Kill House

It takes a very special, often top-notch director to pull off a good horror film. A glance though the horror section of any video shop will confirm the point. Likewise, it takes an equally talented director to pull off a good horror comedy. In fact, it could even be more difficult to do a horror comedy because not only does the director have to frighten an audience but make them laugh at the same time. Therefore, it might seem almost unfair to judge a relatively inexperienced director with a total production budget of maybe $12.32 against other, more-veteran filmmakers with considerably more money at their disposal.

But life is unfair.

"Kill House" is a 2006 direct-to-video product released by Trinity Home Entertainment. Written and directed by Beth Dewey, who also co-stars, "Kill House" fairly defines the term "low-budget film." Dewey, whose only previous directorial effort was a movie called "Tweeked" (2001), does her best to make this tongue-in-cheek slasher flick work, but with an incomprehensible, unfunny script, amateurish acting, awkward music, and herky-jerky pacing, she succeeds only in creating what one might kindly describe as camp. And not a movie destined to become a camp classic, either. I seriously doubt that you'll even be seeing this one on late-night cable, because I can't imagine a cable company paying good money for it. So, if you want to see it, you'll probably have to find it on your own.

Ms. Dewey's plot, as it were, is really an excuse to include as many lame ironies and graphic profanities as possible, together with as much gratuitous nudity and gore as an R rating will allow. I can't say there are any real jokes or gags in this horror comedy because there aren't any. There are only a few sardonic, deadpan situations that the filmmaker intends to be amusing by their exaggeration. I found it rather senseless stuff.

The idea is that the world of real estate can be murder. Literally. Realtors are falling right and left, victims of a demented killer whose weapon of choice is an axe. Or a knife. Or a fountain pen, as the case may be. Heck, in one shot the murderer even uses a garbage disposal to dispatch a small dog. Whether the dog deserved it is beside the point.

The movie opens with a nude scene, followed by a writing instrument to the eyeball, and some serious nipple-ring ripping. So you know the filmmaker isn't fooling around. She wants you to see what this thing is all about right from the start. Unfortunately, the scene is neither scary, shocking, nor funny but flat and numbing; and all it presages is more of the same.

Most of the characters are either real-estate agents, people selling their homes, or police officers, with one handyman thrown in for good measure. The first problem with the film: No central character. Ms. Dewey introduces us to a man and his wife going on vacation, putting up their house for sale while they're away, and leaving the place in the charge of their two knuckleheaded teenage kids. The joke about the mother is that she has just had a bad butt implant. Uh-huh. There are, however, unintentional laughs in any low-budget film. The house this couple put up for sale appears from the outside to be a fairly average place on a hillside in a fairly average residential neighborhood. But in back, it's got a barn, a stable, riding grounds, and a pasture. Kinda cute, actually.

The couple's two teens, a boy, Kyle (Paul Mocey-Hanton) and girl, Lucy (Toni Breen), don't want to move, so they'll do anything to scare away potential buyers. This isn't hard for them to do because the boy spends most of his time smoking joints and the girl is forever swimming in the nude; they just use their natural proclivities to terrorize anybody coming around to look at the house. Needless to say, Ms. Dewey includes the girl's unadorned swimming inclinations in part as a spoof of more-serious slasher-movie clichés and in part as a salacious gesture of her own to titillate the audience.

Next, we have three cops investigating, one way or another, the case of the ever-decreasing Realtor population. They are Rolands (Felicity Smith), a horny lesbian detective; her partner, Kirk (Drew Droege), an effeminate family man; and Lettie (Kamesha Gibson), a tough parole officer.


Then there are the Realtors: Marc Harmon (Oliver Elmore), a goofball with something close to a famous actor's name; Marta Bauer (Susan Artigas), a lady who wants more sales and, for reasons unknown to anybody but the writer and director, a lady coughing up blood from lung cancer; and Sunny Lynch (the writer/director Beth Dewey), a lady with nonexistent children.

Finally, there is Jimmy Simms (E. Shepherd Stevenson), a landscaper and general handyman at the home of the aforementioned vacationing parents, a man who additionally is a parolee having trouble making money and keeping an apartment. He's generally paranoid, hates the world, and complains to Lettie, his parole officer, that he'd like to kill everybody in it.

Indeed, everyone in this picture has a reason to hate everyone else, so everybody is a suspect. For about a half an hour, anyway, and then Ms. Dewey reveals the murderer. So much for suspense.

