花心大坏蛋

　　1978年的某个寒冷秋夜，迷路的希罗顿走进了一个偏僻的农场。农场主夫妇热情地招待了这位不速之客，宾主一起喝酒聊天，谈得十分投机。不料人心的贪欲引发了血的悲剧……　　四年后的冬天，姆尔兹警官负责调查这起凶杀案，他和重要证人希罗顿一起前往现场检证。敷衍了事的调查、嫌疑人的回想……在一片混沌之中，惊人的真相渐渐浮现而出……

　　《尸骨袋》改编自斯蒂芬·金（Stephen King）的同名恐怖小说。　　畅销小说作家Mike Noonan（皮尔斯·布鲁斯南 Pierce Brosnan 饰），在妻子Jo(安娜贝丝·吉什 Annabeth Gish 饰)死后，无法走出悲痛的深渊。他不断地梦到和Jo一 起购买的缅因州湖畔别墅，梦到装在袋子里的腐烂尸骨，梦见Jo也从裹尸袋中奔跑而出。终于他在Jo的召唤下回到了那栋诡异的别墅。在那里，他卷入了一桩年轻美貌寡妇与家财万贯的祖父对小女孩的抚养权争夺战，并不时遭遇神秘鬼魂的骚扰。那些不断升级的噩梦，还有神秘鬼魂的骚扰，都让他意识到，这个小镇隐藏着一些秘密，而死去的Jo也有事情想要告诉他……

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

　　Joseph Fulton, a well-regarded fifty-eight-year-old director of romantic comedies, wants to become assistant groundskeeper at a local cemetery. He wants to work outdoors and be close to nature. Meanwhile, he thinks it’s important to have his last will and testament drawn up. But his highly dramatic actress girlfriend thinks he must be dying and that he is just too brave to tell anyone. The rumor spreads and soon everyone he knows—and some he doesn’t—are crowded into his small apartment to say their last farewells.