Weird War Tales
R-Point
R-Point is a decent entry in the war-horror film, creating many incredibly effective scenes but ultimately proving to be a bit of a disappointment because it’s almost a great film, which is often worse than just being a bad film. This is one of those movies that just needed one more revision of the script to really make it something special. Still, if you can get over how great the film could have been, you can still enjoy how good it is. Not without noticeable flaws, many of which are large enough to make not liking the film perfectly understandable, R-Point still manages to be creepy as hell in many places and an interesting film to think about. It also seems to know when it’s doing something right, and when it’s doing something wrong. Less female ghost with long hair, more war-horror would have been a vast improvement.
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Comments
Comment from Ed
Time: March 7, 2008, 1:47 pm
The closest thing to a regular batch of war-horror entries I can think of are the ones with a military unit on training exercises: Dog Soldiers, The Supernaturals (Nichelle Nichols and LeVar Burton have roles in it).
Comment from KeithA
Time: March 7, 2008, 2:54 pm
Indeed, there are plenty of “out on maneuvers” horror films, but I want in the trenches pitched warfare as the background. I had one in my head about a small commando squad that finds themselves trapped behind German lines in WWI (a la The Lost Patrol) and takes refuge in a suitable creepy looking, bombed out town that just happens to be plagued, from time to time, by ominous green mist (because I love ominous green mist) and the skeletal forms of the recent war dead. That way, I can have my big “storming the trenches” battle scene, the distant sound of artillery in the background, creepy medieval European architecture (all blow’d up, at that), and lots of spooks in tattered greatcoats and pointy helmets.
Comment from El Santo
Time: March 7, 2008, 3:33 pm
I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking, and as horrible as this may be, I’m nearing the conclusion that The Keep and the “B-17″ segment of Heavy Metal together represent nearly the whole of the war-horror genre as you’ve defined it.
Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: March 7, 2008, 3:40 pm
“Dead Birds” features Confederate soldiers menaced by supernatural forces, from what a friend tells me.
Comment from KeithA
Time: March 7, 2008, 8:55 pm
There’s one called The Bunker, but other than having it on my Netflix list, I know little about it — though the plot synopsis does sound similar to R-Point.
Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: March 8, 2008, 4:00 am
There is ‘The Trench’ where a bunch of WW1 soldiers get lost and take refuge during a battle in a (you guessed) trench which may or may not be a portal to hell, or something. It’s all a bit obscure. Not bad though, and it has Gollum and Billy Elliot in it. By which I mean Andy Serkis and Jamie Bell rather than the characters.
Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: March 8, 2008, 4:02 am
Scrap that, it’s called ‘Deathwatch’ the trench is a whole other movie
Comment from HP
Time: March 8, 2008, 11:27 pm
It’s been awhile since I watched R-Point, but wasn’t it set up early in the film that the rescue squad was made up of misfits and disciplinary problems? I thought that pretty well explained why they all freaked out and cried and showed no military discipline.
And I didn’t have as much of a problem as you with the long-haired ghost — I saw her as sort of “the spirit of Viet Nam,” like a kind of anti-Kwan Yin, a dark boddhisatva, rather than being a specific ghost of a specific woman.
I agree with your overall assessment, though: A fascinating and highly watchable, if flawed, film.
BTW, neither movie nor comic book, but Pseudopod did a really nice WWI combat horror story podcast for Veteran’s Day last year.
Comment from KeithA
Time: March 10, 2008, 10:01 am
They are pegged as disciplinary cases — though one wonders why an important rescue mission would be entrusted to disciplinary problems — but the Dity Dozen was comprised of even bigger disciplinary cases, and they managed not to scream and cry at the drop of a hat. Just a couple more manlier discipline problems would have made the movie tolerable.
I do agree that the female ghost is not really meant to be a specific person, but still, after a decade of Ring, Phone, Ryung, Ju-on, so on and so forth, the image is just overplayed. I like your deeper interpretation of what I reacted to on a more superficial level, though.
Comment from David Lee Ingersoll
Time: March 10, 2008, 1:52 pm
Dead Birds features former soldiers and might take place during (or just after) the Civil War. I’ve forgotten that part of the story. The characters are not actively being soldiers during the events of the movie. They’ve robbed a bank and are on the run.
Comment from PCachu
Time: March 17, 2008, 1:35 pm
Different classes of “discipline problem,” I guess. The Dirty Dozen were up the creek for not being able to refrain from talking back to their CO, while the R-Point dudes were flagged for not being able to refrain from peeing their pants. Just ill grammatical fortune that the same phrase ended up being used to describe both, really.
Comment from KeithA
Time: March 17, 2008, 4:11 pm
Which then begs the question, “Why would you send the Pee Pants Platoon to do anything?” It was like watching a task force made up entirely of Richard Pryor doing his “scared brother” routine, only not as funny.
Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: March 7, 2008, 1:02 pm
Kicking legend Hwang Jang Lee served as a trainer in Vietnam, where he allegedly killed a guy with one kick to the head.
Wasn’t “Below” a horror film set during WW2?