After the summer blockbuster season peaked for me with Fast Five, it’s been pretty dry around here. Superhero movies aren’t really my thing and I haven’t seen a Transformers movie yet (on purpose). Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 was fun, but until Drive and Take Shelter come out in a few months I’m using the time off from theaters to catch up with some recent international flicks. Some worked the festival circuit last year while others are already out on DVD overseas and coming stateside later this year. Either way you can find them on the internet, you crafty jerks.

Watching a grip of foreign films in a row, it’s apparent that while the creativity well is rapidly drying up in the States, overseas it runneth over. Not to say that America still doesn’t produce grade-A originals, but in other countries they seem to have more of a knack for execution. Especially in the thriller and horror department. American creativity and risk-taking seems to be stuck in the “indie” market, but in other countries these balls-out works of art are setting box-office records. One film featured in this article, New Kids Turbo, has the highest number of “cunts” spoken in a single film and is the highest grossing movie in Dutch history. It’s a beautiful thing.

My favorite, by far, is The Last Circus. I wrote a full review a few weeks ago so I didn’t include it here. But the following are the rest of the best foreign flicks I’ve seen recently — not in any particular order. Download them all from your favorite torrent site and have your own foreign film festival!

Oh and if you buy me a pizza I’ll even come to your house and introduce each film! Enjoy!

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We Are What We Are  [Directed by Jorge Michel Grau] / / Mexico

When their father passes away, his three children and wife are forced to fend for themselves. He was their provider, and like most patriarchs, he made sure to keep food on the table. But for this lower-class family, it’s not as simple as pacing in the mini-van and heading to the grocery store. Their cannibals. Eating for them means stalking their prey, capturing and killing it, and cooking it up. The problem is that none of the other family members have done this “ritual” before. The youngest son jumps right in but his sloppiness opens up a whole other can of shit for the family.

Director Jorge Michel Grau leaves the origins of the cannibalism in We Are What We Are vague. The family refers to the capture and subsequent eating of their prey as a “ritual,” so there may be some underlying religious aspects involved. It’s a really macabre story about a family coming apart at the seams. A horror movie about cannibals is bound to be gory, but Grau goes for the visceral rather than the visual. The photography is striking, especially in the city scenes when the two brothers are on the hunt. The most haunting moment of the film, however, involves the sister. I won’t give it away, just watch the damn movie.

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New Kids Turbo [Directed by Steffen Haars & Flip Van der Kuil] / / Netherlands

Sorry half of this trailer is in Dutch. I couldn’t find a translated one – you’ll just have to trust me. Based on the Dutch TV series New Kids (which was amazingly called New Kids on the Block for its first two seasons) New Kids Turbo follows five mulleted degenerates from the picturesque village of Maaskantje who all lose their jobs on the same day. They spend Gerrie’s unemployment check in one afternoon and then decide to “pay for nothing” (aka: steal everything). This sparks a revolution of robbery and the government reacts with extreme prejudice.

Without exaggerating too much, the first 10 minutes of New Kids Turbo is funnier than every comedy I’ve seen this year combined. Imagine five Kenny Powers robbing grocery stores and taking on the National Guard with arms stolen from an aging Nazi sympathizer. All accompanied by Euro house music. There’s none of that played-out, overly-awkward humor that’s dominating in U.S. comedies these days. It’s all over-the-top madness that’s seriously crude; nearly every line of dialogue ends in “cunt” or “homo.”

And if you’re hungry for more New Kids hilarity from Holland, you won’t have to wait long. The sequel, New Kids Nitro, is on track for this December, homos

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Sound of Noise [Directed by Ola Simonsson & Johannes Stjärne Nilsson] / / Sweden

Sweden got it going on in this brazenly original work of art and music. Sound of Noise follows a group of musical terrorists as they attempt to perform their avant-garde “live act” in a variety of venues, such as an operating room and the front steps of a concert hall. The film also follows Amadeus Warnebring, the tone-deaf detective who’s in charge of the case. The ironically named Amadeus is the black sheep of a musical family and his inability to play has led him to despise music. OF COURSE he’s going to hate musical terrorists!

It’s a really fun and unique film. All of the drummers have amusing backstories and the montage in which the terrorist leader is recruiting all of them is hilarious. Th criminals develop a bond with Amadeus and overall it’s a great caper film. But with more drumming.

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Cold Fish [Directed by Shion Sono] / / Japan

This is a brutal one. From Japanese visionary Shion Sono (whose previous film is the four hour long Love Exposure), Cold Fish follows a lowly tropical fish salesman who’s constantly being one-upped by the competition. His wife is bored with him, his daughter doesn’t respect him, and he’s stuck selling fish in a small storefront near the highway. His wife and daughter are drawn in by the charisma of a much more successful tropical fish dealer, and soon the man finds himself fighting to win them back. And aiding a serial killer.

Cold Fish is a comedy in a lot of ways – as black as a “black comedy” can get. It’s based on the true story of two Japanese serial killers who targeted dog-lovers back in the early 90s (so where they cat-lovers?). It’s a powerful and crazy ride and an honestly realistic look at what would drive a normal man to murder (hint: his dreadful family). You’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, and you’ll learn how to properly butcher a corpse.

Cold Fish is now available on DVD.

