Hora aka The Whore (2009)

 

A shovel is a shovel…

Being a horror fan I’ve become increasingly proud that my home country of Norway is frequently shelling out a variety of these films like Naboer, Død snø, Skjult and others. This time around we have a tribute to the old school grindhouse features. Or would that be a tribute to grindhouse features inspired by Tarantino and Rodriguez’ take on them? Since Grindhouse was released or to us who had to watch them as Death Proof and Planet Terror there has been a revival of these old school films and people imitating them in several of their exploitation sub-genres. What has really been good with this is that by having two so prolific directors putting this out it has resulted in an increased interest in the old films and given us more and more releases of the true grindhouse films. Anyway, I doubt that Hora would have seen the light of day had not been for the Tarantino and Rodriguez making exploitation films “cool” again. Apparently there is at least one person in Norway with enough love for the old and nasty to make a movie in the same vein. His name is Reinert Kiil. 

Hora tells the story of Rikke, played by Isabel Vibe, who takes a trip to her hometown in the countryside to relax and write on some sort of book. At a local gas station she meets an obnoxious Dane, a local hillbilly and their mentally retarded associate. They are a horny bunch of guys and come back repeatedly to harass her before finally assaulting and raping her. It’s then the whore awakens and punishment of the wicked begins.

Does this sound familiar? It should if you like the old movies Hora is inspired by. I’m going to say it. Hora is a Norwegian remake of I Spit on Your Grave. The similarities, right down to the mentally retarded rapist, are obvious. It also liberally borrows from Thriller – en grym film and The Last House on the Left.

While the story rips off I Spit on Your Grave it also adds a couple of new elements. For instance Rikke’s obnoxious boyfriend keeps nagging her. His role could have become interesting at the end by making the movie go one way or the other. Unfortunately it does neither. Instead they option for a classy last shot, which looks great.

Hora isn’t nearly as brutal as I was led to expect. The rape scenes aren’t exactly pleasant, but choosing to mostly use music over them detracts. Camille Keaton’s shrieks in the original worked a lot better and still send chills down my spine. While I Spit on Your Grave is explicit when it comes to showing us nudity it never does it in a particularly sexual tone. If that were the case we wouldn’t have had all those shots of Keaton from a distance. Hora on the other hand goes for a more gratuitous approach. This works well for the movie, but it should have held even less back. Voluptuous Isabel Vibe makes for better viewing than scrawny Keaton.

Creating exploitation; Enter nude female with a sawed-off shotgun. 

There is a decent amount of violence, but I still sat there waiting for more, at least in terms when it came to giving the last villain his just punishment. The vaginal contraption was pretty cool though. It’s certainly a scene to please any gore hound. You can see something similar, but less graphic, in depraved riot Deported Women of the SS Special Section. Kiil shows creativity in how Hora executes her revenge upon the rapists. I wish she had lit one of the bastards on fire first and then driven away with him dragging behind the car though. That would have looked even cooler.

This being a throwback to the good old exploitation flicks we all love, Kiil throws in some stuff to give us the gritty feeling of way back. This includes a missing reel (during one of the scenes we really do want to see), losing color, ending a reel etc. It’s cute, but it has been done before. The cinematography boasts some great landscape shots, which of course would be one of the main reasons for anyone to seek out this movie… The lighting is crappy as it should be. As for the music it balances between tacky modern porn music, which is good, to just plain awful. In between it also manages to be a bit humorous with the “Jesus is my Lord” song.

My favorite scene is a short one as we see Rikke eat a banana. I remember a classmate once commenting: “There is nothing sexier that seeing a woman eating a banana.” The poor girl in our class eating a banana at that time then had to walk out of the classroom as we all ended up ogling her. Maybe Kiil has had a similar experience?

Another skillfully handed scene is the sequence in which our rape victim prepares for female empowerment. I would also like to commend the guy playing the mentally retarded guy. He drops the camp acting the over-the-top character from the original relied on. In doing so it makes the movie flow better.

Hora isn’t a great film. It never outdoes I Spit on Your Grave in unpleasantness, but goes further in graphic carnage. I think that’s a compliment. An American remake has now been made as well. Personally I found Hora more enjoyable upon second viewing. Hora is the only Norwegian exploitation film out there and for that reason alone it’s worth giving a chance.

6/10