MOVIE REVIEW: MACABRE



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The Mo Brothers are directors from indonesia, who had emerged on the art house scene a few years ago with their  spectacular debut MACABRE. The movie is a cliche story about bunch of youngsters lost in the woods, who stumble on the family of crazies who's survival strength borders to supernatural. There's nothing surprising in the story itself. The interesting part is cinematography and outrageous make up that will make shudder even the strongest admirers of gore feasts. I will not give away anything by saying that in the end it will all come down to final surviving girl and a chainsaw welding maniac (this time female). The battle spectacular is almost as great as the one in the end of the latest remake of Evil Dead and the sole reason to watch this gorily daring indonesian flick.

 It is obvious that MACABRE was inspired by the gems of French horror, such us HIGH TENSION and INSIDE, but it has its own voice and its own feet to stand on (its own chainsaw to weld). There are a few minuses of course, first is casting, which could have been better especially where a crazy family of freaks is concerned. The victims do OK, but all is required is running around covered and blood and screaming - not the hardest job in the world. The second flaw is the plot itself, that does not provide us with any conflict or background story. There's not much mystery involved, no revelations in store, and in my opinion the horror genre had moved on from a simple "slash and kill" types of horror. Apart from drowning us in gore THE MO BROTHERS don't give us much to think about.

 MACABRE is worth seeing, just to get a slice of contemporary indonesian cinema. The next film of THE MO BROTHERS called KILLERS and is much anticipated among horror fans. Thoroughly enjoyed their effort with MACABRE, I will be looking forward to see what they do next. 

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