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Cold Sweat [Directed by Adrián García Bogliano] / / Argentina

Based around a seriously fun and badass concept, Adrián García Bogliano’s Cold Sweat is genius. It’s a suspense thriller that takes place in one building and is devoid of standard movie weapons. But there’s plenty of dynamite and nitroglycerin to go around!

A young man is trying to find his MIA girlfriend. With the help of his ride-or-die friend Ali, they narrow down her whereabouts to an abandoned building in the middle of a bustling city. The building isn’t as abandoned as it seems, however. It’s occupied by two elderly members of a right-wing terrorist group that dissolved in the 1970s and 25 boxes of dynamite. The old timers lure young girls into the building via an online ruse, then experiment on them with chemicals – nitroglycerin essentially.

It’s a bit disjointed in some parts, and the use of butt-rock music is annoying, but watching an attractive woman doused in nitro maneuver through a building is as fun as movies get. The lack of characterization didn’t phase me or take away from the movie at all. The hot girl dripping nitro and slow-mo-eye-candy was all I needed to enjoy this one.

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Wake Wood [Directed by David Keating] / / Ireland

I like folk horror a lot. All of its pagan rituals and symbols give me the willies. Irishman David Keating’s latest film Wake Wood is filled eerie atmosphere that evokes the godfather of the folk horror genre, The Wicker Man. Plus it’s got Tommy Carcetti!

Veterinarian Patrick (Aiden Gillen) and his wife’s lives are shattered when their nine-year-old daughter is mauled to death by a dog. Hoping to leave their ghosts behind, they relocate to the quaint, forested town of Wake Wood. But there’s something off about the seemingly friendly locals. Patrick and his wife soon learn that the townsfolk perform a pagan ritual which allows the dead to live again, but only for three days. In hopes of giving their daughter a proper goodbye, they have the locals bring their daughter back. But she doesn’t seem the same…

Wake Wood is chilling and dark in its depiction of small-town paganism. Aiden Gillen is great as the mourning father who blames himself for his daughter’s death. The last frame of the film is seriously haunting and put a huge smile on my face. It’s out on DVD now!

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Small Town Murder Songs [Directed by Ed Gass-Donnelly] / / Canada

Like Winter’s Bone last year (my best movie of 2010), Small Town Murder Songs is a geographically specific tale of crime, redemption, and the darkness that beds under the surface of close-knit communities. Set in a small Mennonite town in Ontario, STMS stars Peter Stormare (Fargo, Dancer in the Dark) as Walter; an aging cop who’s striving to leave his violent past behind him through solace of Christianity. But a gruesome homicide, the town’s first, causes Walter’s demons to boil up and explode.

Stormare does the quiet beast he does so well in other flicks like Fargo. What makes Walter more terrifying than Gaear Grimsrud is his religion. Christianity makes people crazy! It’s a quiet movie, beautifully shot on location in Conestoga Lake, Ontario. Adding weight to Walter’s battle is the music of Canadian barn-burners Bruce Peninsula. It’s a short movie – only about 76 minutes – but it packs an anchor of a punch. The end still leaves you wondering about the details of Walter’s past, but I like when things are left open like that. Especially haunting endings like this one.

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Point Blank [Directed by Fred Cavayé] / / France

It’s so lame and played out to say that a movie “is like a rollercoaster ride.” Even if I wrote theme park reviews for a living I’d avoid using that metaphor. But Fred Cavayé’s Point Blank almost made me break that vow. Dig: Samuel is a male nurse who ends up treating a crime boss. The boss’s henchmen take Samuel’s pregnant wife hostage and force Samuel to break their boss out of the hospital, before his rivals can buck him in bed. Things go utterly bananas from there.

Point Blank is probably the most intense and well-crafted suspense movies I’ve seen this year. Mild-mannered male nurse Samuel doesn’t know his way around a gun or the criminal underworld and I like movies where regular ass, working stiffs are put in these extreme situations. It ups the stakes way more, even if you know there’s not going to be elaborate fight scenes or car chases. Just good old-fashioned running for your fucking life.The non-stop chase culminates in a helluva nail-biting sequence in a busy police station.

Point Blank is being released in select theaters July 29 from Magnet.

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Kidnapped [Directed by Miguel Ángel Vivas] / / Spain/France

God. Dammit. Kidnapped is one of the most unrelenting movies I’ve ever seen. From the first jarring frame to the final act of brutality, director Miguel Ángel Vivas never lets you out of the vise. The concept is as simple as it gets: A family of three moves into a rich part of town and during their first night there, three masked men break in for the loot. One of the men takes the father out to collect from ATMs while the other two men stay at the home to watch the mom and daughter. Simple, sure, but Vivas is a twisted prick.

He uses loooong takes so the audience never gets a cut to stop and catch their breathe. Every time you think the family has gained the upper hand, he pulls the carpet out from under you and promptly kicks you in the balls. I can’t think of a situation more terrifying than a home invasion. These actually occur in real life. Seriously, as I’m typing this, what’s to stop some dude in a ski mask from kicking in the door and tying me up? So watching a realistic and unflinching movie about a home invasion is scary as hell. Think Funny Games but without all that winking at the camera and philosophical wankery.

Don’t watch this one of you’re looking for a good triumphing over evil movie. If you want to watch a tale of human perseverance, go watch James Franco cut off his arm. Guns and knives win over the human spirit every time.

Oh, and briefly, this movie has one of the best uses of split-screen in years, fo sho.

- Oh Mars