THE GUARDIAN
Reportedly, banned in Germany!
At least according to the IMDb.
For years, the granola-munchin' tree-huggers over at Greenpeace (never mind the wackos over at Earth First) have been telling us that trees are our friends. The Guardian exposes the ugly truth - trees feast on the blood of our babies, and will kill you horribly if you give 'em half the chance!
A phenomenally stupid yuppie couple squeezes out a kid (because any moron with a sperm output and any bimbo with a uterus can do that) and hires a nanny without checking her references. HELLO, she's a fucking NANNY, she's not a piano tuner. Already, sympathy shifts towards the nanny. Anyway, it turns out that this nanny was responsible for the disappearance (and police-presumed murder) of another baby nearby - actually, within jogging distance of the same tree that she appears to have sex with. (what's that word again? Xylophilia?) Wow. She actually gets more work as a nanny within jogging distance of the same tree while the police are looking for her. Just think about that for a second. Isn't that amazing?
This is the kind of movie that Roger Ebert describes as having an Idiot Plot - that is, a plot that requires everybody to act like a fucking idiot at all times. (strangely, he doesn't actually refer to the I.P. in his quite amusing review) Taken as a serious horror movie, The Guardian is a joke. A lousy one, too. Just pathetic. Actually, it does have one good scare in a dream sequence, but Jesus, is the rest of it stupid.
That's why this movie is best enjoyed when not taken seriously. Actually, at times, it makes for a pretty good splatter epic a la Evil Dead 2. (and its Evil Dead homages - at least I hope they're homages - are frequent) Lots of dismemberments, blood spattering everywhere, and if you don't blink, you get to see one unlucky guy's head burst like an apple under a sledgehammer when he gets whacked with a tree limb. It zips along at a pretty good clip, so again, if you're not looking for a serious horror movie here, it's over before you know it and reasonably enjoyable.
I remember this coming out at about the same time as Exorcist III. This, directed by the director for the original Exorcist, and the other, an official sequel, written and directed by its writer. Which would triumph? In the short term, neither. Friedkin's film was dismissed as silly crap -which it is, however amusing - and Blatty's was dismissed as a typical horror sequel with dumb slasher elements. It's almost ten years later, and I think we all know which film has garnered respect over the years. But then, this movie didn't have cameos from Larry King and Fabio.