#isolation 2005

[gael-garcia]

Happy birthday Ruth Negga! (May 4, 1981)

“I don’t think I’ve necessarily been able to pick and choose in my career, I don’t know how many people do. But I’ll tell you what I’ve been able to do, I’ve been able to say no. It is the only thing you can hold on to sometimes, is that ability to say ‘no.’ And I think that in that way you can create some kind of career. And then you can sort of lobby for the parts you want. Because I also don’t want to do parts that I don’t think I’d be any good at. I don’t need to be everywhere, I don’t need to be working all the time. I don’t need to be doing parts just because I think it’s a stepping stone to getting somewhere else. What I have wanted to do is take roles that are unexpected for people who look like me. Roles that the establishment would say, ‘Oh, she couldn’t possibly be that.’ Because, why not?” (2016)

[noeavoiding]

Isolation (2005) dir. Billy O'Brien

[eternal-gromnommer]

Binging up on some obscure monster horror movies for the spooky season and stumbled upon this bizarre gem: Isolation (2005).

Apparently it's "Alien, but on an Irish dairy farm" and its monster is a mutated cow that is the result of an experiment gone wrong. The creature itself is hardly ever seen: it's shown in its embryonic larval form, but it looks more like a spikey croissant than anything, and once it matures into its full adult form we never get a good look at the creature, only catching glimpses here and there.

Fortunately after some searching it appears @bogleech found a good screencap of the mutant cow spawn thing and well...it's a mess. No wonder it was so hard to figure out what the thing looks like cause it's a vaguely-centipede-like collection of bones that don't even look remotely recognizeable as a cow?

So here's a more bovine-esque take on the creature, a completely-wrong, still-recognizably cattle-like creature that's completely inside out with its skeleton on the outside. The original creature seems to have no visible limbs and instead walks on its ribs so I've incorporated them here but also kept the vestigial inside-out limbs that still resemble those of a cow, as well as the skull-like head based on an actual cow skull.

Isolation has a very interesting premise and a truly unique and grotesque monster but let's be honest: it's kind of hard to take an inside-out cow seriously as something capable of actually hunting down and devouring humans. Why it's even carnivorous is never properly explained, neither of why it reproduces parasitically in a xenomorph-esque way. At least it's absolutely disgusting to look at, which is a plus for any horror movie monster, so it's at least got that.

[beeflegion]

There is so much untapped horror potential in livestock industry settings

[wanderingnork]

Isolation (2005): Illicit science experiments go horribly wrong on an isolated farm in Ireland, pitting a farmer and an innocent young couple against a monster.

Why doesn’t more of horror tumblr like this movie??? It has practical effects for its monster, does not like cops, has a black final girl, is full of cute and pettable cows, and has a hot sad older man alone on a farm. What’s not to love?

I loved everything about this. It got two (TWO!) audible gasps out of me, which is kind of hard to do.

The first half an hour is really just a farm drama, about a cow having a difficult pregnancy and ordinary people coming into conflict. There’s the relationship history between the farmer and the vet, there are notes of the social issues that drove the couple away from their old lives, all very mundane stuff. All of that is good, and the actors perform very well. It all culminates in the night that the cow gives birth, a scene which is mostly just the intense drama of trying to save the cow and her calf...until something very unsettling is revealed. Which is when the movie takes a violent turn into the horror of science gone wrong.

And my god was it WRONG.

I should really at some point compile a list like “ten most unsettling scenes in horror movies,” which would be a hard list to put together in general, but it’s clear that one specific line from this movie would sit at the very fucking top. You’ll know it when you hear it.

The creature in this movie is ALL practical effects. Grotesque, gory, beautiful. You can see a beautiful side shot of a model from bogleech here, here on artstation  is the life-size model of a cow sculpted for the movie, and the IMDB photo gallery for the movie has some nice photos. (Spoilers abound on that last one.)

Many elements of earlier practical-effect monsters are at work here (the Thing and Xenomorph comparisons are obvious), but I would like to give a special shoutout to the creatures of The Deadly Spawn. The way that this creature moved through water and mud in early stages of its development was extremely reminiscent of the delightful basement scene from Deadly Spawn. It’s really good stuff.

The movie isn’t constantly moving at top speed--despite being only 90 minutes, it still gives plenty of breathing room. It doesn’t hesitate when it’s time for the monster to show its face, for a sudden bout of violence, or for a tense chase scene. But that isn’t all we get. Between the tense moments there’s always a beat or two of stillness and silence, without any dread continuing to build, letting us wind down before ratcheting the tension up again to a higher point.

Which, pacing-wise, does make me think of the process of pulling a stuck calf out of its mother. Veterinarian Dr. W. Mark Hilton puts it this way: "Pull calf with hooks or use calf jack. The key is to go slowly and only apply pressure when the cow pushes. When she rests, you rest.” Appropriate, no?

Warnings: animal death, gore, sex, traumatic childbirth (a cow but I feel like it’s worth mentioning)

[thenixkat]

I just watched a horror movie in which some scientist accidentally created aggressive parasitoid abstract cow monsters.

It was interesting. The creature design was such that looking at big abstract cow thing, I had no idea what the fuck I was looking at.

There was one Black person in the film. She survived the movie and ended up killing the cowthing, with a stick. Though she is probably infected and going to give birth to an abstract parasitoid abomination