WAZ - Welche Qualen erträgst du?

I give 5 stars as this is one of those films that you can watch and then throw away. It's not bad but it's not good. I don't think it's the sort of film where you would pull it out of your DVD collection every couple of months to watch.

I'm not sure what type of 'film' was used but the director went for (what looked like to me) HD hand-held cams. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean Cloverfield 'all over the show' sort of filming but rather the film print it's self. I suppose this gives the film it's 'gritty' look, which I can appreciate sometimes but for this movie it just made the production look cheap. If it weren't for the famous faces you'd be forgiven for thinking you may be watching a lower budget movie.

As for the film itself....we've seen such ideas already done with 'Saw' and 'untraceable'. There's no real new context here to give a fresh light to the story. The acting was fine and I have no problem with the direction....I just wasn't drawn into the film in any way. It was difficult to hold my interest or really care about the characters on screen.

I don't really give insight into the 'story' of a film when I review as others do that better but as a film goer I'd say that this is a throw-away film.....the sort you'd rent or watch to pass some time. As I've said before, it's not a bad film....but it isn't great. Slap bang in the middle

Interesting British-made thriller that borrows heavily (or is that steals?) from Se7en and Saw. Melissa George is cop trying to unravel a series of gruesome murders in New York with her gruff partner, Stellan Skarsgard. Somebody is bumping off several of the city's gang bangers and their loved ones and carving an equation onto their stomachs. The plot covers very familiar ground as the two very different detectives try to identify the killer. George does her best but her character is poorly defined - a bit more background should have been shown. Skarsgard is almost laughable in his attempt to be tough and cool, he merely comes across as being unintelligible. What makes this film different is the surprisingly good cast (Selma Blair, Tom Hardy, Ashley Walters, Sally Hawkins) who turn up. The final plot twist in the last 15 minutes is far-fetched and feels like a sensationalist tabloid headline. Tries to take a novel approach to the torture-porn genre by raising some interesting Darwinian questions but ultimately fails under its own pretensions. It's not hard to see why this went straight to DVD. Nice try though.

The most influential American horror movie of the last 20 years is "Seven". This much is undeniable. I really liked "Seven". Great movie. It might be one of my favourites. The only problem is that every inner city set horror thriller made since comes across, to me, as "Seven"-lite.

Which brings me to "Waz".

A city of permanent night. A cop on the edge. A diabolical killer. Inventive, ingenious torture and murder. Victims with a reason for being victimised.

Yup. "Seven"-lite. Not necessarily a bad thing in itself, because you have to take every movie on it's own merits, but disappointing when witnessed over and over again.

"Waz" isn't bad. It is just unoriginal and a triumph of style over substance. The city is effectively portrayed as grim, dirty, cold and wet. You wouldn't want to go there on holiday. You wouldn't want to hang out with any of these people. The tone of the film is unpleasant, seedy and black. To coin a dated phrase, a video nasty. It will get you down. It also has one of the most disturbing filmed sequences of sexual abuse I have ever seen. All insinuated, you don't see a thing, but it is horrible.

Melissa George has been better and is frankly wasted as the pouting sidekick, but "Waz" does have a superior cast (Stellan Skarsgård, Selma Blair, Tom Hardy, etc.) for what is effectively a straightforward genre movie. Some of the questions I had as to why they signed up for this movie were answered during the denouement, when the motivations behind Stellan Skarsgård's actions are revealed and his character develops levels way beyond that of a tormented cop.

So, "Waz" was OK. Not bad for a walk on the dark side.

Being a Horror freak, I usually give a chance to pretty much any Horror sub-genre and type. The Killing Gene is one of these Thrillers that I personally don't really consider Horror, as it's not scary or frightening in any way. It does revolve around some pretty terrible things, but I personally like films that are scarier.

Having said that, I think The Killing Gene was a very nice thriller. Stellan Skarsgård, unlike his role in Thor (and The Avengers) was dark and charismatic, and Melissa George was as great as always. The story idea was nice and original, and made it a little hard to pick sides. The twist towards the end did manage to surprise me, and the ending itself was a very nice closure. Notice most of the times I used an adjective, it was "nice". Not more, nor less.

As for criticism? The twist was very original, but I was kinda hoping for something a little deeper and more complicated. All in all, I'd say The Killing Gene was a gloomy combination of Saw, The Bone Collector and Kindergarten Cop.

I personally enjoyed it as a thriller, not as Horror. If you're thriller fans, you probably will enjoy it too.

For fans of the detective and suspense genres, this is a worthwhile pick. One could legitimately criticize the art direction as being derivative of "Se7en" or "Saw," but why bother? The writing, the direction, and particularly the acting are so far superior to the vast majority of the horror/thriller/suspense movies that are churned out by the hundreds these days that you'd be denying yourself the chance to see an intelligent, thought-provoking, not unbelievable, suspenseful film if you passed on it for that reason.

It is, psychologically, dark; and there are a few scenes of torture - but they aren't gratuitous and they aren't gratuitously gory. They are essential to advancing the plot and developing the characters; and most of the violence is implied, not shown. If you're looking for torture porn, you'll be disappointed.

The plot twists are interesting, atypical, and believable, and the movie has something significant and thought-provoking to say about the human condition. The characters (with the exception of Melissa George's) are written with moral complexity, and all of the acting (including Ms. George's) is top-notch.

It's a shame this didn't get a theatrical release in the U.S. Judging from the disappointment of torture-porn fans, my guess is that it was not well-marketed.