the meat off anyone they catch and kill, hence the tag of cannibalism, and huddle together in their cave gradually forgetting everything they ever knew about life in the 'old world' before whatever happened happened, if you know what I mean. A man's apparently just been killed when the viewers come in and the younger brother's tearing into him like he's a free buffet, which I suppose he is...!

It's such a depressing existence that you'd wonder why they don't try to snuff it out. Still, to wonder that would be to underestimate the human desire for survival. That urge is pretty strong in the two brothers, but it's not the only urge that flames in their manly bosoms, as we're about to find out.

Yep, into this grim situation comes Molly, the only woman the brothers have seen in presumably nine years. She's a fatherless waif too, searching for her missing Pops, and she hopes that the two brothers will help her. Naturally, she comes between them. Naturally...! Whatever happened to 'bros before hos...?'

The brothers are fully-grown adult males, at least physically (whatever about emotionally), and they don't need a textbook to tell them what bits go where. There's a funny scene in which the older brother is (ahem) masturbating away big-time while fondling a sleeping Molly's breast. Molly wakes up suddenly and the shame-faced lad whips his hand away before finishing what he's started with his back to her. Men...! 

Anyway, Molly (mainly by flashing her pert little boobies!) forces the two brothers to confront the fact that there may be life beyond their own little patch of sand. I personally wondered if perhaps normal life was going on elsewhere the whole time without the two lads' knowledge...?

Their ridiculous insistence on observing their absent (but obviously dead) father's rules regarding boundaries could well have kept them stuck in their horrible dreary existence for longer than was necessary. Wouldn't that be such a sickener?

That's exactly the kind of thing that would happen to me if I were ever in a post-apocalyptic situation. If there's a boo-boo of that nature to be made, I'll make it, you can be one hundred percent sure of that.

I also wondered who in that post-apocalyptic community was cutting and styling the lads' hair, especially the older brother who had a cute headful of tight neatly gelled curls. I loved the clearly dystopian overcoat worn by the chief Raider (there's a dress code for these situations, you know) and also the bleak and mournful MIDNIGHT EXPRESS-style music that conjured up Turkish prisons and the Muslim call to prayer.

If you think that that kind of music would be out of place in a 'cannibal romantic horror,' well, you'd be right and you'd be wrong. It's an odd, quirky kind of film and therefore I wouldn't presume to say what was right for it or wrong, do you know what I mean? I think I know what I mean anyway, haha, so that's all right...!

Anyway, this unusual and beautifully-shot movie is all set for online release on June 16th 2016, just two days after my birthday(!) and a mere one day after its UK theatrical release at The Genesis, Whitechapel. What a cool-sounding venue.

TEAR ME APART is the first film from the aptly-named CANNIBAL FILMS whose second project, a psychological thriller, is already in the pipeline. The film has debuted at the Austin Film Festival 2016 and it's well worth a watch if you like your post-apocalyptic cannibalistic romantic dystopian sexy (but not too sexy!) horror type of thing. Have fun, and for Chrissakes' stay outta the caves. Them's crazy folk in there...!

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

 You can contact Sandra at:


http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com






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