By ALAN JONES
The 61st Cannes Film Festival was a washout in weather terms. Those in the mood for mere frivolity in the French seaside town found most beach parties to be soggy-canapés affairs, with everyone's usually sunny dispositions continuously rained on. There was literally nothing else to do but watch movies. Although this often isn't seen by many as the point of such a celebrity gathering, it meant that this writer saw a record number of upcoming genre releases on display in the marketplace; more mainstream journalists were jealous of my screening agenda.
Joel Schumacher's CREEK (still titled TOWN CREEK on the print viewed) is a very welcome surprise indeed. Distinctively directed and beautifully crafted, it starts with Michael Fassbender as an evil Nazi arriving in America's 1936 Midwest, seeking native runestones to help him achieve occult immortality for Hitler's war effort. Fast-forward to today, and U.S. Marine Dominic Purcell, believed AWOL from Iraq, and his brother Henry Cavill take on the hideous blood-drinking monster Fassbender has now become, kept in check by human sacrifice. A terrific-looking, nonstop action/horror gorefest that rivets the attention, CREEK is Schumacher's JEEPERS CREEPERS, with massive sequel potential. It features a memorable CGI sequence of a slit-throat zombie horse going on a spectacular rampage, a reminder of just how good a terror technician Schumacher can be given ace material to work with.
Fassbender turns up again in the controversial British "hoodie horror" EDEN LAKE (pictured on homepage), written and directed by James Watkins, co-scripter of MY LITTLE EYE. With his girlfriend Kelly Reilly, Fassbender goes camping at an English beauty spot and crosses a gang of unruly youths, leading both to run for their lives from their vengeance-crazed ringleader, a very scary Jack O'Connell. Disturbing in its horrifyingly violent content (mouth stabbing, evisceration, enforced immolation), unrelenting in its tapping into current concerns about kill-crazy Brit teens and sporting the bleakest of endings, EDEN LAKE (from DESCENT producer Christian Colson) delivers the unsettling goods, marking Watkins (who also penned the soon-to-roll DESCENT 2) as a major talent to watch.
For the complete article please see - Fangoria.com