Enter to Win a Copy of The Horseman on Blu-ray!
Ever since a few weeks ago I have heard nothing but stellar comments and positive buzz about a revenge film from Australia called The Horseman. I have yet to check the film out yet, but it’s number 1 on my list of Blu-ray films to watch this week. It has been getting rave reviews from just about every movie news site I read daily. I have even included a review below from Quint over at Ain’t it Cool News. I mean, you can’t go wrong with that site, can you? Well anyway, Screen Media Films was nice enough to give us a few advance Blu-ray copies to give away to some lucky readers here. Stay tuned for a few Blu-ray review here by Gerard Iribe sometime this week too!
The rules of our giveaway are really quite simple. The contest is free to enter for all our readers 18 years and older (because of the subject content). There are only 3 very small catches. You may enter only once. The contest is only open to readers in the United States. And last but not least, you must be a fan of our Facebook and Twitter page. If you are not, don’t worry. You are welcome to join right now by clicking here and here.
Here’s all we ask that you do. Please fill out the form below in its entirety. In the ‘message’ box below, please include your Facebook and Twitter names so we can verify your eligibility. All entries must be received by 12:01 AM, Monday, June 21st. Lucky winners will be notified the evening of the 21st via email. We will then ask you to provide your mailing address via email and so we can ship your Blu-ray out to you. Sound simple enough? Good! We thought so. Just our way of giving back and saying thanks for your patronage. Good luck!
A Review from Quint from Ain’t it Cool News:
Since I’m a positive guy, let’s start with the good movie first: THE HORSEMAN
I actually saw this film on a screener, crammed on Harry’s couch with Rav and Capone, with Moriarty, Kraken and Harry sitting in their own chairs… all of us cringing along as the flick played on Harry’s preposterously big screen and envy-inducing 1080p projector.
Even though the film was on my schedule to see theatrically, I ended up with a choice between The Horseman and The Haunting in Connecticut. I had a seat for Haunting, but even then I tried to change my mind, but Horseman was sold out. It all worked out, but if I had been able to see Horseman theatrically then I would have been spared the mediocrity of Haunting.
Anyway, I don’t know what’s in the drinking water in Australia, but the next generation of filmmakers are ridiculously good. Maybe George Miller has engineered a new breed of people willing to go balls to the wall without crossing over into the cheesy category. I don’t know the answer, but I do know that Nash and Joel Edgerton blew me away with THE SQUARE which was the first South By flick I saw and now Steven Kastrissios has made a film that shows all the US studio made “torture p0rn” type films how it’s really done.
I mentioned above that this film is HARDCORE-ish and I mean that. I hope some of you guys out there have seen Paul Schrader’s ‘70s grit and gut-punch masterpiece starring George C. Scott as a father searching through the seedy p0rn industry for his daughter. If you haven’t then seek it out posthaste.
The set-up for THE HORSEMAN is very similar, except instead of a father searching for his daughter, we follow the ironically named Christian (Peter Marshall) as he searches down those responsible for his daughter’s death. At first all he knows is that she OD’d, but he receives a porn tape in the mail, showing what happened right before she OD’d. There she is, partaking in group s3x, almost unconscious she’s so fucked up.
Christian gathers his tools (he’s an exterminator, appropriately enough) and hunts down the men responsible, delving deeper and deeper into the sleazy world of pornography.
Christian is the perfect anti-hero in my book. He’s justified to a degree, but the guy has clearly snapped. He cuts himself like he’s a 13 year old girl shopping at Hot Topic while listening to the Twilight soundtrack on her black Zune. Christian also goes way above and beyond vigilantism. He not only relishes in torturing these guys for information, but whatever safety catch in his brain that would tell him enough is enough died along with his daughter. He’s like Jack Bauer on steroids.
But unlike Bauer, Christian is still, at the end of the day, an ordinary guy. He does get in over his head and gets beat the f#$% up. By the end of the movie I don’t know how he’s still able to stand up he gets so f#$%ed up. So much so that you’re exhausted for him, like you are with John McClane in the very first DIE HARD.
In other words, Kastrissios has made this film very real. It’s not an action movie where fights end and there’s a little purple make-up on the lead’s cheek. Christian walks through hell to find his answers and his own redemption and by the end of it I can’t really say if it was worth it. For me, the audience member, for sure, but for Christian? Can’t say.
The flick is suspenseful, horrifying and, most importantly, involving. You’re with Christian on his trip whether you like it or not. And I found that even when Christian crosses the line I didn’t completely turn against him, which is a testament to Peter Marshall’s performance. The dude has to balance humanity with a deep psychosis and strikes that balance perfectly.
It also helps that those he’s “questioning” and getting his revenge on are huge a$$holes who deserve everything they’re getting and more, without becoming comic villains. Throughout the whole film there’s a reality to everything, from Marshall’s casting to characterization to photography to action and plot, which is what really makes this feel like a lost ‘70s revenge flick.
And then there are the iconic cringe scenes, which are mostly implied, but nevertheless they work. Wait until you see what happens with the needlenose pliers, the three fish-hooks and the bicycle pump. Holy Jay-Zuss.
All of us in the room loved it and talked excited about it afterwards. We all tried to figure out why the film is called THE HORSEMAN. The flick’s about a regular chump who goes on a bloody rampage to avenge his dead daughter and the title didn’t make any sense to us until Kraken looked it up and found a Horseman is the Aussie equivalent of a Jack of All Trades. Now it makes sense. Christian’s toolbox is varied indeed.
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