So much for laughs, too. The actors are so inept they can hardly respond to one another without a ten-second delay in their timing. "Kill House" starts out poorly and only gets worse.

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Venus

Peter O'Toole is a wonder, isn't he? He's been entertaining us with great movies (and, to be honest, his fair share of duds) for half a century, and still he goes on, with six new productions scheduled for 2007 and 2008. Just recently, in 2006 he gave us yet another delightful performance in "Venus," for which the Academy nominated him for yet another Oscar. Maybe some good things do just keep on getting better.

Of course, it's always hard, I'm sure, to surpass an amazing performance, and when you burst into the cinema spotlight so radiantly as O'Toole did in "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) in only your eighth screen appearance, it must be hard to surpass. But then there were "Becket," "Lord Jim," "The Lion in Winter," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," "The Ruling Class," "Man of La Mancha," "My Favorite Year," "The Last Emperor," "Troy," and probably a dozen more I've forgotten. "Venus" finds him in vintage form.

In "Venus" O'Toole plays Maurice Russell, an aging actor who has been, as he says, "a little famous," a womanizer, too, now tired and ailing, with a handful of old cronies like himself for company. Into his world comes a young woman, Jessie (Jodie Whittaker), a commoner arrived in London to care for Maurice's best friend, Ian (Leslie Phillips), another old-time actor like himself. Two people as different as Maurice and Jessie one could hardly find, the man in his seventies, sophisticated, erudite, cosmopolitan, and ailing; the woman in her early twenties, naive, awkward, and devoid of social grace. Yet they strike up a friendship based on mutual need that makes up a unique, bittersweet little romantic comedy. Or anti-romantic comedy.

Now, you might think at first blush that director Roger Michell ("Persuasion," "Notting Hill," "Enduring Love") and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi would do up "Venus" for broad laughs. They do not. Or that the story might merely be that of a dirty old man lusting after a younger woman. Maurice is, after all, older, much older, some fifty years older, than Jessie. But it is not. Not entirely. Instead, it is a story of mutual misunderstanding and, finally, understanding; about the need everyone has for finding someone else. Maurice becomes infatuated with the girl; she, in turn, comes to like his company. She cheers him up, something he badly needs. He is nice to her, something she badly needs.

He takes her to the theater. She takes him to nightclubs. Ian wants to send her back to her mother, but Maurice is fond of her. He takes her to museums. She awakens in him a new life. He calls her "Venus."

Although a recent prostrate operation has slowed Maurice down considerably, he still has a lecherous eye. Let's say he still has the will but not the way. Which is OK, because she wouldn't let him touch her, in any case, and they become friends. He makes her feel pretty. They please one another.

"Venus" is a small, touching film, hard to describe since not a lot really happens outwardly. But as a character piece, it is quite impressive. Naturally, for a character drama to work, you must have the best possible cast, and certainly "Venus" qualifies on that count. O'Toole puts in a delicate, nuanced performance, his character an old fellow who wonders where it all went and if there is any life left in him, any reason to continue with anything. Time has taken its toll on him, as life has flashed by. Young Jodie Whittaker is every bit his equal, her character hard on the outside but lost, lonely, and vulnerable on the inside. She is the symbol of Maurice's lost youth, while he is her indirect savior, the person who helps her to bloom as a human being.

As Maurice's friend, Ian, Leslie Phillips is a delight. His character is also an old-time actor, now sickly, only Ian's medical problems seem more imaginary than Maurice's. Ian's constant, grumpy, but droll complaining is amusing from beginning to end. Add to the mix a welcome, if all-too-brief, appearance by Vanessa Redgrave as Valerie, Maurice's estranged wife; and Richard Griffiths (think of Uncle Vernon in the "Potter" series) as Donald, another of Maurice and Ian's old chums, and you get a fine ensemble. But make no mistake: It really is O'Toole's picture.

If I had to compare "Venus" to any other films, they might be "Educating Rita" and "Pygmalion," although in "Venus" the age difference between the leads is even more prominent. Yet in each of these films we see very diverse people, people of different class and standing and education, finding value in one another. I suppose it's one of the mysteries of life how people make the connections they do. Maurice and Jessie connect in very special, if unusual, ways.

"Venus" never strains credulity, never lapses into sentimentality, and never loses its sense of restraint throughout its running time. It looks upon that most fragile of experiences, human relationships, with compassion and dignity and high good humor.

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