by Marc Patterson, Owner and Managing Editor

This month begins the first of a monthly ongoing series where I’ll select a single film from my personal collection of horror cinema to share with you. Each of these films holds a rather high honor in my collection. They are titles that I’ve become intimately familiar with over multiple viewings, and ones that I consider to be requisite viewing for any serious horror geek. Don’t expect to find stuff like Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street featured in this monthly column. It’s not that those films aren’t classics in their own rights, but they are rather horror 101 flicks. Consider this column upperclassman work.

Many of these selections in this column won’t be easy viewing. That’s not to say that I’ll pick titles based on excruciating levels of violence, but they aren’t necessarily going to be as accessible as a simple slasher. And I’ll emphasize that again upfront. But I figure that if you’re here at this blood soaked site I lovingly call ‘Brutal As Hell’ then tapping into some of this material shouldn’t be too much of a challenge for you, and I guarantee each one will be worth your viewing if you dare to bend outside of the comfort zone of brainless slasher flicks and zombie films.

And with that I give you my first selection, Gaspar Noe’s indelible entry to the bowels of France, I Stand Alone.

I Stand Alone (Seul contre tous) is a bleak, depressing, and accosting film that borders on straight up nihilism. It’s also the first full feature length film shot by French director Gaspar Noe, and follows his shorter feature Carne. Noe, who is most famous for his film Irreversible, is a director for whom destroying the boundaries of what might be acceptable amongst his countrymen is elemental to his process. Noe attacks his subject matter with a ferocious sense of honesty that coerces the audience to either alienate themselves from what is happening, or embrace it completely. It’s hard not to be affected by the anger and despondency that Noe wishes to convey, even possibly empathize with the antagonist, who is often the central protagonist in the film.

I first saw I Stand Alone several years ago after I had only been reviewing films for a short time. The film was sent to me without much forewarning and without having any prior knowledge of what the film was about or who the director was I popped it in my DVD player and within moments I was jarred out of my seat. My initial reaction was to shut the film off and rush to the computer to find out more before I continued, but I couldn’t. The simple dialogue on justice and morality from the men at the bar, (see the clip below) and the opening monologue from lead character Phillipe Nahon, simply called “The Butcher” within the film, had rendered me immobilized. The bleak imagery and the austere and sobering subject matter pinned me in my seat with my eyes wide. Sure, I had seen my share of foreign horror, but this wasn’t material that could easily be pigeonholed into a simple seek and destroy formulated package that belongs to most genre films. To be honest, I struggle to maintain whether or not the film can even be called horror as it takes many hints from the French new wave director Godard, as well as the Noir movement, though every frame is filled with more of a sense of pure horror than most “horror” films achieve in their full feature run time. And if the recurring gunshot sound that highlights the cuts in the film reveals anything about Noe’s style as a director it is that subtlety is not his forte. He would much rather shove his vision on you with full hostility.

Take a look at the first five minutes of the film in the clip below, which outline the setup for what will take place:

This premise above lays out the first act of the film. There’s a bit of a flashback as in spite of the story having been told by The Butcher we will now witness a portion of this as it plays out, setting us up and placing us firmly into the perspective of The Butcher. As grueling as it can be, it is merely the beginning to what will follow.

From these initial five minutes we also know that this film will be a tragedy and that whatever outcome we arrive at in ninety minutes will not be one of redemption, at least not in the traditional sense. In spite of this, buried beneath the surface are darkly comedic undertones, with subtle bits of irony laced through the film that suggests Noe has more to say than meets the eye.

When we back away for a moment, and put the pseudo-political sub-text aside we look at this as the story of a single man, and for this lead actor Phillipe Nahon carries the film solely on his back. Nahon’s character of The Butcher is so powerful that he even reprises it in the opening moments of Noe’s follow up film Irreversible. As an actor he has a career that takes him back to the 60’s, and most horror fans will of course recognize him as Marie’s killer alter ego in Alexandre Aja’s Haute Tension. While I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing too many of his films outside the genre there is little doubt that this part was made for him. Nahon’s tremendous acting ability brings a gritty sense of realism to the film that is essential to selling the film as believable. His on screen dialogue is minimal with most of the dialogue relegated to the narration of the film. This ironically shows a man who has much to say, yet in actuality says very little. The camera will never stray far from The Butcher. Indeed, at times it comes so incredibly close that it is nigh a part of the character. We see everything the way The Butcher sees it. We are not voyeurs in this experience, but we are forcefully pushed into the experience of the film itself as intimate participants. This effect lends to the horrendous sense of dread that looms as the film reaches its shocking climax where The Butcher will execute his justice and morality.

Violence and Sex: In the opening moments of the film with the two men at the bar we are introduced to the idea that a gun is one man’s justice. A gun comes into play at multiple points throughout the film, both in the sexual sense and literal. Upon leaving Lille The Butcher procures a gun from his mistress’ mother. It contains only three bullets in it and throughout the film we are introduced to a variety of characters that could justifiably end up as the recipient of one of those bullets. It would be all too easy to pull the trigger against any one of these bastards that continually kicks The Butcher further down into the sewer. But we must wait until the final moments of the film, when we are warned in yet another outrageous moment influenced by Godard that we have 30 seconds to leave the theater, before it is revealed as to who and what those bullets are meant to be for. This is the moment of truth as The Butcher executes his justice and morality. But will it be with the literal gun, or his dick? Again, earlier in the film we have a flash of his exposed manhood. This is his justice, his morality.

When the credits roll we realize that I Stand Alone is not a brave film about a guy who picks himself by his bootstraps and overcomes adversity. That would be too Hollywood and this film is as far removed from the cliché ridden films of Hollywood as one can possibly get. Ultimately when the camera finally fades away from The Butcher we realize fully that he has now embraced the reality of who he is.

The Butcher is not just a victim, but also one what perpetuates violence through his own idea of morality. And while the film is one boiling pot of anger on the verge of eruption, commenting at times with a heavy hand on political and economic injustices it also has as much to say about the vicious cycle of sexual abuse. Our sympathies with his nightmarish plight begin to fade as he reveals his true self to us and we distance ourselves as the camera moves away to that final shot, an odd moment of sunlight in an otherwise bleak film.